Behold peach boy!! This is a statue of Momotaro (which means peach boy), an extremely popular figure around here (there are statues of him all over Okayama). I'm too lazy to type out his story in detail, but you can read all about him by clicking on this link: http://www.creighton.edu/~bstack/peachboy.html. The readers digest version: One day a woman found a huge peach floating in the river. She took it home and when she went to eat it she found a baby boy inside. She and her husband took this boy as their son. When he was 15 he decided to go fight the evil ogres on Ogre Island. Along the way he was joined by a dog, a monkey, and a pheasant. They defeated the ogres together and got a crapload of treasure, which Momo brought back to his parents. All hail Momotaro!