Habatan Train

So my prefecture, Hyogo, is going to be the host of the 2006 All Japan Sports Festival (each town in the prefecture will host a major sporting competition with teams coming from all over Japan. Cool, huh?).

Anyway, to gear up for this big event (it's a big deal), about two years ago the precture created a mascot, named "Habatan." Habatan is this cute yellow thing, which is actually supposed to be a phoenix (because Kobe was almost destroyed in the Hanshin Earthquake in 1995 - 7.2 on the Richter scale, and has had a miraculous and speedy recovery - being in Kobe, you couldn't even tell there was one of the alltime worst natural disasters there, 10 years ago).

Personally, I think Habatan looks more like a cross between a pee-snowman and a chicken, but that's just me. Regardless, he's damn cute!

So in the spirit of the games, Japan Railways has wrapped one of the local trains. The kids call it the "Habatan Train" and get all excited whenever they have a sighting. It pulled in when I was waiting for the train the other day, so I had to snap some pictures. Cool, huh!?

That's the official logo on the front of the train.

Habatan doing Judo. How cute!