"Frog Street" Matsumoto

This stone-carved frog, perched on a granite block, with his little shoulder pack on a stick, is very wet - which you might think is a quite normal condition for an amphibian to be in - and you would be right, of course! This chap is on his way home after a successful shopping trip, and he is a very important frog for he is quite a famous landmark. Everyone knows Frog Street.
Frog is dripping today because we have had another day of continuous heavy rain under leaden skies and the Alps invisible!
Obtaining decent photographs in such conditions is generally quite demanding, but I had always planned to fit Matsumoto's celebrity frog in one day - so here he is!
Frog Street is actually Nawate Street which, prior to the Meiji Period (1868- 1912), was just a soggy bank between the Metoba River and the castle moat - a perfect environment for frogs.
An important shrine was built nearby in 1879 and the river bank (together with its attendant frog population) provided the main approach route. The shrine began to promote various entertainments to gather visitors and enable it to prosper. Businesses began to thrive and now shops and cafes line both sides of the street for some 150 metres along the riverside.
Vehicles of any kind have always been banned.
Our humble frog was adopted as a popular symbol for safety and commercial success, and so the shopkeepers commissioned and erected this frog statue at the street entrance to watch over them and keep everybody safe.
Now the street is known to the world as "Frog Street". Frog images, sculptures and carvings abound everywhere and shop after shop after shop now offer creative, artistic versions of frogs in every conceivable medium.