Umerin, the adorable mascot of Ogose Town

Mascots are very popular in Japan. In this post I introduce "Umerin" one of the cuter, in my humble opinion, mascots of Saitama Prefecture. She is the mascot of Ogose town, a town famed for its plum blossoms. So it will be no surprise that Umerin was designed to represent plum blossoms.

One year when I attended the excellent plum blossom festival of Ogose, we got to meet Umerin and get our photo with her. Moreover, all the children who got a photo with her got a sticker. Much to my entertainment, the back of the packaging for the sticker provided information about the mascot! A bio of sorts. The photo in this post is from that day. As you can see, even dogs got to get a photo with her!

It revealed that Umerin was born on November 3rd 2010. It also shared that she likes Yuzu juice, Ume juice and basking in the sun. And she loves hiking. No wonder with Ogose Town being a great hiking area! It was actually thanks to that encounter that I started paying more attention to mascots in Japan. And dare I say, have become somewhat of a fan of mascot culture!