May the Fourth be with you, big Buddha

Hello all! As promised, another episode in the Golden Week series in close succession to the previous!


After our Nikko adventure, Claire and I thought we would suss out the trains to be a little bit more in our favour, and determined that this voyage would be far more straightforward than the previous - though Claire, with incredible foresight decided to check what time the last bus from our destination would be...at 4pm it was far earlier than either of us would have anticipated (even outside of it being a period of increased tourist numbers). Armed with knowledge, we set off.

Our destination this time was in Ibaraki Prefecture, where I spent several weeks with a host family back in 2010. Ibaraki is home to the Ushiku Daibutsu, a huge standing Buddha that is the third tallest statue in the world, reaching 120m into the sky.

Built in 1993 (good year), it has several floors inside it, going up to 84 metres, with a museum, prayer hall, observation room,...and a gift shop...

The ascetic Buddha would have loved this I'm sure

Being Golden Week, there were significant enough crowds that we decided to bite the bullet and join the queue sooner rather than later, reasoning that the 70 minute wait would soon become much longer. This was absolutely fine as the queue ran down the long path leading to the Buddha, with pretty gardens either side, and the company wasn't bad either!

Getting there

Almost there...

Taking our shoes off at the entrance, we started at the ground level, going through something that looked a bit like the wait for a DisneyLand ride, with lots of sound effects, and then it was into the museum. This showcased the engineering and construction of the statue, with some bizarre photos of a Buddha being built.

It also had a scale plastic mock up of one of Buddha's big toes, which everyone patted as they went by

You know what they say about big feet....big toes

We proceeded on up the Buddha, taking the elevator from second to fourth floor (10m to 85m up), where we were afforded quite a few through slits in the statue. Apparently the Tokyo Skytree was visible, but with my eyes I'm sure Claire was being economical with the truth (if I can't see it, it cannot exist, right?)

The path where we began our Buddha approach

On the third floor was the "World of the Lotus Sanctuary", which was a circular golden room lined with 3,400 Buddha statues (thankfully not as big as Ushiku)

Here people were able to sponsor a statue or so it seemed, to secure themselves a place in the cemetery close by to the Buddha. Rather than feeling like a cemetery, this room rather felt like a huge vault, being all gilded and silent - quite a sensation!

Finally there was a room where people could sit and, with ink and brush, make a copy of one of the sutras of Buddha. This had an almost librarian or scriptorium quality to it, which I suppose is consistent with religious scholars of Buddhism doing their thing.

Waiting for devotees to paint some words

Finally there was an outdoor observation platform at the top of Buddha's base, upon which you could could pay to take a sheet of gold leaf and place it on the bronze. You could see who was either especially tall, or who had climbed on top of the 'Do Not Climb' parts of the base to affix their gold leaf to a particularly unique spot, but overall it gave the as yet largely unoxidised bronze a cool look, and rather like a Renaissance painting I thought!

The view was pretty good, and gave an interesting perspective on Buddha, who was literally towering above us by that point

After we left the Buddha, it was time for a squizz around the garden, which was in full bloom - with cliche flower photography opportunities aplenty!

Having just had ANZAC Day in NZ, this was a very serendipitous flower to see

There was also a pond with some monstrous koi carp (which we are allowed to hunt with bows and arrows in NZ, such is their pest nature) - I always look on them with a mix of amazement (at their size) and mild revulsion (on account of their connotations back home), but there is no doubt these were some well fed specimens...

The Buddha is also directly below the approach path to Narita Airport, so I was treated to some great views of incoming aircraft. This also gave me an opportunity for some juxtapositions with Buddha...

As our 4pm bus time approached, we left the gardens and Buddha for a quick snack of takoyaki (grilled octopus balls) and icecream (being a New Zealander I'm obliged to eat as much as I can). The final thing to do, being May the Fourth, also known as International Star Wars Day, was to gather together all the wise figures I could into one picture (Claire not being included as she had to take the photo)

Tentacle-y bally goodness

Everything (and icecream), the mind is - Jedi Master Buddha Troy

Having done all we came to do at Ushiku, we began the not so long as the day before bus and train journey back into Tokyo, with another day of adventure coming up!

That's all for now, but you know there's another blog post coming right around the corner, so check back soon!

Tata for now,

Troy :D