There are so many giant Buddha statues in Japan, but surprisingly in Kyoto there’s only one… Truth is, there was another, the Hōkō-ji Temple’s Daibutsu, built by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, but it was destroyed long time ago…

So, the only really giant statue from Kyoto is the Ryozen Kannon Bosatsu (Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara in Sanskrit), located in Higashiyama. It is a beautiful sculpture, 24-meters-tall, weighting approximately 500 tons, built by Hirosuke Ishikawa on the roof of a memorial for the World War II unknown soldiers.

Ryozen Kannon Statue, Higashiyama, Kyoto

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Yesterday’s Japan Photo: Hanayashiki, the oldest amusement park in Japan