Ōfuna Kannon

photo by Urashimataro · PD-self

A twenty-five-metre bust, finished in 1960, and you can go inside the statue.

From the train window, arriving at Ōfuna, you see a white head poking out of the hill: it is twenty-five metres tall and it is only the bust, because the rest was never made. You walk up in five minutes from the west exit, and you really do go inside the statue: there are small Buddhas and an exhibition on peace.

A Sōtō school temple directly under Sōji-ji. Construction of the reinforced concrete bust began in 1929, was interrupted and was completed in 1960; the figure weighs almost two thousand tonnes.

ℹ️ Open 9:00–16:00. Tickets 300 yen from high school age up, 100 for elementary and junior high, 200 for groups of twenty people. Five to ten minutes on foot from the west exit of Ōfuna Station, uphill.

🚉 Ofuna · 7 min walk

Sources: oofuna-kannon.or.jp · 4travel.jp · tripadvisor.com

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