THE LARGEST BRONZE BUDDHA IN THE WORLD! (and no one knows about it!)

Becky Cresswell
Aug 24, 2016
3 min read

So if you Google 'best places to go in Fukuoka' or something similar a pretty long list of great stuff will pop up. Temples, shopping centres, beaches, famous sightseeing spots etc. But one place that didn’t pop up was Nanzoin temple and HOLY GIANT BUDDHA BATMAN it really really should!

Tucked away in the countryside between mountains is the beautiful temple and its grounds… and oh yeah did I mention it's home to the LARGEST bronze Buddha in the world!?!?

What's that? You had no idea? Join the club! Because the only reason I found out about it is because a couple friends of mine went and put photos on Instagram.

But anyway, to see this amazing sight a quick 20 minute train ride from Hakata station gets you to the imaginatively named 'Kido Nanzoin Mae' station. The station is a wooden, single platform affair complete with an old man as the ticket master (no fancy machines here) and a station cat happily lounging on the counter. God I love Japan.

The temple itself is just a few minutes' walk up towards the mountain through the village, but before you get there I suggest taking a moment to enjoy the bridge by the station. Not because it's pretty to look at or anything but because some genius turned the whole thing into a giant xylophone! How great is that? You can pick up a stick and play your way across (which might not be as awesome as a giant Buddha but its definitely great fun). As I was rockin' out on the ol' metal bars an old local man joined me and had a great chat about England and, of course, The Beatles (because my god Japanese people LOVE The Beatles). And if an old man playing a bridge xylophone and singing 'here comes the sun' isn't adorable I don't know what is.

Anyway… back to Nanzoin...

Follow the winding path up towards the temple and you'll find more hidden gems; a giant, bright red demon statue, small shrines and a red bridge over a natural waterfall as you stand surrounded by the mountain forests. Oh and there's a pond full of tortoises! Because why not I guess. Then, as if that wasn't enough, as you follow the Buddha signs the view of the village and the mountains is breathtaking. If you can I suggest going in the afternoon so you can catch the sunset transforming the landscape. Pure magic.

A hop skip and a jump through a tunnel through the mountain rock and you arrive at the main temple grounds, with a beautiful lantern lined path up deeper into the forest in one direction, and the Buddha you've all been waiting for in the other. The big guy himself is an impressive 41 metres long, 11 metres high and weighs nearly 300 tons! His hobbies include casually surveying the valley below and being generally awe inspiring, it's not a bad life being a Buddha clearly! Obviously you'll want to go snap happy and get some great photos, so I suggest a re-enactment of chilling like the big man himself like us (we weren't very graceful you'll notice!)

After you've picked your chin off the floor, shopped the 'Japanese temple 101 souvenir stall' (lucky charms anyone?) you can maybe try your hand at 'fortune telling dart throwing' (I'm not kidding, and it's pretty hard)! A local legend says a monk laid a lottery ticket at the Buddha's feet and went on to win the jackpot so what are you waiting for -get throwing! If you're feeling more spiritual you can also pay 500yen to enter the temple itself but entrance to everything else is free!

Overall we spent about 3 hours at Nanzoin exploring so it's easily doable as a day trip or on a spare afternoon, so no excuses YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY GO! Though as I say that, hopefully this hidden gem keeps its refreshing seclusion. Many great places in Japan have become tourist traps full of crowds and over commercialism, Nanzoin on the other hand is a working place of worship and a local cemetery, still unknown to many sightseers! So please, go see this wonder, enjoy what rural Japan has to offer, just don't go in a coach with 20 other people and ruin it for everyone else. Take the train, take a photo or two and go whisper about it to all your friends.