3) Ushiku Daibutsu – Ibaraki, Japan

Finished back in 1993 Ushiku Daibutsu smashes the clouds at 120 metres tall. There’s a lift that takes you 80+ metres up to a viewing platform, there’s also a four floor museum inside the beast. Ushiku represents an Amitabha Buddha and was erected to commemorate the birth of Shinran, founder of the “True Pure Land School” of Buddhism. It looks like a stone statue from a distance but it’s actually bronze.

I always thought of the Statue of Liberty as a big old girl, but this diagram shows you that she is pathetic, an absolute disgrace compared to Ushiku.

The statue’s also known as Ushiku ARCADIA which stands for Amida’s Radiance and Compassion Actually Developing and Illuminating Area. LOL. To give you some idea of the scale of Mr Daibutsu, his longest finger is 7 metres, the ears are 10 metres long and the bastard weighs in at over 4000 tonnes. Woop woop.

☛ Look Next: Battleship Island — Creepy Japanese Ghost Town