Bobble Heads Will One Day Rule the World

Everyone loves a bobble head. The way the head jiggles and bounces around always brings a smile to my face and these days you can find anything in the form of a bobble head; there are even companies that let you create your own bobble head design. My cousins created a bobble head wedding favor; a figurine of the two of them in their wedding getup with their names and date painted on the bottom. The likeness of the bobble head to the real thing was quite impressive.

Anything and everything is or can be a bobble head, even the Great Buddha of Kamakura.

On a side wall of the Diabutsu's surrounding park it explains the history of the Great Buddha of Kamakura; although the exact year that the Buddha was cast is unknown it was originally built with in a wooden temple. The temple itself was washed away in the 1498 tsunami and only the Buddha remained; to this day the Buddha remains as an open temple for people to come and see. You can even pay 20 Yen to crawl inside him; which I find kinda creepy. The fact that you crawl up Buddha's bottom does not sound like a good time to me; however, my father seemed disappointed that we didn't take advantage of such an experience.

Over the years the Great Buddha has had to under go repairs to protect it from future tsunamis and especially earthquakes. During the 1960 and 1961 repairs the workers were given the task to fortify the neck so that the head would not break off and crash to the ground. In this construction a spring like mechanism was created to allow the head and neck to have a little give and take in the event of an earthquake.

The Great Buddha of Kamakura is in fact a Bobble Head; how awesome is that! :)