🛸 Oddity

Sun Messe Nichinan (The Moai of Kyushu)

📍 Miyazaki, Nichinan

Seven full-size Moai statues stand on a grassy hillside above the Pacific in southern Miyazaki — the only officially sanctioned replicas of Easter Island's figures anywhere in the world.

High on a coastal hillside in southern Miyazaki, seven stone giants gaze inland from above the Pacific — a faithful, full-scale recreation of the Moai of Easter Island (Rapa Nui).

Why It’s Interesting

These aren’t just any replicas. After Japanese engineers helped restore toppled Moai on Rapa Nui, the island’s elders granted rare permission to build the only authorized full-size copies in the world. The result is a gloriously unexpected roadside spectacle: ancient-looking monoliths on a manicured Kyushu lawn, with the ocean as a backdrop and a theme-park cheer that is pure Cinnamon Land.

Getting There

It sits along the scenic Nichinan coast road, an easy add-on to a drive that also takes in the cave shrine at Udo.

🐿️ Cinnamon was here

Field report

A road-tripping traveler wrote in about Moai in Miyazaki, which I initially filed under 'jet lag' — but no: Sun Messe Nichinan has seven full-size Moai on a grassy hill above the Pacific, the only replicas ever officially sanctioned by Easter Island, granted as thanks after Japanese engineers helped restore the originals.

That backstory converts the whole site from kitsch to gift. The seven stand looking out at the ocean exactly as their ancestors do, and the humans line up to pose as the eighth. I sat on a stone head's shoulder (respectfully; we're both professionals) while the Pacific did its enormous blue routine below.

The hillside park around them is cheerfully odd — butterflies, bells, sun-themed everything. Coastal drive down Nichinan is half the trip. Thank you, roadtripper. Filed under 'real,' with apologies.

— Cinnamon 🐿️

📸 Cinnamon's camera roll

Snapshots from our very good boy on the road.

On a stone shoulder (respectfully; we're both professionals) while the Pacific did its enormous blue routine below the seven.

The only Moai ever officially sanctioned by Easter Island — a thank-you gift after Japanese engineers helped restore the originals. Mon-chan lined up as the eighth and held the pose.

Seven gray Moai statues lined up in a row on green grass — The only officially sanctioned Moai replicas on Earth. Big stone pals.

Mon-chan in sunglasses and Cinnamon the squirrel posing with the Moai — Big stone heads — taller than me, but not fuzzier. We're fine. 😎

🛣️ Roadside 📷 Photography 🧒 Kids 🤪 Weird 🏞️ Scenic ✨ Photogenic

Where it is

✨ Experience

Ibusuki Natural Sand Baths

Get buried up to your neck in naturally steaming volcanic sand on a black-sand beach at the southern tip of Kyushu — a 300-year-old bathing ritual found almost nowhere else on Earth.

📍 Kagoshima, Ibusuki 💴 Paid ⏱ ≈ 1 hour

🏞️ Scenic

Takachiho Gorge

A narrow basalt canyon of columnar cliffs and a waterfall plunging straight into emerald water — row a small boat to its base, through a landscape woven into Japan's oldest creation myths.

📍 Miyazaki, Takachiho 💴 Paid ⏱ Half day

🌸 Spring 🌻 Summer 🍁 Autumn

🏚️ Abandoned

Gunkanjima (Battleship Island)

A tiny abandoned island so crammed with crumbling concrete apartment blocks it looks like a warship steaming out of the sea — once the most densely populated place on Earth, now a silent ruin.

📍 Nagasaki, Nagasaki 💴 Paid ⏱ Half day

✨ Experience

The Hells of Beppu (Jigoku Meguri)

A tour of seven boiling, steaming, technicolor hot springs you absolutely cannot bathe in — cobalt-blue, blood-red, and one with crocodiles — where the only thing you soak is an egg.

📍 Oita, Beppu 💴 Paid ⏱ Half day

Nearby discoveries

🌲 Nature

Kawachi Fuji Garden Wisteria Tunnel

A private garden near Kitakyushu where two long tunnels drip with wisteria in a hundred shades of violet, pink, and white — a roughly two-week spring spectacle that draws photographers from around the world.

📍 Fukuoka, Kitakyushu 💴 Paid ⏱ Half day · 255 km away

🌸 Spring

🦊 Animals

Aoshima Cat Island

A tiny fishing islet off Ehime where cats outnumber the handful of human residents many times over — no shops, no hotels, no cars, just a sleepy harbor overrun by friendly felines.

📍 Ehime, Ozu 💴 Paid ⏱ Half day · 282 km away