We finally arrived at the first of the historic places we were scheduled to visit. This was a statue of a Buddha that is on the high point of an old road, actually a dirt path, from Nakagawa-machi in Fukuoka Prefecture into Saga Prefecture.

 The statue was off the current road at the top of a small hill. Notice that even though we are in the middle of the mountains and there are no homes or other buildings in the area, someone has left offerings of Japanese sake: the two bottles in front of the stele.

 

 This Buddha has three faces, representing the past, the present and the future.

The Buddha also has eight hands, representing the Buddha's influence on the eight directions that are listed in some scriptures.