One of the history teachers who used to work at my school (he was transferred to Miyakonojo) sent me on a little treasure hunt one typhoon day. The students weren’t at school and I was sitting at my desk wondering why the teachers bother to come in. I guess he figured I was bored, so he gave me a clue and sent me off looking for a haniwa, or burial statue, hiding somewhere on the grounds.
I never did find it, granted I wasn’t much into looking for it in the rain, and so he ended up pointing it out to me. It was almost identical to a statue I had seen sitting under my neighbour’s carport. He explained that they were burial statues and that there was a whole garden of them in Miyazaki City, which he urged me to visit.