Sep 9, 2010

Ring A Round A Rice Field

We have less than a year left here in Japan.  LESS THAN A YEAR!!!!

Woah.

Two years went by fast.  Much faster than when I was 18 and waiting for a missionary.

So we've made a list of things we want to do before we leave.  Then, last Saturday, we went and did a few things on the list with our friends the Healthy's.  I mean, the A's.

First stop?

Wait for it...

BAM!  
Awesome, eh?




Rice Art in the town of Inakadate
(From the field looking up toward the viewing tower on top of the city (town?) building.)


From Doug's Blurb Book:  Just north of Hirosaki (site of the famous Cherry Blossom Festival) lies a little village named Inakadate. Quite a few years ago, the town's mayor wanted a way to draw more tourism to this little place so they came up with Rice Field Art. The villagers come together and plant different colors of rice plants to eventually grow into a giant work of art. They change the picture each year. It was an amazing sight to see. Astounding how they plan it so well to get such a great accurate work of art. The kids thought it was really cool. 

"Hey P-Douggie!  Down HERE!!!  LOOK AT ME!!!!!!"

Yep.  It was pretty awesome.  Good thing too, because it took 2.5 hours and a few Lawson* stops to get there.

I've actually received two e-mail "forwards" from two different people showing pictures of these fields in previous years.  So I guess I'm proof that not all e-mail forwards are Photoshopped spam!

Next stop?
Well, that's a blog post for another day.

Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but SOON!



*Lawsons is our version of 7-11.  Only instead of Slurpies you can get rice balls and yaki soba.  Oh, and "Hello Kitty" paraphernalia.  Japan rocks!

8 comments:

Linz said...

COOL!! That is so awesome!!

Saimi said...

Holy Cow, that's truly amazing!!

Natasha and Jesse said...

How very cool! Do they harvest the rice afterward and give it to tourists?

mama bear said...

Wow, that is totally worth spending 2 years in Japan! Seriously, that is super cool. Do they change the picture each year?

acte gratuit said...

Yes. They do harvest and sell it. Sometime this month it'll be completely gone.

And yes, they change the picture every year. There have been some really cool ones over the years and they had the pictures on display in the tower.

I saw a picture in a Japanese Newspaper of a field with a huge tiger and "2010" since it's the year of the tiger! (Too bad it was all in Japanese so I have no idea where that field is!)

Anonymous said...

Fuji Yama (Mount Fuji) has a really good Ramen shop at the top.... put it on your list...... yum !!!!!!

(Not an enemy, Not a friend.... just someone who thinks you're writing is funny)

acte gratuit said...

No way Anon! I get winded walking up my stairs! Misawa has plenty of great Ramen shops. I'll get my fill here, thankyouverymuch!

(Knowing what a wuss I am, Doug hiked Fuji without me last month. And ate Ramen at the top. Thank goodness I didn't have to go!)

:)

Jessi said...

My daughter, Lydia, is on team Japan in her soccer league this season. I need to have her look at her blog so she can get excited about representing Japan.