Rice, Rice, Baby.

I'm learning to cook Japanese and in learning about rice I ran across these photos of a village in Japan called Inakadate that has a crazy festival every year which began as a community revitalization project and is now a tourist attraction for the small village. Hundreds of people gather to plant different varieties of rice (which grow in different colors) in patterns. And they're not just any patterns but painstaking reproductions of famous works of Japanese art. The following shows the planting to harvest.

This is the harvest of a different field but you get the idea.

Isn't that just all kinds of excellent? Makes you feel pretty lame about the pot of tomatoes you're about to plant on the patio, doesn't it?

Cheers to you on this other Paddy's Day. And remember, don't drink and blog.

(Most photos came from tofugu.com)