One great link, while I’m posting things: rice paddy art in Inagadate:
[B]y precisely planting four varieties of rice with differently colored leaves in fields their ancestors have farmed for centuries, the people of Inakadate Village have this year grown remarkable reproductions of famous woodblock prints by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). And this is no cheap gimmick — the images from the artist’s “Fugaku Sanjurokkei (Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji)” on the 15,000-sq.-meter paddies are nothing if not spectacular in both their scale and detail — even as every day brings them nearer to annihilation in the September harvest.
This was the front page story of the free paper in the hotel the other day, and it’s amazing. If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the pictures.