Rice paddy art began in Japan in 1993. A small village in Aomori Prefecture called Inakadate wanted to celebrate their long history of rice growing, so they used four different types of rice to make a picture of Mt. Iwaki. Now they use computers to design more complex pictures. Their paddy art has been so successful that more than 300,000 tourists come to visit Inakadate every year. These days, many other places around Japan are making rice paddy art, too. The different-colored rices are at their best now. Yesterday, the Nanyo rice paddy in western Nagoya had a special viewing event. I went up the viewing tower and looked down on a picture of anime characters riding Doctor Yellow, the yellow train that checks the Shinkansen tracks.      (127 words)