Japanese take a lot of pride in their rice.  When I first got here I thought rice was rice but now that I have been here a while, I have grown to appreciate the difference that exists between Japanese rice and other rice.  I have to agree, nothing really compares with Japanese rice.   Although you will pay more than double or three times as much as you would for rice grown elsewhere, the Japanese stuff is definitely better tasting. 

October was the rice harvesting season.  Working our way around the screen from top left, first of all there is a picture of full grown rice just before harvesting.  Harvesting nowadays is done by machine although some people still do it by hand to get the old time feeling and apparently it tastes better if you harvest it by hand (I am not that much of a taste expert yet). 

 After it is harvested it is either bagged by the machine or the rice is dumped into the back of a little white truck (bottom left picture) and then taken to the rice collection center where it will be bagged.  Not in the picture how the rice fields are all stepped.  This is so for the water that is needed to grow the stuff.  The fields are flooded and with the stepped system, the water gradually works its way down to the next field.  The Japanese have been long recognized as having excellent irrigation systems.  If the rice is harvested by hand, the straw is left over.  The straw is usually hung to dry and can be used for cattle feed or for making scarecrows (see scarecrow page).