Vakkom G Sreekumar: September 2009

Stunning crop art has sprung up across rice fields in Japan. But this is no alien creation - the designs have been cleverly planted.Farmers creating the huge displays use no ink or dye. Instead, different colours of rice plants have been precisely and strategicallyArranged and grown in the paddy fields.As summer progresses and the plants shoot up, the detailed artwork begins to emerge. A Sengoku warrior on horseback has been created from hundreds of thousands of rice plants, The colours created by using different varieties, in Inakadate in JapanThe largest and finest work is grown in the Aomori village of Inakadate, 600 miles north ofToyko, where the tradition began in 1993. The village has now earned a reputation for its agricultural artistry and this year, the enormousPictures of Napoleon and a Sengoku-period warrior, both on horseback, are visible in a pairOf fields adjacent to the town hall. More than 150,000 vistors come to Inakadat, where just 8,700 people live, every summer To see the extraordinary murals. Each year hundreds of volunteers and villagers plant four different varieties of riceIn late May across huge swathes of paddy fields. Napolean on horseback can be seen from the skies, created by precision planting andMonths of planning between villagers and farmers in Inkadate. Fictional warrior Naoe Kanetsugu and his wife Osen appear in fields in the town ofYonezawa, JapanAnd over the past few years, other villages have joined in with the plant designs.Another famous rice paddy art venue is in the town of Yonezawa in the Yamagata prefecture.This year's design shows the fictional 16th-century samurai warrior Naoe KanetsuguAnd his wife Osen, whose lives feature in television series Tenchijin.Various artwork has popped up in other rice-farming areas of Japan this year,Including designs of deer dancers. Smaller works of crop art can be seen in other rice-farming areas of Japan such as this imageOf Doraemon and deer dancers.The farmers create the murals by planting little purple and yellow-leafed Kodaimai riceAlong with their local green-leafed Tsugaru Roman variety to create the coloured patternsBetween planting and harvesting in September.The murals in Inakadate cover 15,000 square metres of paddy fields.
From ground level, the designs are invisible, and viewers have to climb the mock castle towerOf the village office to get a glimpse of the work.Rice-paddy art was started there in 1993 as a local revitalization project,An idea that grew out of meetings of the village committee. Closer to the image, the careful placement of thousands of rice plants in the paddy fieldsCan be seen. The different varieties of rice plant grow alongside each other to create the masterpieces.In the first nine years, the village office workers and local farmers grew a simple design ofMount Iwaki every year. But their ideas grew more complicated and attracted more attention. In 2005 agreements between landowners allowed the creation of enormous rice paddy art. A year later, organizers used computers to precisely plot planting of the four differentlyColored rice varieties that bring the images to life.

The Burj Al Arab is a luxury hotel, managed by the Jumeira Group and built by Said Khalil. The designer of the building Tom Wright. With its 321 metres (1,053 ft), it is the tallest hotel in the world. Construction of Burj Al Arab began in 1994. According to the clients request the building was built to resemble the sail of a dhow, a type of Arabian vessel. Burj al Arab became an iconic or symbolic statement for Dubai. The hotel rests on an artificial island constructed 280 meters offshore. The surface of the island made of large rocks, which is circled with a concrete honey-comb pattern, which serves to protect the foundation from erosion. It took three years to reclaim the land from the sea, but less than three years to construct the building itself. The first 7 star hotel in the world , Burj Al Arab will not dissapoint, From the moment that you step into the lobby you realise immediately that you have entered another world. Without a doubt the most opulent hotel in Dubai and most probably the world, the Burj Al Arab will stun your senses and leave you wanting more.

Burj Arab Interiors