At the end of rice harvesting season, the folks of the Kagawa and Niigata Prefectures in Japan hold a straw festival to celebrate the abundance of the harvest. Dried straws cover wooden frames to form larger-than-life sculptures from animals like sharks and gorillas to vessels such as ships and tanks. The family-friendly event invites visitors of all ages to engage, interact, and play on the enormous structures.

In this July 12, 2007 file photo, a two-day-old piping plover runs along a beach in the Quonochontaug Conservation Area in Westerly, R.I. (Photo by Steven Senne/AP Photo)

Sеx worker Geraldine, wearing cat make-up, excitedly holds up a dress she is thinking of buying from a street vendor, so that her partner, sitting nearby to keep her company, can see it, as she waits for clients outside the Revolution subway station, in Mexico City, Saturday, March 13, 2021. According to Geraldine, 30, the pandemic has cut clients and increased risks to the sеx workers but has also brought out more assistance for them too, both from dedicated organizations such as the activist group Brigada Callejera or “The Street Brigade” and from individuals who have donated food or clothing. (Photo by Rebecca Blackwell/AP Photo)

Elephants dust themselves with soil at Taigan safari park in Belogorsk, Crimea on May 4, 2021. (Photo by Alexey Pavlishak/Reuters)

Father Felix Mendoza, a Venezuelan Catholic priest, center, prays over a woman who cries, saying she is in physical pain, at a public hospital in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, May 11, 2021, amid the new coronavirus pandemic. Father Felix has been visiting patients at the hospital to comfort the sick, for the last 20 years. (Photo by Ariana Cubillos/AP Photo)

This photo taken on October 20, 2018 shows tourists posing for a photo on a middle of a railway track passing through an old residential district in central Hanoi. (Photo by Nhac Nguyen/AFP Photo)

People walk in the Old City of Damascus, Syria, decorated for the upcoming Christmas holidays, Tuesday, December 14, 2021. (Photo by Omar Sanadiki/AP Photo)

An Indian couple stained with colored powder enjoys a loving moment during the Holi festival celebrations in Chennai, India, 18 March 2022. Holi, also known as the “Festival Of Colors” is an ancient Indian Hindu festival symbolizing the victory of good over evil and marking the arrival of spring. It is held with joyful gatherings during which revelers cover each other in colored powders. (Photo by Idrees Mohammed/EPA/EFE)