World’s First Holiday Resort for Plus-Sized Tourists Features Reinforced Beds, Extra-Wide Chairs

Known as a sanctuary for plus-sized people looking to have a good time without feeling embarrassed about their weight, The Resort is believed to be the world’s first and only vacationing retreat for the obese.

Hidden away on the island of Eleuthera, in the heart of the Caribbean, The Resort opened its gates two years ago, and has since become popular among overweight tourists looking for an exotic and judgement-free holiday destination. The entire complex was built from the ground up with obese people in mind. The doorways are wider than usual, the extra-strong beds are reinforced with  two bars of steel to support hundreds of pounds, and the chairs and loungers are a meter wide and made of a particularly strong wood. Even the toilets are custom made to support heavier frames.

Read More »

British Ex-Pat Who Loves Taiwan Tattoos Its Name on His Forehead

Paul Ferrell, a British ex-pat who has been living in Taiwan for the last 13 years, recently decided to show everyone how much he loved the small Asian country by getting a tattoo of its Chinese name on his forehead and its green independence flag inked on his chin.

Ferrell became the talk of the town in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, where he owns a popular bar, after getting the unusual tattoos inked on his face. He claims to have made the “rash decision” after a night of heavy drinking and a passionate discussion about Taiwan’s independence. The British ex-pat recently told reporters that he was inspired by his love for Taiwan, but insists that he would not have gone through with his impulse, had he not been so drunk at the time.

Read More »

This Boy Slept for 11 Days Straight and Doctors Have No Idea Why

7-year-old Wyatt Shaw, a 7-year-old boy from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, recently woke up from an 11-day slumber that left doctors scratching their heads. When he finally woke up, the second-grader had trouble speaking and moving around, but has since made good progress and is expected to make a full recovery.

After attending his aunt’s wedding and being the life of the party, Wyatt’s mother, Amy, expected him to sleep in the next day, but she never imagined that it would take 11 days for him to finally wake up. She tried waking him up several times, but Wyatt just couldn’t stay awake, and even though he sometimes opened his eyes, it just seemed like he wasn’t really aware of anything.

Read More »

Snow-White Beach in Australia Is Made Up of Billions of Cockle Shells

Australia’s Shark Bay World Heritage Area is home to Shell Beach, one of only two places around the world where beach sand is completely replaced by sea shells.

Imagine billions of white cockle shells stretching out as far as the eye can see, and you get a pretty good idea of how amazing Shell Beach looks. Located on the western edge of the Australian continent, this unique tourist attraction stretches for a whopping 70 km, which makes it look like an endless sea of shells meeting the ocean. And if you’re thinking that the shells only make up a superficial layer, we’ll have you know that in some places, they reach 10 meters deep.

Read More »

Fruit Grower Creates Apples That Don’t Turn Brown When Cut or Bruised

Arctic Apple is the world’s first genetically engineered apple that doesn’t turn brown after being cut or bruised. It was developed by Canadian company Okanagan Specialty Fruits and is already being sold in select grocery stores.

When the cells of conventional apples are damaged, such as when they are cut, bitten into or bruised, an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase (PPO) initiates a chemical reaction that turns the flesh of the fruit brown. Some apple varieties brown faster than others, while others have a lower degree of browning, due to varying levels of PPO, but the Arctic Apple is the world’s first non-browning apple. Its flesh will retain its fresh, appealing color even days after being sliced, which Okanagan Specialty Fruits claims will increase apple consumption and decrease food waste.

Read More »

Veda Village – A Vegetarian-Only Apartment Complex in Russia

If you’re a diehard vegetarian who can’t bear the smell of cooked meat, or even the thought of living near someone who likes to consume meat, you’ll soon be able to move into a vegetarian-only apartment complex in Russia.

Veda Village, an ongoing construction project in the suburbs of St. Petersburg, Russia, was designed for vegetarians looking to practice a healthy and ethical lifestyle in a community of like-minded people. The first and most important requirement to buy or rent an apartment here is to be a vegetarian. Clients will undergo interviews with sales agents, and if they fail to convince them that they are true vegetarians, their application will get denied. But a meat-free diet is not the only thing required to earn a place in Veda Village. According to developers, smoking and the consumption of alcohol in the residential complex are also prohibited.

Read More »

Your Eyes See Photos, But These Are Really Hand-Painted Masterpieces

South Korean artist Young-Sung Kim has a very special talent, he can paint photographs. That may sound like a gross exaggeration, but just take a look at what he’s able produce with a paintbrush, some acrylic and mountains of talent and patience.

The old saying, ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’, doesn’t really apply to Youn-Sung Kim’s art. You can stare at his incredibly detailed painting for hours and still not be able to tell them apart from high-resolution digital photographs. Kim is so good at what he does that, sometimes, he himself has trouble telling his hyper-realistic paintings from the photos that inspired them. Once, he actually mistakenly sent the press the file of a photo he took, instead of the painting he did, because they looked virtually identical to the naked eye.

Read More »

Wanted Man Promises to Turn Himself In if Police Get 1,000 Facebook Shares, Stays True to His Word

A Michigan man wanted for violating the terms of his probation promised to turn himself in and also bring police some donuts if they could get at least 1,000 shares on a Facebook post. The unusual challenge went viral and once the police got their shares, the man fulfilled his end of the bargain.

21-year-old Michael Zydel broke the rules of his probation for DUI and assault charges, which prompted the police department in Redford Township to post an appeal to their Facebook followers to assist them in locating him and bringing him to justice. Zydel, who goes by “Champagne Torino” on Facebook, was actually one of the people who replied to the post, saying that he wasn’t to worried about it and challenging police to get at least 1,000 shares on their next post if they wanted him to turn himself in.

Read More »

The “Gangs of Urban Turkeys” Terrorizing Massachusetts

After being nearly wiped out from New England in the 1800s, wild turkeys are apparently turning the tables on their human oppressors, wreaking havoc on the streets of Boston and other urban areas of Massachusetts. The number of residents attacked by the aggressive birds has increased dramatically in the last year, police say.

Wild turkeys once dominated the forests of the Northeast, but they seem to have taken a liking to cities and towns in Massachusetts, where finding better foraging beside dumpsters and in people’s backyards than in the woods. They’ve become so at home among humans that people have started referring to them as “urban turkeys”. They can be seen strutting their feathers on sidewalks, pecking shiny objects, blocking traffic, chasing after smaller pets and, in rare cases, even attacking people.

Read More »

Cheese-Topped Ice Tea Is Apparently a Thing, And People Are Queuing for Hours for a Cup

Cheese and ice tea doesn’t sound like a particularly tasty combination, but just try telling that to the thousands of people all across China standing in line for up to five hours to get their hands on a cup of it. Cheese tea is a nationwide sensation, making it hard to believe that it was created by a guy in his early 20s with no real knowledge of tea.

Only a few months ago, Hey Tea, the company behind China’s insanely popular cheese ice tea, was a small street-side shop in Jiangmen, Guangdong, but today they have over 50 branches in Guangdong Province alone, as well as new venues in bustling urban centers like Shanghai and Beijing. They are growing at an astonishing rate, but it’s still not enough to satisfy demand for their bizarrely-sounding cheese tea. People still have to spend at least 2 hours, and, in some cases, up to 5 hours in line to get their hands on a cup. It’s apparently so good that busy people pay others to wait in line for them, and the company sometimes has to hire private security to keep the lines moving and hustlers from cutting in line.

Read More »

Woman Checks Her Full-Grown Horse into Kentucky Hotel Room

Lindsey Partridge, a horse trainer from Canada, recently tested the pet policy of a hotel in Georgetwon, Kentucky, by trying to check her 5-year-old thoroughbred into her room. Believe it or not, she was successful, and it only cost her $10.

Partridge, from Ontario, Canada, recently traveled to the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky, to compete in the Retired Racehorse Project’s Thoroughbred Makeover, an annual competition in which retired racehorses compete in various categories. As she approached the town of Georgetown, where she had booked a room for the week, she decided to stop and drop off her luggage, before driving to the contest venue. Little did she know that one of her horses would be joining her in the room as well.

Read More »

Japanese Man Invents Coffee Made Entirely of Garlic

When you think about coffee alternatives, garlic is probably one of the last things that comes to mind, but that exactly the ingredient that one Japanese inventor used to create a drink that looks and tastes like coffee.

74-year-old Yokitomo Shimotai, a coffee shop owner in Aomori Prefecture, Japan, claims that his unique “garlic coffee” is the result of a cooking blunder he made over 30 years ago, when he burned a steak and garlic while aiting tables at the same time. Intrigued by the scorched garlic’s aroma, he mashed it up with a spoon and mixed it with hot water. The resulting drink looked and tasted a lot like coffee. Making a mental note of his discovery, Yokimoto carried on with his job, and only started researching garlic coffee again after he retired.

Read More »

People Are Now Renting Grounded Private Jets for Instagram Photo Shoots

Inspired by popular Instagram accounts like ‘Rich Kids of Instagram’ or ‘Luxury Kids of Instagram’, as well as social media stars like Gianluca Vachi and Dan Bilzerian, people who can’t actually afford to fly on private jets are renting them on the ground for professional photo shoots, just so they can post their own lavish lifestyle photos on Instagram.

Just because you don’t have tens of thousands of dollars to spend on renting a private jet doesn’t mean that you can’t make your social media friends turn green with envy. With just a few hundred dollars, you can actually rent a luxurious Gulfstream G650 aircraft for a couple of hours and have a team of professional photographers and makeup artists create the illusion that you are actually living a life of luxury. You can then post the photos on Instagram and sit back as your friends and fans drool over them.

Read More »

Romanian Artist Turns Tree Stumps into Beautiful Artworks

42-year-old Gabi Rizea only discovered his talent for wood carving three years ago, and has since put it to good use, saving dozens of old tree stumps from being completely removed, by turning them into impressive works of art.

A former forest engineer, Rizea became a wood carver completely by accident. Three years ago, after buying himself a new chainsaw, he started “playing” with it on a block of wood he had in his workshop. He tried carving a human face into the wood, and to his surprise, it turned out pretty good. He liked using the chainsaw for art, so he kept honing his skills. Today, he is so good at it that local authorities in his home city of Craiova, Romania, allow him to work his magic on the old tree stumps dotting the local parks.

Read More »

Dutch Startup Wants to Train Crows to Clean Streets of Cigarette Butts

Alarmed by how many cigarette butts littered the parks of Amsterdam, two Dutch designers came up with an unusual plan to train crows to pick up the butts and trade them for tasty rewards.

Industrial designers Ruben van der Vleuten and Bob Spikman originally considered using robots to clean the streets of cigarette butts, but they presented a series of difficulties, particularly the complicated programming required to have them vacuuming the buts out of every nook and cranny while trying to avoid bicycles and passers-by. So they turned their attention to one of the most abundant resources of urban areas – birds. Pigeons were the first ones they considered, because they can be found in virtually every city in the world, but a quick search revealed that they aren’t really known for their intelligence, so training them would have been very hard. But the two designers soon found a bird that was both very common around human settlements and much, much smarter – the crow.

Read More »