Tulips,  or flowers in general, are not exactly known as prime ingredients for strong spirits, but one small distillery in Holland (where else?) claims to have perfected a process that allows it to create a high quality vodka out of only two ingredients – tulip bulbs and water.

Dutch Tulip Vodka is the creation of 34-year-old Joris Putman, a filmmaker turned entrepreneur. Four years ago, he decided he was going to invent something, and although he didn’t know exactly what that something would be, he was sure it would involve his country’s national symbol, the tulip. Today, after years of hard work, countless experiments and trying to convince others that tulip vodka was actually a thing, Dutch Tulip Vodka is a big hit, and Michelin-star restaurants all over Europe are proud to have it on their menus.

All it took for Putman to come up with the idea of tulip vodka was a suggestion from his friends to make moonshine from grain. He wasn’t going to do something that others had been doing it for thousands of years, but the idea of making a strong spirit out of tulips sounded appealing.

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Social media promotion has become so important nowadays that businesses are offering freebies to anyone with a certain following on popular social networks. Case in point, this Milan-based restaurant that offers free sushi to people with a bit of clout on Instagram.

Matteo and Tomaso Pittarello, the owners of the “This Is Not a Sushibar” restaurant in Milan, are well aware of the potential of social networks like Instagram, and they’re more than willing to give away some sushi, if it means getting some exposure. At their restaurant, people have the classic payment options – cash or card – plus a novel one, paying in Instagram followers. The idea is pretty simple, the more followers you have, the more you can eat without having to spend a cent.

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Angulas, the Spanish word for baby eels is one of Spain’s most expensive foods, but no one seems to understand why. They hardly have any taste at all, their texture is best described as slimy and they look like limp worms on a plate. So why are people paying hundreds of euros to eat angulas at expensive restaurants?

Legend has it that in the past angulas were used as fodder for chickens and pigs, and there is historical evidence that they were once a staple food of the working class in northern Spain. But today they sell for astronomical prices of up to 1,000 euros ($1,150) per kilo, so only the richest of the rich can afford them. So what happened? Well, scarcity definitely played a big part in their surprising transformation. River dams, the general degradation of the environment and overfishing have seriously affected the baby eel population, and the rarer they got the more expensive they became. They may not taste like anything, but apparently many people like to act like snobs every once in a while, so they pay a premium to enjoy a food that most people can’t afford.

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Animal cafes where you can enjoy a hot cup of coffee and pet cute animals like cats, dogs or even sheep have been springing up all over the world, but Amix Coffee is the only cafe in the world where you can relax as dozens of decorative fish swim at your feet.

Located in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City, Amix Coffee features two flooded floors filled with hundreds of fish both small and large. They are both insulated with two layers of plastic tarp and furniture legs are wrapped in cotton to minimize friction and prevent damage to the tarp. Each floor covers an area of 20 square meters and the water level is up to 25 centimeters deep. In order to gain access to these man-made ponds full of colorful fish, visitors are required to take off their shoes and clean their feet. They can then enjoy a wide range of refreshments and snacks as Japanese carp and other small fish swim at their feet.

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If you’re familiar with horse reigning, you probably know about the sliding stop, a signature move where the galloping horse lowers its hindquarters as it comes to halt. It’s definitely impressive to watch, but it’s nothing compared to the Mexican version, the Cala de Caballo.

Cala de Caballo is one of several “charras” performed by charros (the Mexican equivalent of the cowboy) in charrerias, popular competitive events similar to the American rodeo. It involves a series of maneuvers, like turning the horse on its own axis both ways a minimum of six times, and walking backwards in a straight line, but the most impressive one has to be the sliding stop, where the charro makes his horse run at full speed and then stop abruptly by sliding on its rear legs, in a marked 20-meter-long rectangle. The competitor who leaves the longest slide marks in the marked area without going over the limit gets the most points.

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Xiao Lung Wang, a young man from China, set a new Guinness record for the “highest vocal note by a male”, with a truly ear-splitting performance.

Before playing the below video of Wang’s successful record attempt, I strongly advise that you turn down the volume, especially if you’re wearing headphones, and get your dog out of the room, because this guy’s voice is no joke. To be honest, it sounds more like a whistling kettle than a human voice, but according to experts that’s just the sound of an E in the 8th octave, an audio frequency of 5,243 hertz.

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An Indian man was recently rescued from a pit that he had voluntarily been buried in for 8 hours in order to attain salvation and be reborn as a God.

Deeraj Kharol, a tantrik who had been living in a temple in Karocho ka Kheda village, Rajasthan, for a few years, last week announced that he planned to bury himself alive as part of a bizarre ritual to attain ‘samadhi’ (salvation) and be resurrected as a God three days later. Instead of talking some sense into him, enthusiastic villagers celebrated his decision and offered to aid him in any way, even digging a pit for him near the temple where he stayed. Last Wednesday, on the first day of Navratra, they buried him in the pit, as per his instructions.

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Mariam Nabatanzi, a 40-year-old woman from Uganda’s Mukono District has been dubbed the African country’s most fertile woman after it was reported that she has given birth to 44 children.

In her home village of Kabimbiri, central Uganda, Mariam Nabatanzi is known as Nalongo Muzaala Bana (the twin mother that produces quadruplets) and that nickname is well-earned. In the 18 years that she spent being pregnant throughout her 40 year life, the woman has given birth to six sets of twins, four sets of triplets, three sets of quadruples, as well as a few single births. Out of the 44 children that she brought into this world, 38 are still alive today, most of them still living at the family home. Mariam is a single mother, and although providing for such a large family, she somehow manages to put enough food on the table for everyone.

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33-year-old Cai Yanqiu has spent the last three years of his life traveling through his home country in China with the sole purpose of helping homeless people in any way he can.

Cai Yanqiu’s decided to dedicate his life to helping homeless people three years ago. He had set up a small stall in Zhanjiang, China’s Guangdong, and he was waiting for customers when he saw a barefooted homeless man pass him by. That man reminded him of the devastation caused by the loss of his brother, over two decades ago. In 1994, Cai’s brother who suffered from epilepsy, disappeared from the family home, and when he was finally found, 3 days later, he was in such a bad condition that he passed away in his family’s arms. Cai remembered his mother lying in bed for days morning the loss of his brother, and after doing some crying of his own after seeing the homeless man, he decided that he couldn’t just stand by and allow other families to go through what his did.

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Mike Roman, a teacher from New Jersey, recently got his five minutes in the internet spotlight after coming on a podcast to discuss his unusual eating habits. The 41-year-old claims to have eaten pizza at least once a day for the last 37 years.

Roman’s longtime love affair with pizza began at age 3 or 4 (he doesn’t remember exactly), when his mother introduced him to the Italian dish for the first time. He apparently loved it so much that he kept asking for more every day until his parents finally gave in and stopped trying to convince him eat other foods as well. He has been eating pizza at least once a day ever since, all through his childhood, teenage years and into adulthood. Mike has reportedly eaten pizza for all three meals of his life, for many years, but he recently started switching between pizza and peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. He still has pizza for dinner every day, though.

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A wannabe ‘killer clown’ who dressed like popular Batman villain The Joker was recently jailed for terrorizing the people of Nottinghamshire, in England, for three months.

29-year-old Damien Hammond, a homeless and jobless man who styled himself like Heath Ledger’s character in the hit movie The Dark Knight Rises, has been jailed for 22 weeks and banned from Nottingham for three years, after going on a three-month crime spree just a few miles from the real-life Gotham village. Hammond, who is well known around Nottingham for his obsession with The Joker, reportedly pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct towards staff in various retail stores, waving a gun-shaped cigarette lighter while standing in traffic, and striking a police officer, among other charges. After hearing his sentence, the accused, who showed up to court with bright green hair, said “Send me to prison, I don’t care”. Typical Joker…

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China is famous for its bewildering and oftentimes confusing highway interchanges, but the Qianchun interchange in the mountainous province of Guizhou is the only one that actually looks like a giant rollercoaster for cars and trucks.

Construction on the Qianchun Interchange began in 2009, but the massive road knot was only completed last year . It consists of 18 different ramps, in 8 directions, on five different layers, with the highest one standing 37 meters above ground. Like the nearby Huangjuewan Overpass, in Chongqing, this incredibly complex infrastructure project has been labelled a nightmare for motorists trying to find their way around.

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Japan has some of the world’s longest working hours, but some companies are starting to realize that their workers also need to sleep in order to be productive. One such company is actually encouraging employees to sleep more by rewarding them with points that can be spent at cafes and cafeterias.

CRAZY, a Tokyo-based wedding planning company, recently announced the implementation of a “sleep remuneration system” to encourage its workforce to get more sleep. It has teamed up with Airweave, a startup specializing in sleep analysis technology and will be monitoring its employees sleep patterns. Workers who install the Sleep Analysis app on their smartphones and share their data with the company are eligible to receive points according to how many hours of sleep they get ever night. CRAZY hopes that the new reward system will improve the lifestyle habits and overall health of its employees, as well as boost their productivity.

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A Chinese man has been excluded out of a parents WeChat group and accused of flaunting his wealth by dropping his son off to school in an expensive Ferrari 488 sports car.

The man, surnamed Li, is a senior executive in an property development company in in Hangzhou, China, and has the habit of taking his junior pupil son to school in a Ferrari 488. This didn’t sit to well with the parents of the other kids in his son’s class, and Li was recently told by a teacher that he had received complaints about it. Apparently, some of the other parents were worried that it would lead to unhealthy comparisons between the kids in class and prevent them from developing fellowship. The man didn’t agree so they all shunned him, and even excluded him from their WeChat group.

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Japanese people are renowned for their manners and politeness, but this incident shows just how far that politeness can go. A man recently went into a convenience store, asked the manager if he could rob the place and upon being refused, he left and later turned himself in to police.

The bizarre robbery attempt took place on October 5, at a Lawson convenience store in Ogori City, Japan’s Fukuoka Prefecture. According to police, the unnamed man allegedly entered the store at around 1:40 AM and told the manager “I’ve come with the intent to intimidate you and rob this store, may I ask you to please cooperate with me?” in the most unintimidating way possible. He didn’t get the answer he was hoping for so he turned around and walked out quietly without taking anything.

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