Moscow’s metro system has recently become the scene of a new and deadly extreme sport – metro surfing. Teenagers jump on the back of trains and try to cling on for their lives as they video-tape the whole experience.

Believe it or not, metro surfing began as a desperate way of catching a ride during rush hour. The Moscow subway system is very crowded at this time and it’s close to impossible to get into the train, so young people started clinging to the back of it to reach their destination in time. Unfortunately, this desperate way of traveling somehow turned into a popular pass-time for teenagers looking for cheap thrills and internet fame. Metro surfers have now become such a common site that normal commuters hardly notice the crazy kids hanging on for their lives at the back of the train.

Wearing distinctive gloves, and sometimes clothes the same color as the metro to blend-in better, surfers wait on the platform the same as everyone else. Then, as the train leaves the station, they jump on the back of it and ride into the narrow tunnels, trying not to fall off. Most of them have cameras attached to their headgear to record the entire thing. They then post them on popular social media sites like Youtube or vkontakte (Russian version of Facebook), and brag among their friends. Even more alarming is that there are now groups of up to 2,000 members posting and commenting their metro surfing adventures online, and their numbers seems to be ever growing.

Read More »

Following a dream of combining his passion for martial arts with his love for the Star Wars saga, a Chilean taekwondo instructor has opened the first Jedi school in South America.

William Berrueta has been a fan of the Star Wars franchise for a very long time, but it was the Star Wars Exhibition Tour, which came to Chile in 2005, that inspired the martial arts instructor to start a training program for young sci-fi enthusiasts, based on Jedi powers. It took a while for the 46-year-old to fulfill his dream, but last Thursday, the “Jedi Temple” school, in Quilpué, finally opened its doors to 20 would-be Jedi warriors, aged between six and twelve. Now, after being featured on BBC, it has already gained international acclaim.

“The idea is to make these children into Padawan,” said Berrueta, who will work with the young apprentices for a period of three months, teaching them yoga, self-defense and meditation. “In this period they will learn relaxation techniques, so they can concentrate and improve flexibility and mobility, so that they understand their bodies better.” Students of the Quilpué Jedi school will train dressed as Jedi fighters and practice with shatter-resistant lightsabers designed by William Berrueta himself. During exhibitions, they will use special sabers, imported from the US, for about $250 each.

Read More »

22-year-old John McArthur is the owner of the world’s only golf course on four wheels – a Skoda Felicia covered with fake grass and complete with a sand bunker.

The young Brit from Rayne, Essex, is surprisingly not a big fan of golf, but as soon as he saw this lovely Felicia on eBay, he new it would be the one to replace his old Renault Megane. He even got a bargain price of £347, so buying it was a no-brainer. As soon as he parked it in front of his front door, his sister said she wouldn’t be caught dead in it, but John’s friends love it and people keep taking photos of the green vehicle and ask about him, wherever he goes.

The golf-mobile is almost completely covered in fake grass and comes complete with a hole flag on the roof and a sand bunker on the hood, and while it doesn’t inspire him to take up golf, young Jake McArthur says he’s happy he never has to wash it.

We’ve featured our share of quirky art cars here on Oddity Central, but this is definitely one of the most ingenious ones.

Read More »

The funeral business is probably the only one that hasn’t been affected by the recession, and people are turning to undertaker classes to make sure they find a job in these troubled times.

The Theo Remmertz Academy in Münnerstadt, northern Bavaria, claims it’s the only official funeral school in Europe. It offers a three year training course which teaches future undertakers the secrets of this creepy but profitable business. Students learn everything from how to dig a proper grave, and cement a vault, to how to deal with grieving families and write death notices. Most of the 525 apprentices currently attending the German funeral school have worked in completely different fields before, but the recession pushed them to find a more stable and secure area.

Trainers of the Theo Remmertz Academy admit that funeral skills used to be handed down from father to son, but times have changed, and with more and more people drawn to this recession-proof business, the need for an undertaker school became a business opportunity in itself. Now, groups from as far as China and Russia have contacted the school regarding their methods of training.

Read More »

Daniella Martin is the host of a web-based show called Girl Meets Bug, which tries to show viewers just how eco-friendly it is for people to eat insects and worms.

Daniella’s fascination with eating bugs began 10 years ago, while she was doing anthropological work in Mexico. She discovered the Maya used to eat a variety of creepy crawlers, and while feasting on a small bag of chapulines (dry-roasted grasshoppers with lime and chili) in Oaxaca, she noticed street kids gathered around her table and started eating the bugs off the table. This inspired Daniella to dig deeper into the history of insect eating and upon conducting some research she found 80% of the world’s cultures eat bugs.

Ms Martin says “the day that I was introduced to edible insects changed everything” so she decided to become “an edible insect advocate.” She’s eaten dozens of insect varieties so far, and says each of them has its unique taste and texture, but has a long way to go if she wants to experience all the 1,500 types of edible insects currently known to man. “It’s just about culture, you know, thirty years ago, sushi was considered to be very strange…honestly, I think of it as a cultural matrix that’s in our minds and I don’t know what it’s going to take to change American minds,” Martin says about Americans fear of insects, and adds that all bug cuisine needs is good marketing.

Read More »

All geeks love Transformers, but Yang Junlin of Huizhou, China, took his passion for the franchise to a whole other level when he opened the “Legend of Iron” factory and began producing his own robots.

Remebre that uber-cool Megatron Tank we featured a few weeks back? That was one of Yang Junlin’s iron masterpieces, but I had no idea he had created hundreds of other incredible metal sculptures. In 2006, after retiring from the army, Yang went to a concert where various steel sculptures were placed on display. Some of them were simple human figures created from twisted metal wire, but they made such an impression on him, that he decided to try and make his own steel works.

A year later, Yang Junlin opened his own factory, Legend of Iron, and hired over 10 workers to help him realize his dream of building cool robot sculptures. They use all kinds of scrap metal, from old car parts to simple sheets of steel andcreate some of the most amazing looking Transformers replicas I’ve ever seen. Although he admits his work is quite time-consuming, Yang has built over 1,000 iron sculptures since he opened Legend of Iron, five years ago, and isn’t planning on stopping anytime soon.

Check out more photos of the geek eye-candy Legend of Iron creates, after the break:

Read More »

Miljenko Parserisas Bukovic, a 56-year-old newspaper salesman from Mexico, has 82 tattoos of Julia Roberts’ face inked on his body.

After watching “Erin Brockovich”, a great movie that earned Julia Roberts an Academy Award, Mexican Miljenko Parserisas Bukovic decided to show his appreciation for her talent by getting tattoos of her face all over his body. He now has 82 tattoos of Roberts, all inspired by movie scenes. He has images of  her smiling, waving, pouting, looking serious and even sitting in a chair, all over his chest, back and arms.

Although Bukovic claims he has spent around $81,000 (around 1 million pesos) on his tattoos of Julia Roberts, so far, his planning to add more ink artworks as long as he has room on his body. If you ask me, he paid way too much for his tats, especially since some of them don’t even look like Julia Roberts…

Read More »

Galleta Meadows is a unique sculpture park of the Anza Borrego Desert, filled with dozens of metal creatures that supposedly inhabited the area millions of years ago.

The Anza Borrego Desert isn’t the most hospitable place on the North American continent, and it’s definitely not where you’d expect to find an outdoor art exhibit like Galleta Meadows. Owned by multimillionaire Dennis Avery (as in Avery office supplies), this unusual tourist attraction is a desert creature park open to anyone brave enough to face the desert and the unbearable heat that comes with it.

The story of Galleta Meadows began in the 90’s, when Avery decided to invest some of his fortune in a vast territory in Borrego Springs. Ho got it for an “uncontestable price” but had no idea of how he was going to use it, so he put no barbwire around it and no “Private Property” signs. Later, he built a winter residence, followed by a tourist resort, a country club and a golf course, but he needed something unique to attract tourist to his newly opened facilities.

Read More »

In a bid to celebrate Pancake Day in a truly memorable fashion, the guys at Food Network UK built the tallest pancake stack ever.

Who doesn’t like pancakes? I must admit I’m a huge fan of the breakfast treat, and often lose count ‘when tackling s syrup-topped stack in the morning, but even I couldn’t hope to eat my way through the pancake skyscraper created by the staff of TV channel Food Network UK. It took 13 hours to create and required 253 eggs, 5 kilograms of flour and 15 liters of milk, but it was all worth it to celebrate Pancake Day. After cooking a whopping 725 pancakes, they somehow managed to stack them into a 32-inch-tall tower that set a new record for the world’s tallest pancake stack.

Nick Thorogood, of Food Network UK said: “One of the greatest aspects of British Food is its tradition and the celebration of events such as Pancake Day. We wanted to celebrate this year’s Pancake Day with something a little different and what better way than to create a giant stack of pancakes!” A fine and tasty choice indeed.

As you can imagine, the giant pancake tower ended up in the bellies of the TV channel bellies, by the end of the day.

Read More »

A Chinese jewelry collector, who probably had more money that he could spend, has created a replica of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” with 100,000 carats of jewelry.

Many artists have tried to replicate da Vinci’s masterpiece out all kinds of unusual materials, from coffee cups, to pieces of toast and even motherboard components, but no one has ever create an extravagant a replica like this jewel Mona Lisa. The name of the artist is unknown, all that’s been revealed is that he’s a jewelry collector who has spent the last five years working on this one-of-a-kind jewelry painting and the last 30 years collecting all the necessary raw gem stones. The thousands of jewels used ad up to an impressive 100,000 carats.

This bedazzled replica of the Mona Lisa is currently on display in a shopping mall in Shenyang City, China.

Read More »

Regarded as one of the weirdest museums in the world, the Hair Museum of Avanos, in Cappadocia, is definitely a must-see if you’re into bizarre tourist spots.

Ever since 3000 BC, Avanos has been known for its high quality earthenware, made from the mineral-rich mud of the Red River, but in recent years, the town has mostly been mentioned in relation to a unique hair museum created by skilled Turkish potter Chez Galip. The unusual establishment, located under Galip’s pottery shop, is filled with hair samples from over 16,000 women. The walls, ceiling, and all other surfaces, except the floor, are covered with locks of hair from the different women who have visited this place, and pieces of paper with addresses on them.

The story goes that the museum was started over 30 years ago, when one of Galip’s friends had to leave Avanos, and he was very sad. To leave him something to remember her by, the woman cut a piece of her hair and gave it to the potter. Since then, the women who visited his place and heard the story gave him a piece of their hair and their complete address. Throughout the years, he has amassed an impressive collection of over 16,000 differently colored locks of hair, from women all around the world.

Read More »

24-year-old psychologist Sarah White conducts therapy sessions in which she gradually takes off her clothes to raise…interest of male patients.

A freelance computer programmer, White says she decided to perform online strip-therapy after she was left uninspired by the theories she learned as an undergraduate psychology student. “Freud used free association, I use nakedness” she says, adding that “for men especially, who are less likely than women to go to therapy, it is more interesting, more enticing, more exciting,” said White. “It’s a more inspiring approach to therapy.” Right, that sounds fine and dandy in theory, but how many men can still focus on their problems while staring at a naked babe?

Sarah White‘s initial sessions cost $150 and are conducted via a one-way webcam and text chat. Then, after she develops a relationship with her patients, she moves on to two-way video sessions via Skype, and finally to in-person appointments. She starts-off every consultation with her clothes on, but then progressively takes off her garments, until there’s nothing left. At that point, I’m pretty sure most of her patients are just staring at her like horny dogs, but while it may not solve their issues, it makes them happy.

The naked therapist based in New York City isn’t really a licensed therapist, but that didn’t stop her from getting roughly 30 regular patients. Sure, most of them are college students with sexual issues, and middle-aged men with relationship problems, but she also has a couple of women patients who enjoy conversing with a nude peer…Hey, as long as it pays the bills, why not?
Read More »

Master pastry chef Alain Roby has built a replica of his home kitchen in Geneva, entirely out of 2,000 pounds of chocolate and sugar.

Alain Roby, the man who previously built a 20-foot chocolate skyscraper and a 22-foot-tall Christmas tree made of chocolate, began work on his unique replica last year, when he received a chocolate donation from Belgian chocolaterie Callebaut. He started out by melting the chocolate into molds he himself designed, and connected the parts using more chocolate. The dishes were made from sugar, and the tiles were glazed and sculpted into the desired shape. The whole project took months to complete, and Alain still finds ways to improve it, every now and then.

The chocolate artist admits the artistry of the kitchen is a big challenge, but it’s actually the engineering part that’s the most complicated. He had to put in many hours of hard work and come up with a lot of ingenious ideas to finish this sweet replica of his home kitchen, in Geneva, but the response has been fantastic. Complete with cabinets, a stove, a sink, a tiled backsplash, teapots and dishes, Alain Roby’s chocolate kitchen has become a temporary local attraction of Geneva, since it has been on display in a downtown venue.

Read More »

Jinks Kunst, a Swiss street-artist known for his beautiful stencil artworks, has created a portrait of legendary French singer Serge Gainsbourg, out of over 20,000 cigarette filters.

These days, France celebrates twenty years since the death of one of its greatest-ever artists, singer and song writer Serge Gainsbourg. In Paris, the city where he was born and where he died, artists are showcasing a series of unpublished photos of Gainsbourg, but Kunst wanted to make something truly special for this occasion.

A big fan of the singer, the Swiss street-artist spent the last three years collecting cigarette butts off the streets and used them to create a unique portrait. His one-of-a-kind depiction of Serge Gainsbourg numbers an impressive 20, 394 used cigarette filters he gathered himself, since March 2008. The legendary Gainsbourg, author of “Je t’aime moi non plus”, had a passion for cigarettes and alcohol, so Jinks Kunst choice of cigarette filters as a medium makes perfect sense.

The cigarette butt portrait of Serge Gainsbourg is currently on display in Nantes.

Read More »

Wizard Oberon Zell-Ravenheart decided the real world needed its own Hogwarts school of magic, so he established the Grey School of Wizardry – the world’s first registered magic academy.

the 68-year-old master from Catoti, California, has dedicated his life to studying the dark arts, and decided to create a recognized academic establishment where he could share his knowledge with anyone willing to learn (and pay the admission fee). Just like the famous Hogwarts imagined by author J.K. Rowling, the Grey School of Wizardry teaches 16 different magic disciplines, including spell-casting, beastmastery, alchemy, wand-making and horse whispering. Students are split into four ancient houses – Winds, Undines, Gnomes and Salamanders and just like Harry Potter and his friends, they must all learn to defend themselves against the Dark Arts.

While Oberon admits people call him “the real Dumbledore” and that he loves Harry Potter because it increased interest in wizardry (and the numbers of paying students of his school, of course), the popular saga didn’t inspire him to become a wizard. In fact, he was practicing magic long before J.K. Rowling wrote her successful novels. The former teacher and counselor first rose to fame during the 1980s, when he claimed he and his wife – a witch named Morning Glory – had created the world’s first unicorn. Remarkably enough, they actually had managed to create a single-horned creature by performing minor surgery on a goat. It caused quite a stir and ended up touring America with a famous circus.

Read More »