Y Lan, real name Tran Thi Hoang Lan, is a famous Vietnamese artist who uses multicolored sand to create beautiful paintings. Her works are famous all over Asia, as well as in Europe and North America.

Y Lan has no formal arts training and discovered her unique talent for making sand paintings purely by mistake. In 2001, while visiting her husband’s home town in Phan Thiet she saw the coastal sands in the area and was mesmerized by their beauty and took three differently-colored varieties in a transparent flower vase. After she came home she was just obsessed with the exotic beauty of the sands, so she went back and took more sand samples of different colors. Then she started thinking about what to do with this wonderful colored sand she had gathered, and the idea for her grainy sand paintings was born. Now, Y Lan is internationally recognized as the inventor of sand painting and has established her own company selling these masterpieces all around the globe.

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After working hard to build a business and achieve millionaire status, a Florida entrepreneur is selling it all on eBay. This includes his successful video game stores, two beachside condos, several expensive cars and three kayaks. All for the small price of $3.5 million.

Some people work their whole life and don’t even get close to amassing a fortune as large as 29-year-old’s Shane Butcher. The Tampa Bay gamer owns a thriving video game business as well as several houses and cars and lives a life most of us only dream of, and yet he is ready to sell it all and start over. “My name’s Shane, and I’m putting my American dream up for sale,” the young businessman says in his eBay ad. Butcher got the idea to pass on his success to somebody else after he heard about other people who made similar sales on eBay. He and his family are in search of a new challenge, and want to visit the world, so they decided to sell everything they’ve built so far. “If you build a castle, it’s awesome to sell it and then start building another one, hopefully bigger and better,” Shane said.

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To celebrate the 50th anniversary of LEGO blocks being introduced in Japan, the Danish company organized a cross-country workshop called “Build Up Japan” in which over 5,000 children created their visions of future Japanese buildings. The assembled pieces were all brought to Tokyo and assembled as a giant white map.

As Johnny from Spoon&Tamago noticed, the Internet is full of all kinds of massive LEGO works. We ourselves featured an impressive LEGO map of Middle-Earth, a LEGO football stadium model and even a full-size LEGO Ford Explorer. But the “Build Up Japan” event was special in more ways than one and definitely worth covering. While most large-scale works of art are usually created by experienced LEGO masters who spend years working on their pieces, this giant map was created piece by piece by around 5,000 Japanese children from six different regions of the island country. And, instead of having the kids just reproduce some of their country’s iconic buildings, organizers encouraged them to set free their imaginations and create imaginary structures of a futuristic Japan. The future of the country was literally in their hands and they made sure it was a bright one. When the assembled LEGO structures were completed, they were sent to Tokyo to be a part of a massive 1.8 million LEGO map that left the audience speechless.

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Boss giving a hard time at work? Wife can’t seem to stop nagging you when you get home? Do you feel like lashing out at people all the time, but are afraid of social consequences? Fear no more, as an innovative new hotline allows frustrated people to use their most fowl language as a way to blow off steam.

It’s called “Schimpf-los” (German for “swear away”) and it’s an innovative new hotline that has operators standing by 24/7 ready to take serious verbal abuse from people who feel like blowing off steam by swearing. “We don’t judge people who are angry,” said Ralf Schulte, one of the creators of this offbeat service. “It happens. It’s natural. With us you can blow off steam no strings attached.” The 41-year-old entrepreneur set up Schimpf-los along with partner Alexander Brandenburger, after drawing inspiration from their own stressful daily routine. They realized their idea would help people avoid altercations at the workplace or at home, by providing an alternative place to release all tension. “If you’re stressed out at work, you go home and your partner gets an earful,” Schulte comments. “Even though it’s not her fault.” With Schimpf-los, angry folks need not worry about this kind of scenarios anymore.

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The story of Robin Hood and his merry men is centuries old, but even in this modern age their example is as popular as ever. In the Andalucia region of Spain the roles of outlaws are nowadays played by a village mayor and a group of Socialist extremists, who instead of rich royalty rob local supermarkets and give the loot to the poor.

Andalucia was hit particularly hard by the international economic crisis and the collapse of the construction industry. The whole of Spain is struggling, but in this region the unemployment rate has reached 34% and some people have difficulties even putting food on the table. The dire situation inspired a group of members from the Andalucia Workers Union, led by Juan Manuel Sanchez Gordillo, a member of the regional parliament for the United Left party in Andalucia and mayor of the village of Marinaleda in southern Spain, to stage Robin Hood-style attacks on local supermarkets to get food for the needy. Although authorities see this kind of acts as crimes, Sanchez Gordillo and his modern merry men are heroes to the Spanish poor, who welcome the food products with open arms.

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Ye Tongxin, a 48-year old man from Nanjing, China, has a very unique talent. He can slice various fruits and vegetables by throwing plastic cards at them from meters away. I guess you can say he’s a real life fruit ninja.

You probably thought Oddjob was cool for slicing stuff with his hat, but Ye Tongxin’s skill is much more impressive – he’s able to slice fruit and veggies with common plastic playing cards. We’ve all tried doing at some point, but it’s a much harder trick to pull off than most people think. Mr. Ye has been practicing his ability for the last ten years, and although he spends two hours every day throwing cards at hanging plastic bags shaped as cucumbers, he says training to become the world’s best fruit slicer is much more complex. Apart from just throwing cards, he also runs between 8 and 10 laps up high ground, in order to improve his strength, because unlike other card throwing ninjas he needs to cut through tougher fruits like watermelons and apples, instead of just soft cucumbers.

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Who says you need good grapes to make a fine wine? Pascal Miche, a wine maker from Quebec, Canada, uses tomatoes to create an unusual yet increasingly popular vintage. His secret lies in a four-generations-old Belgian family recipe .

A former pork butcher, Pascal Miche moved from Belgium to Canada’s Quebec province, seven years ago and decided to go through with his idea of commercializing his grandfather’s  precious wine, made according to an old recipe. He finally kickstarted his business in 2009, planted his “vinyard” and began making tomato wine. If you search online, you’ll find quite a few enthusiasts who have experimented with making wine from tomatoes, but Mich hopes his will be the first successfully commercialized. Considering sales of his “Omerto“wine have reached 34,000 bottles annually, I’d say his plan is right on track.

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If you’ve ever walked through an IKEA store thinking about how cool it would be if you could just lay down on one of them soft beds, cover yourself with a fluffy blankets and nap, then you need to move to China, because that’s what IKEA visitors do over there.

The Chinese simply love IKEA! Millions visit the company’s mainland stores every year, but only a few of them actually end up buying something, as many just come to enjoy the air-conditioning on a hot summer day and take a nap on the comfy furniture on display. “Some of them even come in once the store opens in the morning, and won’t leave until the store closes in the evening,” a security staff from the IKEA store in Shanghai told Morning Star, but although this sometimes bothers employees, the company hasn’t taken any measures against people making themselves a little too much at home, because it sees it as a future investment. They believe when these people have more consumption power they’ll come back and buy something, but until then they’re free to loiter around.

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It’s no secret the Chinese wrote the book on knock-offs, but did you know they copy whole towns these days? Thames Town, in Shanghai, is a replica of small English town complete with everything you might expect, except the people.

“I wanted the properties to look exactly the same as those in the United Kingdom. I think English properties are very special. When we decide to learn from others, we should not make any improvements or changes.” That’s what James Ho, the head of Shanghai Hengde Real Estate, the company in charge of building Thames Town, told Reuters back in 2006, when the weird settlement was inaugurated. The buildings of Thames Town copy the real ones in England so closely that complaints have been filed by English pub owners, and this genuine British look was exactly what was supposed to draw people to this place. Only, like many other ambitious and expensive Chinese projects, Thames Town failed to impress a lot of people and is now virtually a ghost town in Shanghai, the city that drive’s China’s economy.

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Famous Hungarian artist Istvan Orosz creates intricate optical illusions that always hide a human skull. The presence of the eerie element is more obvious in some of his works than in others, but they are all equally impressive.

If you like optical illusions, you’ll love Orosz’s anamorphosis. The meticulously executed works of art will trick you into thinking you’re eyes are looking at Medieval-themed drawings before you spot the cleverly disguised skulls. I don’t know why the Hungarian graphic designer, poster artist and film director chose a skull as the main element of his works, but his talent or optical illusions is unquestionable.

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There are plenty of cool places to eat at in China, but one of the most amazing has to be the Tang Dousheng State Park, also known as Tang Du Zoology. This unique venue spreads over 1,600 square feet and features over 1,500 exotic plants and various animals.

I don’t know about you but I haven’t yet had the chance to dine in a place larger than three NFL football fields, so the Tang Dousheng State Park in Taiyuan, an industrial city about 400km from Beijing, sounds pretty special to me. But it’s not just the size that makes this place stand out from other food joints in China. Inaugurated in 2005, Tang Du Zoology was meant to be an indoor “natural habitat” full of exotic plants, rugged rockery and rare animals, where people could experience fine Chinese cuisine in a wild-like environment. Usually you have to go outside for a breath of fresh air, but in Taiyuan, you have to step inside this amazing restaurant to let your lungs know what they’ve been missing out on. The place also serves wide range of Chinese food styles (Guangdong, Shandong, Sichuan, Anhui) but the food is not the first reason to dine at Tang Dousheng State Park.

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Mike Senna, a computer programmer from Orange County, California, has spent the last two and a half years building a real-life Wall-E robot, from scratch. It moves around, rolls and talks, but he doesn’t collect trash.

In 2009, shortly after the movie Wall-E was launched, we featured some photos of cool Wall-E computer case mod, but that feat simply pales in comparison to Mike Senna’s awesome achievement. The robot aficionado spend between 3,200 and 3,800 man hours building his very own version of the adorable Pixar trash-collecting hero. His computer programming skills definitely came in handy, but seeing as there were no Wall-E parts available anywhere on this planet, he had to construct the whole thing from scratch. He worked on it about 25 hours a week, after his day job, but all the hard work certainly paid off.

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Fund-raising school competitions usually involve cake baking and sporting events, but at one particular school in New Zealand it’s all about dressing dead possums in funny outfits for a bizarre best dressed furry animal contest.

Looking at the photos taken at the Uruti School, on New Zealand’s North Island, you’d think this was a taxidermy competition, but in reality, the furry corpses were part of a weird display of dead possums, for a charity event. Basically, small children let their imagination run wild and tried to dress the furry critters as best they could. One was actually skinned to look like a posing boxer, while others sported bikini costumes and princess dresses. As you can imagine, the event enraged animal welfare groups who accused the school of encouraging cruelty to animals, but the teachers defended it saying it was “lots of fun”and that it helped raise $6,000 for the school.”There was an amazing crowd and it was lots of fun. Animals aren’t the only species who are dressed up after they die. We do it to humans too,” Principal Pauline Sutton told the Taranaki Daily News.

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Forget about painful diets and grueling exercise, from now on all you have to do to lose weight is spray on a little perfume. The magic fragrance is called Prends-Moi and is said to contain beta-endorphins that reduce the urge to overeat.

Developed by the French perfume house Robertet, the Veld’s Prends-Moi slimming fragrance was launched last year, but only recently made its debut on the English market, where women welcomed it with open arms. On July 30, the Daily Mail reported around 6,000 women had subscribed to the product’s waiting list, hoping this could actually be the miraculous weight-loss solutions they had been waiting for. It’s easy to understand why people would gladly fork out some cash on such an easy-to-use slimming product, but can shedding the pounds be as easy as putting on perfume? According to the makers of Prends-Moi, it sure can.

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They couldn’t pay me enough to try a bite of cooked animal genitalia, but there are people who would spend hundreds of dollars on delicacies like cooked yak penis or sheep gonads. These are the kind of foods that have made the Guolizhuang Restaurant so popular in China’s capital city.

According to a well-known saying, “Chinese eat anything with four legs, except tables. And everything that flies, except airplanes,” and the food served at the Guolizhuang Restaurant, in Beijing is proof of that. This bizarre establishment opened its gates in 2006, offering all kinds of dishes with animal genitalia as the main ingredient. Many Chinese believe animal penises increase male potency and do wonders for women’s skin, so word about the culinary wonders served at the restaurant on Dongsishitiao Street spread quickly, and the owners were happy to expand their business. There are now several franchises throughout Beijing and one in Atlanta’s Chinatown.

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