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.

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If you’re a fan of Canstruction art, you’re going to love this – a group of Thai students have built a replica of the new Thai Parliament building using around 200,000 food cans.

The event took place during the “Health Food and Ingredients Thailand 2011” exhibition and, as you can imagine, grabbed a lot of attention. The 200,000 cans were all placed by hand, and this one-of-a-kind replica of the Thai Parliament will most likely find a place in the Guinness Book of Records.

Just like it happens in Canstruction events, I’m sure the cans will be donated to various charities, as soon as the sculpture is dismantled.

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Using eggshells of different shades and tones, British artist Kyle Bean has managed to create an impressive sculpture of a chicken.

We’ve recently covered Kyle’s intricate matchstick insects, and mentioned that although he only graduated from art school two years ago, he’s a fast rising star of the art world, one who already has an impressive portfolio. He manged to prove me right by adding a few new works under his belt, including a unique chicken sculpture made of egg shells called “What Came First”.

It might not solve the ages-old question of what came first, the chicken or the egg, but it is clear proof of Kyle Bean’s talent, patience and attention to details.

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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?
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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.

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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.

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American artist Yuri Zupancic creates unique microchip paintings that reflect how the “Smaller and Faster” catchphrase has replaced “Bigger and Better” in our everyday lives.

Yuri’s paintings cover a wide range of subjects, from animals and insects to humans and plants, but usually seeks poetic images that raise questions when painted on microchips. He sees his works as an attempt to broaden our perspective of modern electronics and acknowledge their position as extensions of the mind and its sentimental qualities”.

The size of these miniature masterpieces is most often less than a square inch, so paint is applied with very small brushes that the artist makes using his own eyelashes. As you can imagine, Zupancic’s microchip paintings are hard to fully appreciate with the naked eye, so magnifying glasses are supplied wherever they are exhibited.

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Actuel Dogs bills itself as the first luxury dog hotel in France, and claims its facilities and staff are everything your pooch needs to feel pampered.

Located on the outskirts of Paris, in the chic suburb of Vincennes, this four-star establishment for pets is the brainchild of Devi and Stan Burun, a dog behaviour specialist and a lifelong dog-lover. Unlike similar luxury facilities in the US or Japan, Actuel Dogs tries to cater to dogs’ needs. “It’s not like in the United States or – giving the dogs manicures, dying their fur pink — that’s human madness. Our priority is to meet the dogs’ needs,” Devi says, adding that “people think we serve the dogs’ food from silver platters but this is not pointless, extravagant luxury.”

People who live in small apartments and don’t have the walk or look after their pets, bring them to Actuel Dogs, where they’ll get all the comfort and attention they crave. Here they enjoy a dip in the pool, relaxing massages, fine cuisine meals, calming walks through the nearby woods, and loads of other fun activities. When it’s time for a nap, canines are escorted to one of the hotel’s six rooms, adorned with soft cushions, framed dog prints and LCD Tvs, so they can watch their favorite DVDs.

Before they book their first stay, dogs are evaluated for aggressive behaviour, and if they pass they will enjoy a “concept that is human, but it’s completely adapted to dogs’ needs.” Prices for a day at Actuel Dogs hotel vary between 26 and 35 euros ($36 – $48), but the luxury treatment and the fact that dogs aren’t kept in uncomfortable cages makes owners fork out the cash.

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Often referred to as “the oldest cabin in the world”, the Fossil Cabin of Medicine Bow is a unique roadside attraction made of thousands of dinosaur fossils.

Located eight miles east of Medicine Bow, Wyoming, on US Route 30 is one of the most amazing tourist attractions in America – the Fossil Cabin. This starter cabin turned fossil museum is constructed of approximately 26,000 dinosaur bones extracted from the nearby Como Bluff dig site. It was designed by Thomas Boylan an entrepreneur who hauled out the dinosaur bones and together with his family completed the Fossil Cabin in 1933. Thomas had apparently been collecting dinosaur bones for seventeen years when he realized his entire pile of bones came from various species and there appeared to be no complete specimen, so he decided to use his collection as building material.

In 1938, Robert Ripley, of Ripley’s Believe It or Not dubbed it “the oldest cabin in the world” and judging by the primary building material, he wasn’t exaggerating one bit. It gained a lot of attention after that and it brought a lot of customers to Boylan’s neighboring gas station, but after he died, and Interstate 80 was built, business started to go downhill. The Fossil Cabin was sold to the Fultz family who managed it as a fossil museum. Inside visitors could admire and in some cases purchases various dinosaur bones, petrified sea-life, and other things that appeal to dinophiles.

Unfortunately, Fossil Cabin is currently closed to the public, pending acquisition of a new manager, but you can stop by and shoot some great photos of its dinosaur bone walls.

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Brian Dettmer, also known as “The Book Surgeon” uses knives, tweezers and surgical tools to carve old dictionaries and encyclopedias into incredible works of art.

Born in 1974, in Chicago, Brian Dettmer studied art at Colombia College, where he focused mainly on painting. During his time working in a signage store, the artist started exploring the relationship between codes, text, language and art. He began producing paintings based on sign language, Braille and Morse Code, then moved on to layered works that involved pasting newspaper and book pages to a canvas, and it was just a matter of time before he would discover the talent he is now renowned for – expert book carving.

The Book Surgeon takes outdated books, dictionaries and encyclopedias that would otherwise end up at a landfill somewhere, and gives them new meaning and the chance at a second life, by carving them into intricate artworks. “Their intended role has decreased or deceased and they often exist simply as symbols of the ideas they represent rather than true conveyors of content. When an object’s intended function is fleeting, the necessity for a new approach to its form and content arises.” Dattmer says, explaining the philosophy behind his work.

Reference works are Brian’s favorite material, because of the rich illustrated content, but regardless of what he works with, he never inserts any new material or move the content of the book around just to make it more interesting. Using his trusty precision tools, he cuts out unwanted content stabilizing what’s left with layers of varnish. In the beginning, Brian Dettemer focused on carving one book at a time, but in recent years his art has become even more ambitious, as he began using sets of books to create the images he desires.

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Icecreamists, a London restaurant based in Covent Garden is offering clients the chance to try ice-cream made with real breast milk.

“No-one’s done anything interesting with ice cream in the last hundred years, wanted to completely reinvent it.” says Icecreamists founder, Matt O’Connor. The restaurant specializes in quirky ice-cream flavors, but using breast milk is definitely the weirdest thing they’ve done in their quest to change how people think about ice-cream.

Victoria Hiley, the first woman to donate breast milk for the unique ice-cream, says she was intrigued when she saw the ad on an online forum. People were arguing whether it was for real or not, so she decided to find out. The 35-year-old mother of one ended up selling 30 ounces of breast milk to Icecreamists. Now the restaurant is looking for more women willing to sell them the magical liquid and is offering £15 ($24) for every ten ounces. In case anyone is interested, the milk is extracted using breast pumps.

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Micromachina is a collection of real taxidermy insects fitted with various devices that is meant to show how we humans mistreat nature, forcing it to do our bidding.

Scott Bain’s creations show humanity’s disregard for nature in all its forms: genetic modifications, pesticides or massive urban expansion. There’s practically nothing we won’t do in our never ending quest for profit, and the artist believes there will come a time when nature will rid the world of its biggest pest, us.

The hollowed-out Micromachina insects were inspired by our way of using technology to control nature and turn every living thing into a tool.

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A one-of-a-kind mosaic of legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix made of 5,000 plectrums has been auctioned off during an event for Cancer Research UK.

The portrait was created by Ed Chapman, one of Britain’s leading mosaic artists, who said it took him several days to complete. The plectrums used to create the 120 cm x 100 cm artwork are made by Fender, the guitar brand Hendrix is known to have been most fond of. “I decided to use plectrums to create a portrait of him because I like experimenting with different materials and textures and I think it is a fitting tribute to the musician.” Chapman says.

39-year-old Chapman began making mosaics in the 1990s, and has tried to put a modern twist on this ancient art form. His previous works include mosaics of John Lennon, Eric Cantona, and ManU manager Alex Ferguson.

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The Ave Maria Grotto is a four-acre park featuring 125 miniature reproductions of some of the most important Christian buildings and shrines, located in Cullman, Alabama.

Known as “Jerusalem in Miniature” this wonderful attraction was built from concrete, stone and seashells, by Brother Joseph Zoettl, a Benedictine monk of the nearby St. Bernard Abbey. Joseph was born in Germany, in 1878 and nearly lost his life to a flu epidemic that swept around Europe. He emigrated to the USA as a teenager, and settled in Alabama, where a freak accident left him scoliosis and a back injury. That’s probably the reason he decided to join the newly opened Benedictine monastery of Cullman. He took his vows at the age of nineteen and was put in charge of the monastery’s powerhouse.

It was around this time Brother Joseph began tinkering with stones, leftover cement and other junk he found outside the powerhouse. He would build Bible scenes from old ink bottles and rusted birdcages, and his handiwork soon attracted the attention of Father Dominic, who asked him to make two miniature grottoes for him to sell and raise money for the abbey. The artworks were so impressive they sold immediately, so what Joe though was just a one time deal turned into a regular business, and he ended up creating over 5,000 grottoes.

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Japanese are known across the globe for their quirky contests, and the All-National Hole-Digging Contest is right up there with the wackiest.

This yearly event takes place at the beginning of February, at the Narita Dream Dairy Farm, just east of Tokyo. This year, over a thousand people from all over Japan showed up for a chance to win the coveted Golden Shovel award. There are a lot of families and groups of friends, but the most numerous are those who are ‘professionals’, who dig for a living, such as gas company workers or those who deal with the water supply.” says a public relation official of the offbeat competition.

Participants grouped in around 200 teams had 30 minutes to dig as deep as possible, without throwing dirt in their competitors’ holes. But while depth is important in such an event, contenders are also judged on the creativity of their hole, and the originality of their digging suites. So while some tried to dig as fast as they could, others preferred a different approach. For example, one of the teams used the dirt they dug up to build a small pyramid next to the hole.

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