Togo’s Akodessewa Fetish Market is recognized as the largest fetish market in the world, a place where Voodoo practitioner can find anything they need for their rituals.

The practice of voodoo began in West Africa, before being taken to America by slaves, and in countries like Togo, Ghana, or Nigeria the religion is very much alive. Many people believe healers using animal parts and strange talismans can invoke spirits with their bizarre rituals, and solve their problems. And if there’s one place where voodoo priests can stock up on their creepy supplies, it’s the Akodessewa Fetish Market, in Togo’s capital city, Lome. Just think of it as an outdoor pharmacy where various animal parts, bone statues and herbs take the place of conventional medicine.

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British artist Debbie Smyth uses hundreds of pins and meters of delicate thread to create mind-blowing art installations.

I’ve seen a lot of impressive artworks made from thread, but young Debbie Smyth is really pushing the envelope with her incredible thread drawings. She’s mixing fine art drawings and textile art, illustration and embroidery, flat and 3D art, to create something totally unique that challenges viewers to ask themselves “how did she do it?”. Debbie starts her sophisticated art installations by plotting out the design with hundreds of thin pins on a white canvas, then moves on to fill it with thread. “On first glance, it can look like a mass of threads but as you get closer sharp lines come into focus, creating a spectacular image. The images are first plotted out before being filled out with the thread, the sharp angles contrasting with the floating ends of the thread.  And despite the complexity of the lengthy process I try to capture a great feeling of energy and spontaneity, and, in some cases, humour” the artist says about her works.

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A restaurant in Japan’s Aichi Prefecture has become famous for serving arguably the world’s largest sushi dishes, up to 20 cm in diameter and nearly 6-kg-heavy.

The Umewaka Restaurant in Anjo City, Japan is unlike any other sushi restaurant in the world. Here the world-renown Japanese delicacy doesn’t come in bite-size servings, unless your name is Francisco Domingo Joaquim and you have the world’s largest mouth. At Umewaka, everything from the futomaki roll to the nigri zushi comes in super-sized servings no one man could hope to finish in one sitting.

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Numberism is a unique drawing technique invented in 2008, by Portland-based artist Sienna Morris. She uses numbers and scientific formulas to draw beautiful works of art.

27-year-old Sienna Morris has been a painter and designer for most of her life, but she truly found her passion in 2008, when inspired by her obsession with time and the unanswerable question of how much we have left, she started drawing pieces using only the numbers of the clock (1 – 12). She tried to capture beautiful moments of our lives and just how fleeting they are, reminding us all to appreciate the present, knowing we only have one shot to do so. Sienna’s early works were drawn in pencil, but as she started creating larger scale pieces, she moved on to brown micron pen (005), and later to scratchboard, where she etches the numbers using an exacto blade and finishes with an ink or watercolor wash.

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Every year the men of Kapal Village, in Bali, celebrate the rice harvest by throwing rice cakes at each other in one of the largest traditional food fights in the world.

Also known as the Aci Rah Pengangon ritual, the Tipat War is preceded by a collective prayer in the inner court of Kapal Village’s Pura Desa (the village temple). Here local men give thanks for the bountiful rice harvest and relax before the upcoming food massacre. After praying, dozens of bare-chested men start the first rice cake fight right in the middle of the temple courtyard. They are divided into two groups and throw tipat (cooked rice wrapped in a square shaped woven coconut leaf) at each other. This fight lasts for only five minutes and is a preliminary event to the full-scale war that is about to take place in the village street outside the temple.

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Gregory Da Silva, better known as Egg Man, is an African comedian artist and storyteller famous for wearing an outrageous had adorned with 1,000 eggs.

Born in Benin, West Africa, Da Silva studied computer science but decided to follow his artistic calling and went on to found a theater group called Voice of Spirit. They performed political, comic and poetic theater shows in Benin, but he made a name for himself after he became the Egg Man and started giving street performances wearing his ridiculously large headgear. When he first started performing in Cape Town, South Africa, Gregory’s art was so unique it got him arrested by the local police, who had to call their superior for advice on what to do with him. They were told to let him go, and he’s been performing in the city’s Green Market Square ever since.

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Three German friends set out to recreate one of the most impressive cars ever made – Mercedes 300 SLR ‘Uhlenhaut Coupe’ – out of pieces of scrap metal. It’s not drivable, but their replica is definitely easy on the eyes.

Armin Ciesielski, Peter Brakel and Walter Willer, three friends working at a German company called Giganten aus Stahl (Giants of Steel), decided to pay homage to one of the greatest cars ever made, by making a life-size model out of metal. The three sculptors sourced thousands of pieces of metal for their recycled masterpiece and spent seven months cutting and putting it together. Although Ciesielski claims he could rebuild any car out of crap metal, he admits this particular project was a rather difficult one because of all the intricate details and the work that went into making even the car’s engine identical to the original.

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Chicago-based artist Mary Ellen Croteau has created an astounding self-portrait using thousands of recycled plastic bottle caps.

Mary Ellen Croteau considers herself a political artist who uses her works to make statements and get people to look at things from a different perspective. This time she wanted viewers to acknowledge the presence of bottle caps in our everyday lives and realize how rarely they are recycled. Croteau was stacking plastic bottle caps and plastic pill bottles trying to create precarious towering columns inspired by the modernist works of Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi, when she noticed smaller caps fit inside the larger ones and created a whole new color combination. This got her thinking about Chuck Close’s art and the way he creates realistic portraits using just shapes of color.

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A Tata Nano, which usually sells for $3,000 has been converted into one of the most expensive cars in the world, after it’s been plastered with $4.6 million worth of gold and jewelry.

The Nano was a welcome innovation designed to bring affordable transportation to Indian masses, and though it may not have all the features we’ve grown accustomed to in the western world, the tiny car achieved its goal. But there is nothing affordable about Tata’s latest publicity stunt for the Nano – they’ve teamed up with Titan Industry-owned Goldplus jewelry chain and decided to create the most expensive Tata Nano ever. After covering it with kilograms of gold, silver and jewelry, the price of the world’s cheapest car went from $3,000 to $4.6 million. Now that’s quite a makeover.

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Like to torment your pet, do you? Than you’re going to get a kick out of Amelie Segarceanu’s extensive collection of cat and dog headgear.

Amelie, from Atlanta, Georgia, is a hat designer who apparently likes to play dress-up with animals. She creates funny headgear for cats and dogs and sells them to animal lovers on her Etsy shop, To Scarborough Fair, along with free tips on how to trick pets into wearing them. A relaxed mood and some tasty treats are always a good way to start dressing up your pet, and speaking in a warm, soothing voice doesn’t hurt either. Still, cats are known to be very sensitive and even though these silly hats are especially designed to make them more tolerable, some felines won’t be easily convinced. I’d say they don’t like being laughed at, but that’s just me.

Maybe Amelie should get together with Cat Prin, the famous cat tailor, and make some complete pet wardrobes.

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Self-educated artist Cristina Penescu creates wildlife-themed scratchboard artworks that look so real it’s hard to believe they’re not photographs.

It’s not often I get to cover the works of fellow Romanians, but I guess that’s what makes it so special. Cristina Penescu was born in 1988, in Bucharest, but her family relocated to California when she was only a year old. Her love for art and nature began during her early childhood and stuck with her through her youth, but it was only in August 2009, at the age of 20 that she started focusing on promoting her wildlife artworks and making a name for herself in the art community.

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If you’re serious about making some changes to your appearance but are to afraid to go under the knife, you might want to book a flight to Thailand and give Khemmikka Na Songkhla’s government-approved slapping techniques a try.

I know what you’re thinking – yet another breast-enlargement scam, I was inclined to think that as well, but after doing some research on Khemmikka Na Songkhla’s slapping treatments I found the Thai Health Ministry conducted a six-month study on them and acknowledged her technique as a viable alternative to plastic surgery. The 44 -year-old Bangkok beautician is the only person in the world who knows the secrets of breast, face and buttock slapping, which she inherited from her grandmother. Now, she’s selected planning to select 10 people to pass on her knowledge to, but not for free. Khemmikka is charging 10 million baht ($330,000) for the body-sculpting course, 8 million baht ($260,000) for the breast slapping course, and 5 million baht ($165,000) for the face slapping course. Four people have applied for her courses, so far.

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Amazingly Creative Paper Roll Portraits (Bit Rebels)

The 12 Most Poisonous Snakes on Earth (Environmental Graffiti)

Woman Has World’s Longest Fingernails (Metro)

Parents Allow 4-Year-Old to Drive Car (Weird Asia News)

Possibly the Worst Restaurant Menu Ever (Asia Obscura)

Panasonic Enters Mini Robots in Hawaii Triathlon (AFP)

French Cows Love Listening to Jazz (Youtube)

The Secret River Flowing Under London (Environmental Graffiti)

World’s First LEGO Greenhouse Unveiled in London (Inhabitat)

Would You Pay $60,000 for This Phone? (Huffington Post)

Savika is a rodeo-like sport practiced by men of the Betsileo ethnic group in Madagascar. It’s considered a rite of passage, and any man who dares dance with the angry zebus is considered a hero of the community.

No one remembers exactly when savika was invented, but everyone agrees it has been practiced by Betsileo men for centuries. The traditional sport is enjoyed by all members of the community, be they men or women, young or old, rich or poor, and is considered a unifying factor that brings everyone together. Savika is also a rite of passage for young boys who want to prove their manhood, and one of the best forms of courtship for single men. Apparently nothing impresses Betsileo women more than seeing their men dance with a zebu – a kind of domesticated cattle with long horns and a distinctive hump.

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Maya Pixelskaya is very passionate about art, video games and movies, so she decided to combine the three and create unique designs on her fingernails.

One of Maya’s fingernail paintings, a detailed tribute to classic video game Doom made the rounds online this week, after it went viral on social bookmarking site Reddit.com. Unfortunately there was no mention of the artist, but luckily a Redditor recognized her work and was kind enough to link to her website, so we could enjoy the rest of her awesome fingernail works of art.

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