Cats are famous for their relaxing effect on people, but in a country like Japan, where space is an issue, having a pet is problematic. That’s when cat cafes come into play.

For a modest fee of between $5 and $8 Japanese animal lovers can enjoy their usual coffee surrounded by dozens of playful cats. Spending an hour in the company of cats can work wonders on the human mind, and when you’re as stressed as Japanese business-men, even more so. Many of them can’t fit a household pet into their busy schedules, so they opt for a relaxing one-hour break in the company of purring felines.

It might seem like an oddity to us, but ever since the first cat cafe opened in 2004, in Osaka, this sort of establishment has become mainstream in Japan. While you can pet the cats and pay with them, you must obey a very simple set of rules regarding hygiene. In order to prevent infection OF THE CATS, customers have to wear disposable socks and slippers, as well as wash their hands with antiseptic.

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You might think you have mad mountain-climbing skills, but nature’s got you beat. I don’t know how they do it, but these mountain goats climb on to the most precarious places.

Living in mountainous regions around North America, mountain goats can be found at altitudes of up to 13,000 feet, climbing cliffs all day long, in search of food. Thanks to their cloven hooves, each featuring two widely-spaced toes that provide great balance, mountain goats can challenge any seasoned climber and probably best him.

Their double-layered, thick white coats provide camouflage in snowy settings, but the altitude they can reach provides enough protection from most predators. And if they happen to run into trouble, they can jump 12 feet in one leap, and reach a safe point. Just check out the pics to get an idea of their climbing capabilities.

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Well, it looks like a giant hamster, but it’s actually a capybara, the largest rodent on the planet, and it makes a great pet,apparently.

Melanie Typaldos, from Buda, Texas first came into contact with a capybara on a trip in Venezuela. Her daughter Coral fell in love with them the moment she got to pick one up and hold it in her arms. The moment they returned home, Melanie began searching for a capybara as a pet. She found 11-day-old Caplin Rous on a rare animal farm in Texas and it instantly became a member of their family.

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If you truly believe great things come in small packages, then you’ll want to use the World’s Smallest Postal Service to surprise your better half, on Valentine’s Day.

The World’s Smallest Postal Service was created by San-Francisco-based postmistress Lea Redmond, who decided to put the crazy idea into practice as soon as it popped into her head. She just strapped her small desk to her back, hopped on her bicycle and set-up shop in one of the local cafes. Since then she’s come to realize many other people are simply charmed by her miniature postal service.

At the World’s Smallest Postal Service, your letters are written in tiny letters, carefully wrapped and sealed with a miniature was-stamp bearing the sender’s initial. To make sure the tiny messages don’t get lost in the traditional mail, they are packed in transparent envelopes equipped with a magnifying glass for identifying the mailing address.

For Valentine’s Day the mailing rates at the World’s Smallest Postal Service are: $8 plus shipping for letters, and $10 plus shipping for small packages containing an antique china button and a note saying ” You are as cute as a…”

More info on how to order at leafcutterdesigns.

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The chandeliers designed by Dutch artist Hans van Bentem are anything but ordinary, taking all kinds of weird shapes, like skulls, revolvers or airplanes. But that’s exactly what makes the special.

Everyone who has set eyes on van Bentem’s glittering masterpieces, from celebrities to members of royal families, have fallen in love with them. Madanna ordered a revolver-shaped crystal chandelier designed by Hans van Bentem, to be hung somewhere in her house.

The artist claims he finds inspiration for his work in everything around him, from culture, to history or the daily news. Thus he manages to take classic crystal chandeliers and, while maintaining their beauty, transforms them into something “contemporary and meaningful.”

The smallest of Hans van Bentem’s chandeliers costs around $23,500, but the larger custom models reach the hundreds-of-thousands level. Every one of them is hand-crafted by Czech chandelier-makers, from diamond-shaped crystal beads, according to van Bentem’s design.

Photos by HANS VAN BENTEM/CATERS NEWS

via Telegraph.co.uk

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Scantily clad models showed up at malls, bus stations and on the streets of Brazil, as part of the celebrations for Brazilian Underwear Day.

The event took place on Tuesday, and was organized by Brazilian fashion website Finissimo. The models, both male and female, showed off their underwear in the most crowded places, to attract as many views as possible.

I know it sounds meaningless, but there’s more to Underwear Day, than beautiful models and plain fun. Style consultant Maria Thereza Laudares explains the aim of this national event: “The aim of the National Underwear Day is to make people recognize the importance of these garments left unseen, but which are the first to be put on and the last to be taken off.”

She’s got a point there, and since this is the fourth edition of Brazilian Underwear Day, people seem to be responding positively.

Photos by REUTERS via Daylife

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Cobra Gold is the largest multi-nation military exercise in the world, where soldiers from six nations learn how to deal with critical situations.

In 2010 the Cobra Gold military exercises are being held in Thailand, and this was apparently a chance for US soldiers to get acquainted with Thai delicacies. During a survival exercise at an army camp in Chon Buri Province, soldiers had to eat cooked scorpions and lizards, as well as drink that legendary wonder cure, cobra blood.

In some Asian cultures, snake blood is believed to enhance male potency and can be found in panacea stores. Now, why would Thai masters want to feed cobra blood to soldiers? After all, that’s not the gun they should be using, if you know what I mean…

Photos by REUTERS via Daylife

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French designer and architect Paul Coudamy has created a series of 25 limited edition sneakers, made out of wood and named Woodwalk.

The Woodwalk wooden sneakers were all designed on the computer, but were hand-sculpted from real wood. Each pair has its own unique design and looks good enough to wear. The shoes were all created for sports company K-Swiss.

Paul Coudamy’s Woodwalk sneakers are not exactly new, they were created back in 2008, but the awesome sculpting work make them hip even two years later.

Photos by Benjamin Boccas

DesignBoom via bookofjoe

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A former dockyard worker, Motoi Yamamoto is now one of Japan’s most talented artists, known all over the world for his intricate artworks, made of salt.

His working with this unusual medium was caused by the death of his younger sister, back in 1994. Mr. Yamamoto says that by working with free-form salt he is able to touch precious memories from the time his sister was alive, something he just can’t do by simply looking at pictures or reading a diary.

Some of his most amazing works are the intricate salt labyrinths. When he’s creating them, Motoi Yamamoto feels like he is following a trace of his memory that he can only reach when the work is completed. He stands in a cross-leg position for hours-on0end carefully laying the lines of salt, until he reaches the essential point in his memories.

Salt plays an important role in many cultures Like Hinduism or Japanese Shinto. Motoi Yamamoto uses salt as a life-giving substance, so after his art installations are no longer exhibited, he insists the salt be thrown back into the ocean so it can continue its path.

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Wearing nothing but swimsuits and summer apparel, contestants conquered the snowy slopes, during a fun carnival held in the Shanyang Forest Park, China.

Skiing is fun (Or so I’m told) but sliding down the slope and climbing back up again, can only be exciting for so long. So to spice things up a little, the people at Forest Park organized a fun winter carnival where participants would wear swimsuits and summer clothes.

As you can see in the photos, it was a pretty big hit that attracted a hefty number of skiing (and probably swimming) enthusiasts.

Photos by Zhao Jingdong/Xinhua

via Sina

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Chayne Hultgren, an Australian street-performer who goes by the name of Space Cowboy managed to swallow 18 sharp swords in one gulp.

31-year-old Chayne has been practicing the art of sword-swallowing since he was just 16 years old. Back then he started out by swallowing a garden hose, which he still uses as practice for the more dangerous stunts. After a few years of swallowing hoses, he finally moved on to steel swords.

According to the Space Cowboy himself, sword-swallowing is not as dangerous as it looks, if you know how to do it. It takes years of practice, meditation and knowing your own body. He says it took a while before learning how not to gag and controlling his internal organs.

The Space Cowboy Hultgren entertains Sydney passers-by for a living, swallowing swords all day long, but this time it was special. The crowd gathered near Sydney Harbor witnessed a new Guinness Record being set, as our hero slipped 18 swords down his throat, and towards the stomach, missing the heart by less than an inch.

The previous record of 17 swords, each of them 2 feet 4 inches long, was set by the same Chayne Hultgren.

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One of the most original and well-executed artworks I’ve seen lately, Joana Vasconcelos “Marylin” will be auctioned off on Tuesday, at Christie’s, in London.

Made out of hundreds of stainless steel pans and covers, Marylin was inspired by the high-heel shoes worn by Marylin Monroe in the infamous clip from “The Seven Year Itch”, when the blond bombshell walks over an air-vent.

Through her stainless steel work of art, Joana Vasconcelos points out that modern-day women are expected to look beautiful in public, and do all the work around the house. Despite the seemingly feminist message, Ms. Vasconcelos is actually an advocate for equal human rights.

The 13ft by 9.8ft stainless steel pan Marylin is expected to sell for a sum between $155,000 and $233,550.

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Unless you live in Detroit, you might not have heard about the Ice House Project, but it has really been the talk of the town for the last couple of weeks.

Architect Matthew Radune and photographer Gregory Holm, both living in New York, decided it would be a great idea to create an ice-covered home as an art installation. The idea came to Matthew when he laid eyes on a photograph of a house wrapped in a frozen waterfall.

And what better place for their artistic endeavor than Detroit, a city full of abandoned and foreclosed houses. They managed to convince Michigan Land Bank to let them borrow the abandoned house at 3926 McClellan. The building was scheduled for demolition, but Radune and Holm got it into a program that deconstructs and recycles materials. They also agreed to pay back taxes on a foreclosed house, so a single mother and her family could have a home. This was their gift to Detroit for allowing them to go on with their project.

Day and night the two watched over the house, constantly and stubbornly fighting Mother Nature, who alternated cold days with sunny ones that almost melted their Ice House. The whole thing cost around $15,000, most of which was raised through a donations website. This included the project licenses, the city water and hiring the police to cordon off the street for a few hours. The rest was just watching water ice-up and making shore passers by didn’t injure themselves on the ice.

On Saturday, Gregory Holm finally got the photo he wanted from the Detroit Ice House project, and they’ve stopped spraying it with water. But you can still admire it for a few days, until the sun melts it.

via

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If you’re a fan of horror, monster and gore, then you are about to become a big fan of Undead Ed’s work.

There is a lot of disturbing stuff in Ed’s grave of goodies, on Etsy, but if you want to show the world what a hardcore horror fan you are, these freakish rings and bracelets are just what you’re looking for. They’re bloody, creepy, scary, in one word: perfect!

And if you want your toddler to share this disturbing theme, take a look at the cyclops stroller.

via SuperPunch

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Two workers of Travancore Cocotuft Ltd. have spent months creating the world’s longest doormat hand-woven from coconut coir.

The giant mat is just 1.2 meters wide and 30 mm thick, but has a length of 101.6 meters and weighs 999 kg. Impressive numbers, but the most impressive thing about this mat is that it was handmade by just two workers. They spent 111 man days, over a period of 4 months, inserting 4,70,000 coir tufts between alternate wefts of coir yarn.

Although Guinness Book of Records is already considering declaring it the world’s longest hand-woven doormat, it serves a higher purpose. Cocotuft Chief Executive Officer P. Mahadevan says it was created to emphasize the miserable conditions of workers in the coir industry, who are paid much less than the minimum wage fixed by the Indian Government.

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