Hundreds of Japanese grown-men wrestle each other in the mud water of Mimusubi shrine in Yotsukaido, a settlement near Tokyo. Every year on February 25 these men take part in this strange yet fun looking rite, believed to bring good harvest for the whole year and good health for babies.
Meet Jocelyn Wildenstein, also known as the The Lion Queen, The Cat Woman or The Bride of Wildenstein. She was born in 1940 and in a crazy attempt to stay young forever she is said to have spent around $4.000.000 on plastic surgery. Sadly that only brought her the title of world’s scariest celebrity, from a plastic surgery website, in 2004.
It’s pretty sad when you think about it, if I were her, I’d rather look like a nice old lady rather than as a doll-faced monster. Anyway her boyfriend seems to like her…I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that she’s rich!
This impressive underwater vehicle was built by a man living in St-Petersburg, Russia. It is officially registered as the smallest submarine in the country and what is most impressive is that it can travel underwater from St-Petersburg to Helsinky and back, without having to make any stops.
This one man, home-made submarine reaches a top-speed of four knots. Not bad!
I have no problems looking at pictures depicting animal moms breastfeeding and literally taking in babies of different species, I even find them very sweet. But for some reason, looking at these photos of women breastfeeding various animals makes me very nauseous, it’s just not natural, no matter what continent your from. Read More »
Mother nature sure loves to play tricks on us, doesn’t she? I mean it’s not every day you see a dog breastfeeding a piglet, but today is definitely one of those days. Look at the dog protecting it and feeding it like one of her own, I guess motherhood doesn’t always care about raise.
So what you see in these photos is practically what you get if you decide to marry in some Ethiopian tribes, a woman with a huge round circle through her lower lip and no lower front teeth…That’s right, in order for her to be able to wear that thing, 2 or sometimes all four lower front teeth are yanked out.
Now I’ve always supported cultural diversity, but this and what they do at Phuket Vegetarian Festival, just make me sick. I wouldn’t go out there and try to impose my culture on them but still…I can’t agree with I’m seeing either. I wonder how they kiss in Ethiopia? Even with that thing off, it’s got to be something nasty! Read More »
Set in Yellowstone National Park in the US, Morning Glory Pool is one of our planet’s many natural wonders. It is one of the park’s many hot springs and it was named in 1880, due to its resemblance to the well-known flower. The pool used to be completely blue, but human kind had to screw things up, as it always does, and because of the debris that’s been thrown in along the years, part of the vent has been clogged. That caused the temperature of the water to decrease, allowing bacteria to settle in, and that’s how the yellow fringe was formed. I’m not saying it’s less beautiful now but, in recent years the bacteria has started moving more and more towards the center of the pool and if the vandalism doesn’t stop, we might soon admire Morning Glory Pool only in photos…
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Miguel Hermoso Cuesta/Wikimedia Commons
Before you go laying the “this is photoshoped” line on me, do a little search on the web and convince yourself it is real. It’s actually one of the most well-known diving places in the world, set in Palau. Actually if any of you watched Survivor Palau, you might remember this as one of the sights.
Jellyfish Lake was once connected to the waters of the Pacific ocean, but is now completely isolated. The large population of jellyfish living here was believed to be missing those stinging cells, also known as nemastocysts, but it turns out they do have them, only they’re really tiny. That’s why it’s perfectly ok for people to swim so close to the jellyfish, our tissue doesn’t feel the sting.
This is definitely one of the “must-go before I die” places, right up there with Devil’s Pool and Morning Glory Pool!
Photo: tata_aka_T/Flickr
Photo: Shinji/Flickr
Until these images caught my eye a few days ago, I didn’t even know what a tension ceiling did exactly. Of course I was never really interested in finding out, but now that I did, I’m actually thinking of getting one. Floods can be really nasty, and all that work to repair a flooded ceiling can be really exhausting so why bother, I’d rather have a balloon as a ceiling doing all the work. Take a look, it really works!
How would you feel if you were hanging on a metal arm atop of the eighth-tallest building in the world, the Stratosphere hotel in Las Vegas? I know I’d be terrified, but if you’re one of those thrill seekers that will gladly swim in Devil’s Pool, you might like this.
The X-Scream is, according to many, the ultimate fun ride in the world. Those willing to risk a heart attack are loaded in a cart and hoisted high into the air before the track plunges into a 30 degree angle. Just when it reaches 30mph, the carts comes to a full stop at the end of the track, leaving nothing but 300meters of air between passengers and the ground…now that I don’t want to try! I don’t care about their fancy security measures, that include titanium restraint bars and a manual return mechanism in case of power failure, I ‘m just not getting on that thing!
The geoduck or gooyduck is the largest species of clams on the face of the earth. The clam itself is 15 to 20 cm long, which is pretty big but the really impressive part is its long siphon that often reaches one meter in length. it weighs between 0.5 and 1.5 kilograms, but there have been stories about 7.5 kg heavy gooyducks.
The incredible aspect of the gooeyduck isn’t only limited to its size, but also to its lifespan. It has a life expectancy of 146 years, which makes it one of the longest-living organisms in the animal reign.
As repulsive as they look (personal opinion) geoducks are a delicacy in China and Japan, where they are often eaten raw, sashimi style.
But before you think about getting one for your special someone, there are a few things you should know. First of all the Titan Arum‘s flowering stalk reaches a height of 3 meters and has a diameter of over a meter, so it’s going to be pretty hard to carry. And second of all and, most importantly, it reeks like a decomposing dead body…that’s why it’s sometimes known as “the corpse flower”
It’s native to the rainforests of central Sumatra, Indonesia and it rarely blooms in captivity, so when that actually happens it’s a pretty big deal. Haven’t seen one up close yet, but considering the smell, I consider myself lucky.
The Karni Mata Hindu temple was built by Maharajah Ganga Singh in the early 1900s as a tribute to the rat goddess, Karni Mata and the most intriguing aspect of it, is that it’s home for over 20.000 worshiped rats.
The legend behind this temple is that Karni Mata, a matriarch from the 14th century was a reincarnation of Durga, the goddess of power and victory. at one point one of her clansmen’s child died and she tried to bring it back to life only to be told by Yama, the god of death that he had already reincarnated as a rat. Karni Mata struck a deal with Tama, that all her dead clansmen would reincarnate as rats, until they were ready to be born again into the tribe.
It’s a nice story but I can’t stop thinking about how that place must smell…
Ivrea is a small town, about 40 minutes north of Turin, Italy. It isn’t a very animated settlement, but once a year, during the Orange Battle Carnival, Ivrea comes to life. the battle is an allegoric representation of the medieval insurrection of 1194, against the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick of Swabia. Masked, armored men throw oranges at the crowd who in turn throw them back at them, until the streets are covered by a carpet of squashed oranges that is sometimes even 30 cm thick…
As much fun as I’m sure this carnival is I have to wonder if those oranges, like the bananas in the banana wall, would have been more appreciated by some starving children in a third world country. But hey, that’s just me…
Ariana Page is a very…unique artist, due to the fact that she suffers from a condition known as dermatographia (the immune system exhibits hypersensitivity, via skin, that releases excessive amounts of histamine, causing capillaries to dilate and welts to appear (lasting about thirty minutes) when the skin’s surface is lightly scratched). She draws various patterns on her body and then takes pictures of herself, thus works of art are born.
