Tokyo is now home to the world’s first hedgehog cafe, the latest in a long list of animal-themed establishments in the city. Located in the Roppongi entertainment district, the cafe is named ‘Harry’ – a play on the Japanese word for hedgehog.

Hedgehogs aren’t native to Japan, but they’ve long since been sold as pets in the nation that’s crazy for all things cute. At Harry, 1,000 yen ($9) can buy animal lovers an hour in the company of the prickly yet adorable creatures. The cafe is home to 20 to 30 friendly hedgehogs of different breeds that you can spend time with and even take home. A chalk-written blackboard lists all the available hedgehog breeds available for purchase and their prices by sex. So if customers find it hard to part with the adorable rodents once their hour is up, they have the option to give them a forever home.

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Getting a cold drink might seem like the perfect way to relax after a long, hot summer day, but for most Chinese the opposite is true. They routinely consume hot beverages with their meals and all through the day irrespective of the weather. So don’t be surprised if on a balmy day, you see a Chinese person sipping hot water from a thermos!

While the western world might find this bizarre, the Chinese actually think that the Western habit of chugging ice-cold water is very strange. The idea of consuming anything at room temperature or below is, according to them, bad for your health. “In the big family I was brought up in, no one would dare to pour even room temperature water,” journalist Nicole Liu writes for the LA Times. “Doing so would risk a chorus of criticism, with parents, aunts, cousins, and grandparents chastising you almost simultaneously: ‘Cold water gives you cramps!’”

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Matthew Brinton, a beggar in England’s Cornwall county, has earned the wrath of locals after he was spotted getting into an Audi TT in a parking lot near Bank Street. Brinton is a familiar face in the area, having begged there for several years. Footage of him getting into the $70,000 luxury car was uploaded on Facebook, and Brinton has been receiving death threats ever since.

The 35-year-old beggar, who lives with a friend, claims to have received the car as inheritance from his grandmother. He also says that the Audi has since been stolen, and he’s now fearing for his life. “I have not seen any of the social media posts because I do not have access to the internet but according to the police I’ve had lots of death threats,” he said. “People are assuming too much and I’m getting a lot of abuse. This has been going on for years.”

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Three decades after locking eyes with the woman of his dreams, a British man is finally trying to track her down. It was in 1986 that Vernon Burton briefly glanced at a beautiful woman while traveling on a double-decker bus in the New Forest area of southern England. Most people would forget such a fleeting encounter, but Burton never quite managed to put the mystery woman out of his mind and is now looking for her everywhere.

Vernon, aged 62, was born and grew up in Hythe, a small town on the south coast of Kent. He moved to Canada in the 1970s for work but briefly returned to the UK in 1986 for a holiday. He boarded the top deck of a Solent Blue Line bus from Mousehole Lane to Southampton city center, which is when he made eye contact with a woman on the top deck of another bus headed in the opposite direction.

“For some reason I looked back at that other bus and saw a woman looking back at me,” Vernon recalled. “I came over all light-headed, my stomach felt like it had butterflies and my legs started to shake. The buses started to pull away and I just had to reach my hand out to try not to let her go. To my surprise, she did the same.”

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The Catholic Diocese of Salford, in North West England, has come up with a unique initiative to reach out to the masses – a church on wheels. Aptly named the ‘Mercy Bus’, it’s an actual double-decker bus that will tour Greater Manchester and Lancashire throughout Lent, offering people sermons, blessings, and Confession.

Father Frankie Mulgrew, the brains behind the mission, revealed that Pope Francis was his inspiration when he came up with the idea last summer. The Bishop of Salford, John Arnold, was looking for innovative ideas while making plans for the Year of Mercy. Fr. Frankie thought it would be great to have holy doors all over the diocese, and a mobile holy door that would move around the city. The idea kept evolving until, eventually, the Mercy Bus was born.

“We were inspired by the Pope who, when he was a cardinal in Argentina, would celebrate open-air Masses in the poorest areas of his diocese,” Fr Frankie said.

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From the outside, this house in Newport, Oregon, looks pretty ordinary, with yellowed brick walls, white cladding, and a two-car garage. But you’ll be surprised to learn that inside it’s actually an opulent Renaissance-era palace complete with hand-carved doors, stained-glass windows, and centuries-old antique decor.

The unique house belongs to a member of the British nobility – the Right and Honorable Dowager Countess of Shannon, Almine Barton – apparently has excellent reason for maintaining the striking contrast between the spectacular interior and rather drab exterior – taxes.

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Money might not grow on trees, but it seems that furniture does! Gavin Munro, a UK-based designer, has come up with a brilliant alternative to chopping beautiful trees and converting them into furniture. He simply molds young saplings to take the shape of any piece of furniture he wants. Once matured, the trees are ready to be harvested and used with no cutting, sawing, or assembling required.

Munro, who runs a company called ‘Full Grown’, said he wants to “rethink our relationship with trees and time.” His idea is to get rid of environmentally unfriendly practices involved in the mass manufacture of furniture, and replace it with a much easier process.

“When you look at it from a manufacturing point of view and from a design point of view, it actually makes total sense. Why would you grow trees, chop them down with all the faff?” he questioned. “Why don’t you just grow the shape you want and it is eminently scalable? You can make thousands of these in the same way as you can make 10, but each one is unique.”

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There’s a special football league in England dedicated to helping men keep up their weight-loss resolutions each year. Aptly named ‘Man v Fat’, the league caters exclusively to overweight men with a body-mass index (BMI) of 30 or above. Teams win points for matches won, as well as pounds lost during the 14-week competition.

Based in Solihull, in the West Midlands, the league was started two years ago by 37-year-old Andrew Shanahan. Andrew said he came up with the idea because he was sick of traditional weight-loss classes filled with women. “There was no help for me, and all the classes seemed tailored to women’s needs. I remember going to a Weight Watchers meeting and I was the only guy there. It was embarrassing and I was so out of my depth. The leader was talking about when you’re on your period you can go up or down in weight and I just thought, that’s not my issue. That’s really not what’s affecting me.”

“I started Man v Fat because I was morbidly obese and experienced first-hand the difficulties men face during weight loss,” he said. “I was 17 stone in 2013 and now I’m just over 12 stone, but I was shocked at how little support blokes get for weight loss.”

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For most people, the cinema experience is simply incomplete without a bag of crunchy popcorn, but believe it or not, there’s actually a guy trying to get popcorn banned in movie theaters.

Mike Shotton, from Newcastle, England, says that he’s never been able to enjoy himself at the theater because his experience is always ruined by having to put up with people chomping on popcorn. His patience finally snapped when he went to watch the newly released Star Wars movie as he just couldn’t get over children rustling and chowing down on popcorn.

“The noise is something that’s always bothered me, ever since I was a little kid,” Shotton said. “I’m the kind of person that if I hear something in the background, I focus on that until that’s all I can hear. But it was the popcorn noise ruining Star Wars that really did it for me. I was really looking forward to that film. I couldn’t believe the amount of noise during the film – it completely ruined it for me.”

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In a bid to de-stress and break free from the tensions of daily life, Japanese students and professionals are taking to a bizarre trend called ‘Zentai’. It’s a community consisting of people of all ages and walks of life, donning full-body lycra suits and meeting on internet forums, in clubs, at barbecue parties, and sometimes just on the street.

It’s ironical, but the tight suits are actually able to help stressed individuals loosen up, because such behavior is probably frowned upon in genteel circles. Many of the Zentai perceive the trend as a welcome break from the pressures of living in Japanese society that values conformity to tradition over individual desires.

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In search of a simpler life, a corporate honcho from Australia decided to give up his career and become a caveman. But not before spending an eye-watering £160,000 ($230,848) to renovate a 250-million-year-old cave in England to suit his tastes!

Angelo Mastropietro, 38, was inspired to make the change after he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2007. The condition led him to become temporarily paralyzed, and he spent that time reflecting on the things that really mattered to him.

“My life before I became a caveman was really quite different,” the former recruitment boss said. “Like most people I had aspirations to work in the corporate world. I had a lapse that left me essentially paralysed, which was a catalyst to review where I was, where I was going with my lifestyle. I wanted to be in a place where I had a happier and healthier life.”

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Parents in Naples, Florida, can no rely on a new tool to teach their misbehaving children a lesson – a creepy 65-year-old clown called Wrinkles.

Sporting a scary clown mask, a polka dot onesie and black rubber gloves, Wrinkles is definitely an unnerving sight, which is exactly what he is going for and what makes him so popular. In the few years since he adopted this creepy persona, the 65-year-old man hiding behind the gloomy mask has carved out a niche for himself, either attending birthdays, bar mitzvahs, funerals or whatever kind of events that require the presence of a spooky clown with hollowed out black eyes. And business is good, as Wrinkles told local reporters that he is booked through January.

One of Wrinkles’ latest endeavors involves scaring misbehaving children out of their minds.  He was recently hired by a mother to teach her trouble-making 12-year-old son a lesson. “He was scared of clowns and I showed up across the street from him at the bus stop and he just started crying in front of his friends and ran home,” the creepy-looking character said. “His mother called back a few days later and said ‘Thank you!’ Now when he acts bad, she just has to ask him: ‘Do you want Wrinkles to come back?’ ”

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Not everyone has access to the beautiful autumn foliage that grows in the American Northeast. Which is why there’s a legitimate business that sells three perfectly preserved New England autumn leaves for about $20!

The idea belongs to Boston entrepreneur Kyle Waring, known for trying to ‘Ship Snow’ to warmer places earlier this year. Kyle’s latest seasonal venture is called ‘Ship Foliage’, which according to his website, preserves and ships “gorgeous fall foliage” across the US. 

“All leaves are collected from New England, and undergo a unique preservation process,” the website adds, revealing that their foliage experts (Waring, his wife, and their two Italian greyhounds) hike all over the Northeast in search of the perfect leaves. This is called the collection phase, during which each leaf is hand selected and branded ‘Grade A’ foliage. They venture out every weekend around Hamilton and Manchester-by-the-Sea, and at scenic spots like Lincoln, Tuckerman Ravine on Mt. Washington, and Lake Winnipesaukee.

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Kitten Von Mew, a burlesque dancer from Warwickshire, England, is so in love with the 1940’s era that she has modeled her entire life around it. Along with her husband Richard, she’s spent thousands of pounds redecorating their home with authentic furniture and decor from the ’30s and ’40s. Her wardrobe is filled with hundreds of vintage outfits, retro shoes, vintage gloves, hats, and other accessories.

Born Michelle, Kitten legally changed her name and dedicated her life to the ’40s about 15 years ago. Since then, she’s spent several hours each morning doing her hair in perfect victory rolls and carefully dressing herself in retro outfits. She inherited authentic furniture from her grandparents and combed through many flea markets to find even more 1940’s style decorations. “I love everything about the 1940s – the fashion, the music, the décor – I find it totally captivating,” she said.

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Stan Herd, a Kansas-based landscape artist, recently completed his very own museum-worthy masterpiece. Only, it can’t be moved because it’s actually made out of plants growing in a field!

The 1.2-acre crop art ‘painting’, located on field near Minneapolis, is a replica of Van Gogh’s 1889 masterpiece ‘Olive Trees’. Herd was commissioned to create it by the Minneapolis Institute of Art, where the Van Gogh original currently hangs. It took him six long months of digging, planting, and mowing a giant grass field before the ‘earthwork’ was finally complete on September 11. It is best viewed from high above, especially if you happen to be flying in to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

“When you’re on ground level you can’t tell what the cuts even look like, but when you get up there you can see the patterns,” said Rick King, board member of the Minneapolis Museum and the Metropolitan Airports Commission. “If you are landing from the southeast and flying northwest, it will be on your left-hand side as you approach the airport.”   

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