The town of Epecuen, in the Argentinian farmlands southwest of Buenos Aires, was once a bustling lakeside resort with a population of over 5,000. Over a quarter of a century ago it was flooded by the waters of a nearby lake and, until recently, it remained submerged. Now it’s finally come back up for air.

Established in 1920 along the shore of Lake Epecuen, the popular tourist destination played host to at least 20,000 visitors every season. Its main attraction was the saltwater lake, which contained 10 times more salt than the ocean. According to local legend, the lake is so salty because it was formed by the tears of a great Chief crying for the pain of his beloved. The waters of the lake were believed to cure depression, rheumatism, skin diseases, anemia, and even diabetes.

Thousands of visitors would arrive by train from the nation’s capital to relax in the town’s saltwater baths and spas. Tourists, mainly from Buenos Aires’ large Jewish community, enjoyed the floating water because it reminded them of the Dead Sea in Israel. The town had almost 300 thriving businesses – including guesthouses, lodges, hotels and other establishments centered around tourist trade.

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The video tour of a Shell Gas Station toilet in the Philippines is making waves on the internet – it has gone viral with over 4 million views on YouTube and nearly 30,000 likes on Facebook. The video was made by Canadian model and TV personality Jason Godfrey; it shows the inside of a pristine toilet that’s so amazing, you’ll probably never want to leave it!

The gas station, located in Tagbilaran City, Bohol, is primarily meant to attract travelers and tourists. In addition to sparkling clean toilets, the restroom also has a very homey ambiance, with lovely paintings adorning the walls, bookshelves that stock reading material to peruse while using the loo, furnished wood and other beautiful decorations. It’s unlike any public toilet I’ve ever been too, that’s for sure.

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Contrary to what its name suggests, ‘Tokyo Cotton Village’ isn’t a rural settlement of cotton farmers, but a bar located in the heart of Japan’s capital city, in Setagaya Ward. The one-of-a-kind establishment allows its patrons to experience spinning cotton, which is supposedly a relaxing activity.

The service is available for free to anyone who orders a drink – they get to enjoy spinning threads of wamen, a type of cotton that’s cultivated in Japan. The airy texture of wamen is believed to calm the mind and relax the body. The concept is a big hit with customers, many of whom visit the bar several times a week.

“Getting absorbed in [spinning threads] lets me forget bad things that happened at work,” said Yoshiko Jimura, 32, who visits at least twice a week. “This is a precious time for me to change my mood.”

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True to its name, Colorado restaurant ‘Shooters’ is a pro-guns type of place – the waitresses are all packing heat and patrons are encouraged to do the same! Incidentally, the restaurant is located in a town called Rifle, where openly carrying guns in public is illegal.

A sign on the front door of the restaurant reads: “Guns are welcome on premises. Please keep all weapons holstered, unless the need arises. In such cases, judicious marksmanship is appreciated.” So when waitresses at Shooters take an order, they not only carry a pad and pen, but also loaded handguns holstered around their waist, Wild West Style.

According to Shooters owner Lauren Boebert, the restaurant is simply allowing customers and employees to exercise their constitutional right to bear arms. “We encourage it, and the customers love that they can come here and express their rights,” said Boebert. “This country was founded on our freedom. People can come in carrying their gun, and they can pray over their food.”

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Little is known to the world about Iraq’s Tigris-Euphrates marshlands – an area that, at one time, covered over 9,000 square miles – bigger than Venice’s lagoon and Florida’s Everglades combined. The marshland was inhabited continuously for over 5,000 years and at its peak, it was home to half-a-million ‘Marsh Arabs’ or ‘Ma’dan’.

The Ma’dan consisted of several tribes that had developed a beautiful, eco-friendly culture that centered on the marshes’ natural resources. One of the truly admirable aspects of their lifestyle was their beautifully elaborate dwellings – floating houses made entirely out of reeds that were harvested from the open water.

These architectural wonders, strongly reminiscent of the ‘casoni’ of the Venetian fishermen, were called ‘mudhif’. They were temporary structures built of reeds in only three days, without the use of nails or wood. Even the islands that the houses would rest on were made of complicated arrangements of mud and rushes.

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Ifrane is a small town and ski resort in Morocco, famous for its European style and its similarity to the tourist haven of Switzerland. Developed by the French in the 1930s, Ifrane is so reminiscent of the Swiss Alps that it is fondly referred to as ‘Africa’s Little Switzerland’.

The town is located at an altitude of 5,460 feet above sea level in the Middle Atlas region. Its neat red-roofed houses, blooming flower beds, lake-studded parks, and snowbound winters present a huge contrast to Morocco’s narrow, maze like streets and old, earth-colored buildings. It is truly a wonder that such lush greenery, cedar and oak forests, and pasturelands can even exist in the midst of the hot and dry climate of the region.

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Cool Patch Pumpkins corn maze, in Dixon, California, is officially the biggest corn maze in the world. The gigantic 63-acre Halloween attraction is the creation of brothers Matt and Mark Cooley, who personally hand-cut five miles of winding paths, twists, turns and loops. This year, the maze finally broke the Guinness Record for the world’s largest maze.

The maze might appear easy to navigate when you first set foot in it, but visitors soon realize it is far more complicated than they originally thought. Believe it or not, a few visitors have actually resorted to calling 911 for help! “When it’s dark, all you see is corn,” Matt said. “A lot of people have been telling us that it has taken them a couple of hours to get through the corn.”

“There’s a concern; there’s a bit of fear involved,” said Deputy Daryl Snedeker from the Solano County Sheriff’s department. “I think they are overwhelmed. You can get a little worked up when you can’t get out of a place and everything looks the same. We don’t laugh, it’s not a comedy to us, and our dispatchers have a very serious job, and they take every call to 911 seriously.”

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If you’ve ever fantasized about living at Hogwarts Castle (as all Potterheads do), then here’s some good news for you. The Georgian House hotel in London is offering its guests a Harry Potter Hotel Package, with Hogwarts-themed bedrooms that are designed to resemble Harry’s fictional dorm room.

The Gregorian House is a four-star hotel built in 1851 and still run by the descendants of the original owners. While the hotel traditionally offers Victoria Classic and Belgravia Boutique rooms, they’ve decided to take full advantage of the renewed worldwide interest in Harry Potter, ever since J K Rowling released a new Harry Potter story on her website, Pottermore.

Aptly named ‘The Georgian House’s Wizard Chambers’, the two transformed rooms contain everything that a would-be wizard might need – four-poster beds, potion bottles, cauldrons, spell books, and even battered trunks. The interiors are done up with ‘Hogwartsian’ accents, perfectly capturing the essence of the Potter universe.

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Somewhere in the Mojave Desert’s El Paso range there is a strange tunnel that traverses 2,087 feet of solid rock up in Copper Mountain. What’s strange is that it doesn’t lead to anywhere special. It simply emerges on the high ledge, in the middle of nowhere. The only reason it exists is because an eccentric man named William Henry ‘Burro’ Schmidt – a.k.a. the human mole – wanted it there.

Although he spent 32 years of his life single-handedly digging a half-mile long tunnel through a solid granite mountain, he never talked much about it. When questioned about his bizarre project, he simply replied that it was a shortcut. To where, no one really knows.

Schmidt first migrated to the California desert from Rhode Island in the late 19th century, in order to improve his health. He is believed to have started digging the tunnel in 1902, near the site where he had staked a mining claim. He carried out the excavation using picks, hammers, hand drills and explosives, and removed rubble with a wheelbarrow. At times, he even carried it out on his back. Eventually, he installed iron tracks and a mine car to transport debris.

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Unlike most other taxi services, the Japanese Turtle Taxi caters to people who aren’t really in a hurry and prefer a leisurely ride. Surprisingly, there are many who enjoy a service that is deliberately slow – the unique taxi has been steadily growing in popularity ever since it started in December 2013.

The taxi service was created by the Sanwa Kotsu Group – they’ve designated 10 of their 500 cabs in Yokohama as ‘turtle taxis’, and specifically trained cab drivers to accelerate and decelerate as gently as possible. They’ve also been told to manage the ‘centrifugal forces’, to avoid making sharp turns.

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Imagine your worst nightmares, the scariest movies you’ve ever seen, and the most horrifying haunted houses you’ve been to. Put them all together, and you’re still not going to come close to the experience at McKamey Manor in San Diego, California. The place is so gut-wrenchingly terrifying that it can make the toughest of people cry out for their mommies.

The official McKamey Manor website describes the place as the ‘world’s only true interactive 4 to 7 hour extreme haunt experience’. “Be warned, this is not your standard haunted house,” the site reads. “This is an audience participation event in which (YOU) will live your own horror movie. This is a rough, intense and truly frightening experience.” And the entire experience is filmed, giving you a chance to star in your very own horror movie. Read More »

Sister Louisa’s Church of the Living Room & Ping Pong Emporium – otherwise known as ‘Church’ – is a controversial, one-of-a-kind bar in Atlanta. Located on Edgewood Avenue in Old Fourth Ward, the bar is famous for the religious art that covers its walls, a retrofitted confessional that serves as a photobooth, an organ for live karaoke, complimentary choir robes, and, oddly enough, ping pong tournaments. But the similarities to a real church end right there – instead of communion-sized glasses of grape juice, the Church serves up $3 beers in adult-sized glasses.

In the four years that it’s been open, the Church has seen tremendous success. Right from the opening night in 2010, the church bar has received national media attention. It is a popular tourist attraction in Atlanta, and a hotspot for hipsters and Hollywood stars such as Vince Vaughn, Ben Stiller, and Lady Gaga. “From Day One, it’s been a money-maker,” said artist and bar owner Grant Henry.

Henry, who previously worked as a bartender for 10 years, single-handedly created the 200-odd pieces of religious art that adorn the bar. He’s actually been making these eclectic pieces since the late 1990s, under the wacky pseudonym ‘Sister Louisa’. And it turns out that the Church is actually an excuse to showcase the work. “I did it more from an artistic point of view because I’m more of an artist than a bartender,” he admitted. “I turned it into a bar basically for my art. It’s more like an art gallery that sold alcohol.”

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Summer in Texas may be merciless, but Hal Jones from Austin has found a great way to stay cool at all times. He spent a whopping $2.2 million to have four enormous pools built into his backyard. He wanted to create a pool experience that’s ‘second-to-none’, so he chose a property located on the shores of Lake Travis – where his guests could arrive by boat.

Once he identified the property, Jones hired designer Evan Mills to come up with a plan for the water-park and create four pools, each with its own unique design. “We have the hot tub, the kiddie pool, Lazy River and Negative Edge pool,” said Jones.

The lazy river pool, which includes a swim-up bar, is where he entertains his friends. “I traveled throughout Texas and saw how people loved the lazy river pools,” he said. “You don’t need to get out of the pool to enjoy a drink!”

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Located between the towns of Grana and Casorzo in Piemonte, Italy, is a very unique tree – well, they’re actually two trees, one growing on top of the other. Locally known as ‘Bialbero de Casorzo’ or the ‘double tree of Casorzo’, this natural oddity consists of a cherry tree growing on top of a mulberry tree.

No one really knows how the cherry tree managed to take root and survive in such a bizarre position. Locals believe that a bird might have dropped a cherry seed on top of the mulberry tree, which then grew its roots through the hollow trunk to reach the soil below.

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The Americana municipality, in São Paulo, Brazil, is home to a very unique subculture – the Confederados. The members of this culture are the descendants of 10,000 Confederate refugees who chose to leave the United States after they lost the American Civil War. Today, the Confederados make up 10 percent of Americana’s population; they’ve managed to preserve the unique culture and traditions belonging to the Confederate South of the 19th century.

When the war ended in 1865, many former Confederates were unwilling to live under the rule of the Union. They were unhappy with the destruction of their pre-war lifestyle that included slavery. So when Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil sent recruiters to the Southern States of Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina and Texas to pick up experienced cotton farmers, many disgruntled Southerners jumped at the opportunity.

Slavery was still in existence in Brazil at the time, which greatly attracted the Southerners. Combined with their humiliating defeat at the hands of the Union, many felt that moving out of America was the only option available to them. Dom Pedro, who wanted to encourage the cultivation of cotton, made an offer they could not refuse – he offered them a package of tax breaks and grants, as well as a section of the Brazilian forest that they could call home. It was more than they could ever ask for – a chance to start over and create a new community with Southern values.

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