Chinese Scenic Spot Unveils World’s Scariest Super-Swing

Yunyang Longgang Scenic Spot in Chongqing, China, has become home to what is being referred to as the world’s scariest swing, which can catapult thrill-seekers over the edge of a nearly 700m-tall cliff, at speeds of up to 130km per hour.

The newly-unveiled super swing consists of a 100-meter-tall arch tower from which the swing’s metal cables are attached, and a 108-meter-tall launch tower which allows the swing to achieve mind-numbing speeds. With a swing diameter of up to 91.5 meters, the Yunyang Longgang Cliff Swing is said to offer a more thrilling experience than the famous Nevis Swing in Queenstown, New Zealand, or the Glenwood Canyon Cliff Swing in the United States. The new super-swing is currently undergoing additional safety inspections and is expected to open at the end of next month.

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The Mesmerizing Salt Pools of Siwa Oasis

Siwa Oasis, one of Egypt’s most remote settlements, is also a popular tourist destination thanks in no small part to the stunningly beautiful salt pools with their azure water that people can float in.

Salt is both a blessing and a curse in Siwa. Years ago, people started realizing that there is money to be made in the salt trade, and salt mining operations created the salt lakes that the oasis is now famous for. Bottled salt and salt-rock souvenirs such as lamps are also very popular among the tourists that visit this wonderful places, but it’s the natural salt pools that get the most attentions, especially since photo-sharing sites like Instagram became so popular. To be fair, they really are a perfect place to have your picture taken, whether you’re a simple tourist or an Instagram influencer.

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Thai Restaurant Relies on Hunky Deliverymen to Fight Covid-19 Crisis

Restaurants have been among the most hard-hit businesses by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, but one venue in Bangkok, Thailand has come up with an ingenious way to stay afloat in these troubled times – using hunky models as food deliverymen.

76 Garage, a restaurant in Bangkok’s Lat Phrao District, was known for its attractive and friendly staff long before the new coronavirus turned the whole world upside down, but now the owners of this popular eatery are actively relying on their reputation for having attractive male staff to boost their revenues. Last month, 76 Garage launched an ingenious promotional offer, which allows anyone in a 5-kilometer radius to have their food delivered by a muscular hunk if they order costs 300 baht ($9.5) or more. Not only do customers get some eye-candy with their food, but they can also have their picture taken with the friendly deliverymen, if they so desire.

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Idaho Forest Area Looks Like a Chessboard from Space

Idaho’s natural environment is famous for many things, including breathtaking beauty and fascinating wildlife, but perfect geometry isn’t among them. That’s why this photo of a forest area along Priest River taken from the International Space Station has been getting a lot of attention online.

In January of 2017, astronauts aboard the International Space Station shared a picture of what resembled a near-perfect chessboard pattern located in an area around Whitetail Butte in northern Idaho’s Bonner County. Apparently, the squares in this landscape are the result of a forest management technique dating back to the 1800s, where alternate one-square-mile parcels of land were granted to the US Government to the US Railroad and various other companies. This method ensured the sustainability of forest areas while also enabling logging operations.

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The Silent People – A Creepy Art Installation Freaking People Out on Google Maps

An eerie art installation located in a barren field in the Finnish countryside recently went viral after someone accidentally stumbled upon it while searching on Google Maps.

With quarantine and isolation measures still in place in many countries around the world, people are spending a lot of time online looking for cool places to visit once they can travel again. Many a re using free tools like Google Maps and end going deeper down the rabbit hole than they originally anticipated. That’s probably how some people recently discovered The Silent People, a creepy-looking art installation that left them scratching their heads about why anyone would fill a field with hundreds of scarecrows and dress them as real people.

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Vietnamese Man Uses Two Creeping Plants to Turn 5-Storey Building Into a Vertical Garden

Located deep in Hanoi’s Dong Da district is one of the Vietnamese capital’s most unique landmarks – a 5-storey apartment buildings completely covered by a living, creeping, green curtain.

The so-called “living building” of Hanoi is the work of Prof. Dr. Hoang Nhu Tang – former lecturer at Hanoi University of Civil Engineering and resident of this unique edifice. It all started 30 years ago, in 1990, back when this was one of the tallest constructions in the area, which basically meant that it had almost no shelter from the scorching sun during the summer. That made it very uncomfortable to live in in the hot season, so Hoang Nhu Tang decided to plant two creeper plants known for their ability to both filter sunlight and also regulate the temperature in building they grow on. His idea worked, and three decades later, the plants still fulfill their intended purpose, while also attracting curios sightseers from all over the city and beyond.

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Macabre Doll-Covered Building in Mexico Goes Viral on Google Maps

Avenida Iztacalco 9 in Mexico City was one of the most searched addresses on Google Maps this week, after photos of a creepy, doll-covered house located there went viral on social media.

It all started with a short TikTok video shared by user Fernando Mata, who runs a segment called “Weird Things on Google Maps”, where he gradually zooms in on strange things found on the popular platform. In episode three of his series, he featured Avenida Iztacalco 9, an address in Mexico City where a creepy-looking building is supposedly located. With dozens of old and dismembered dolls hanging on its facade and on the fence around the building, it’s not hard to understand why warnings like “Do not search for Avenida Iztacalco 9 on Google Maps before going to bed!” went viral on Twitter and Facebook.

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Grandparents Create Real-Life Totoro Station for Their Grandchildren, It Becomes Viral Tourist Attraction

An agricultural field is one of the last places you would expect to find a tourist attraction for fans of Hayao Miyazaki’s anime, but this one farm in Japan’s Miyazaki Prefecture is actually home to a popular Totoro Bus Station.

If you’ve ever watched Miyazaki’s “My Neighbour Totoro” anime, you’re probably familiar with the simple yet iconic bust stop scene where Totoro appears next to the main character of the animated film as she waits for the bus in the rain. There are actually several real-life Totoro bus station across Asia, from the one in Saikai City, Nagasaki, to one in Taiwan’s Taichung area, but the most popular one these days seems to be the one created by an elderly couple in the middle of a field in Takaharu, as a present for their grandchildren.

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How the World’s Largest Signature Is Used by NASA to Analyze Satellite Imagery

In the late 1990’s, when a Texas farmer decided to clear up some new grazing land for his cattle by leaving up just enough trees to spell his name in giant letters, he probably never imagined that his signature would one day be used by NASA to evaluate the quality of their satellite cameras.

Jimmie Luecke was a young Texas state trooper who left the highway patrol in 1980 to try his luck in the oil business. He was lucky enough to do so during the chalk oil boom, became a millionaire, and invested most of his profits in land outside the town of Smithville. He started raising cattle on it, and by the late 1990’s his heard had gotten so large that he needed to clear up some more of his land of trees for grazing. Only he didn’t just settle for bulldozing all the trees, he decided to write his name in the process, thus creating the world’s largest signature.

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Horsetail Falls – The Yosemite Waterfall That Turns Into a Natural Firefall in February

A temporary waterfall in Yosemite National Park has become a popular tourist attraction in the mouth of February, because under the right conditions sunlight makes the water flowing down the rock face look like fire, hence its nickname, Yosemite Firefall.

Every year, from December to April, water from melting mountain snow flows toward the eastern edge of El Capitan, forming the temporary Horsetail Falls. The waterfall itself is quite a sight to behold, but it becomes truly breathtaking for a few days (7 -10) in February, when, under the right conditions, it turns into a firefall, with the water looking like flowing lava and swirling flames. The Yosemite Firefall is considered one of the most amazing spectacles one can behold in Yosemite National Park.

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Russia’s Big Stone River – A Little Known Natural Wonder

The most interesting sight of Taganai Park, in the southern Ural Mountains, Big Stone River consists of thousands of large stone boulders cutting a path through a thick forest of pine trees.

Stone rivers, also known as stone runs, can be found all over the world, from Bulgaria’s Vitosha Mountains, to the Falkland Islands, but none are as impressive-looking as the Big Stone River, in Russia’s Chelyabinsk Oblast region. Spanning 6 km long, this gigantic conglomeration of boulders starts off as several small “streams” with and average width of 20 meters that later join to form a large stone river with an average width of 200 meters (in some places up to 700 meters). Big Stone River is considered the most interesting sight of Taganai Park, and one of the most impressive in all of Russia.

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Small Italian Town Lights Up World’s Largest Christmas Tree

For nearly three decades, Gubbio, a small medieval town at the foot of Mount Ingino in Italy’s Umbria region, has held the Guinness Record for the world’s largest Christmas tree.

In 1981, the 750-meter Christmas tree spread over the slope of Mount Ingino was lit up for the first time. Every year since, on the 7th of December (the Eve of the Immaculate Conception), the over 700 giant lights that make up the tree are turned on, and they remain active throughout the holiday season, until the day of Epiphany, on 6th January. Created in honor of the local Patron Saint Ubaldo, the Christmas tree of Mount Ingino was recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the ‘world’s largest Christmas Tree’ in the year 1991. Since then, no one has even come close to challenging its record.

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Just Room Enough Island – The World’s Smallest Inhabited Island

Just Room Enough Island, is an aptly-named private-owned island with literally just enough room for its owners’ house, a couple of trees and a miniature beach with a pair of bench chairs.

Part of the Thousand Islands archipelago on the border between the U.S. and Canada, Just Room Enough Island measures about 3,300 square feet (310 m2), which makes it the world’s smallest inhabited island. It was purchased by the Sizeland family in the 1950s, as a comfortable retreat, but they never expected it to become an internationally-recognized tourist attraction.

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Indonesian Restaurant Gives You a Fish Pedicure While You Eat

If the idea of having dozens of fish nibbling at your toes while you enjoy some traditional Indonesian cuisine sounds intriguing, you may want to check out this unique restaurant in Indonesia’s cultural capital of Yogyakarta.

Located far away from the city center, the Soto Cokro Kembang restaurant originally relied on a relaxing flower garden to attract patrons exhausted by the stress of urban life. However, when the owner’s father had the idea of turning the abandoned cow stalls nearby into a unique aquatic eating space, no one imagined that the quaint eatery would end up attracting people from all around the island nation. Owner Imam Nur says that the attention Soto Cokro Kembang is currently getting in the news and on social media is beyond what he ever imagined.

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The Japanese City Where Beautiful Koi Fish Swim in Drain Channels

Can you imagine an inhabited city where the water running through the the drain channels is so pure that beautiful koi fish can swim in it? Well, such a place exists on Japan’s Kyushu island. It’s called Shimabara, and it’s quite a sight to behold.

When the area around Shimabara was affected by the natural disaster known as the “1792 Unzen earthquake and tsunami” which killed 15,000 people, no one imagined that the dozens of fresh water springs that started gushing out would one day put the city on Japan’s travel map and inspire its now famous nickname – the “City of Water”. There are at least 60 known springs throughout Shimabara, making clean water one of the city’s most abundant resources. There is so much of it, in fact, that it flows through the drain channels along some streets. But that’s not even the craziest thing about this place; because the water is so pure, at one point authorities decided to put some koi carp in the channels, and Shimabara became the City of Swimming Carp.

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