It’s not very common for small ponds to have their own Instagram accounts, let alone tens of thousands of followers, but then again Umbul Ponggok is not your usual village pond.

Located in Indonesia’s Central Java region, Umbul Ponggok is a small pond measuring just 20 meters by 50 meters, but boasting the cleanest water imaginable. It is continuously fed with fresh water from 40 different springs, at a rate of 800 liters per second, so the water is always crystal clear. It’s this fascinating property that makes Umbul Ponggok an ideal location for underwater selfies, and in the age of Instagram you’d best believe people are taking advantage of it.

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Most female fashion models start their careers in their late teens and retire in their early 30’s, but 96-year-old Alice Pang is not your ordinary fashion model. She started modelling at 93, so you could say she’s still a beginner.

A resident of Hong Kong, Alice always liked dressing well and looking elegant, but never actually considered a career in modelling. But her granddaughter always thought she had it in her, so when she saw an online ad for senior models of 65, she sent in Alice’s pictures and she was chosen for a photo shoot. Never one to back away from a challenge, Pang decided to give it a shot and even though she knew noting about modelling, she had all the natural qualities to succeed at it. Today, she is recognized as one of the best senior models in Asia, as well as the oldest.

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We’ve featured several heartbreaking stories of faithful canines waiting for their owners in the same spot for years at a time, never to see them again, but this is one of those rare stories with a happy end. After spending four years waiting for his human masters, a lost dog in Thailand was finally reunited with them thanks to social media.

The story of Leo, a stray dog who has spent the last four years of his life waiting at an intersection in the Thai city of Khon Kaen, went viral at the beginning of this month, after a Facebook user uploaded photos of the canine, sharing that he had seen the animal sitting in the same spot every day, as if waiting for someone. They originally thought the dog had been abandoned, but then realized that he looked well-fed, so he asked around about him. It turned out that the dog had indeed been spending most of his time around that intersection, but a woman had been coming around regularly to bring him food and water. The plot thickened…

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A soon-to-be father in China recently made international news headlines after using 2,000 packets of expired instant noodles to build a playhouse for his unborn son.

Photos of the unusual playhouse went viral online quickly after being posted on social media by the builder, a certain Mr. Zhang, from Huadian county, in Northeast China’s Jilin province. He was swiftly tracked down by Chinese reporters and revealed that he had spent four days building the edible structure out of thousands of of out-of-date noodle packets fixed together with glue.

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When it comes to buying a fashionable handbag, there’s one figure most young Chinese women turn to for advice – Mr. Bags. With millions on followers on China’s most popular social networks and many of the world’s biggest bag brands fighting to gain his favor, this 27-year-old really has the Chinese bag game on lock.

As a student of the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, Tao Liang (Mr. Bags’ real name) spent most of his free time shopping on Rodeo Drive. While most of his fellow Asian colleagues developed hobbies like playing basketball or video games, he couldn’t get enough of luxury bags. He went on shopping sprees with friends, educated himself on bag culture, followed the biggest trends in fashion and posted his opinions on the hottest bags on various social media. The son of financiers, Mr’ Bags never imagined his passion for bags would one day catapult him to the top of China’s fashion influencers, but that’s exactly what happened.

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Up until four years ago, Monet’s Pond, a small body of water just outside Seki City, in Japan’s Gifu Prefecture, didn’t even have a name, but thanks to social media and a catchy nickname, it has become one of the most popular tourist destination in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Before it became known as Monet’s Pond, this hidden gem was called Namonaki, or “Nameless Pond”, and what’s even more interesting is that it was never meant to be a tourist attraction. It was originally designed as an irrigation reservoir, but after it fell into disrepair during the 1990s, the owner of the neighboring  Itadori Flower Park took it upon himself to clear the overgrown weeds and clean it up. With the help of the neighborhood council, the man filled the lake with clean water from Mt. Koga, and planted beautiful water lilies. Later, Japanese carp were donated by local owners who could no longer care for them. But it would take over a decade and a half for this pristine body of water to reach its full potential as a tourist attraction.

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Not everyone chooses to use their superpowers for good; case in point, this Japanese store clerk who used his amazing photographic memory to memorize the credit card info of over a thousand clients in mere seconds of interacting with them.

34-year-old Yusuke Taniguchi was recently arrested for having stolen the credit card information of over 1,300 people and then using it to by things for himself on the internet. Apparently, Taniguchi worked as a part-time clerk at a shopping mall in Koto City, Tokyo, where he would use his trained photographic memory to steal people’s private information whenever they used their credit cards to buy something. In the few seconds it took to process a payment, the clerk would memorize the card’s 16-digit-number, the holder’s name, expiry date, and security code, all the elements needed to later use the card for online shopping.

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İbrahim Sedef, an experienced beekeeper from Turkey’s Black Sea Region, has come up with an ingenious way of having his honey tested by the same bears that used to steal it.

Agricultural engineer and beekeeper İbrahim Sedef had been struggling to deal with thieving bears for over four months, but nothing worked. When he tried covering his precious beehives with steel cages, the bears toppled to get to the precious honey, when he reinforced the cages with a cement base, they just dug in the ground and toppled them again. Even raising the hives higher up didn’t help as the bears just climbed up to reach them. So earlier this month, Sedef decided to stop looking for solutions and at least use the bears’ appetite for honey to his advantage.

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Tokyo’s Shin Obuko neighborhood recently became the home of what will undoubtedly become one of the most popular cafes in the Japanese capital – 2D Cafe, a place that lets you feel like you’re in a real-life illustration.

Most likely inspired by the success of Cafe Yeonnam-dong 239-20, the Seoul-based cafe that went viral around this time last year, the new 2D Cafe relies on the same illustration theme to draw in Instagram influencers looking for the next hottest selfie spot. Using an entirely monochrome decor that makes a 3d seting look 2D, this eye-catching venue tricks visitors into thinking they’ve set foot in a different dimension, you know, like that famous music video for A-ha’s Take on Me.

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Most roller coasters rely on speed, tight turns and steep slopes to get riders’ adrenaline levels up, but SkyCycle, a pedal-powered coaster ride in the Japanese city of Okayama is proof that roller coasters can be even more terrifying at low speeds.

Located on a greenery-covered hill at the Washuzan Highland amusement park in Okayama, SkyCycle is probably the world’s slowest roller coaster ride. That’s because it’s pedal-powered so it goes as fast as the rider can pedal. It doesn’t have any steep slopes or spectacular drops either, but it still manages to get your heart racing by constantly conveying an uneasy sense of danger and uncertainty. It may look like a quaint ride for people who are too scared to go on conventional roller coasters, but once you get on one of those flimsy carts and realize there’s nothing but a loose safety belt keeping you from falling to your doom, your pulse goes up instantly.

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The mystery of a Chinese man’s decade long pain in the butt has finally been solved after doctors in Hunan extracted no less than 8 embroidery needles stuck in his right buttock.

For the past 10 years, Chen, a 55-year old retired man from China’s Changsha Province, had frequently experienced a stinging, tingling sensation in the right part of his behind, but he never went to have it checked out by a doctor. He reportedly felt the stinging sensation most often when he ran, but because of his busy work schedule, he never went to the hospital. He finally made it to a doctor earlier this month and told him about the mysterious pain in the behind, but the explanation shocked both him and the physician.

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A 59-year-old Chinese man who had experienced frequent headaches and even seizures over the last 30 years is now able to lead a pain-free life after doctors extracted a 10-cm worm from his brain.

The man, surnamed Zhang, first started experiencing excruciating headaches and seizures in 1989. He was playing cards with friends when his arms and legs started twitching for no reason. He started foaming at the mouth and lost consciousness soon after. His worried family took him to a hospital in Guangzhou where he was diagnosed with epilepsy and prescribed anti-epileptic drugs. Despite taking the drugs regularly over the last 30 years, he still suffered occasional seizures and fainting, as well as frequent headaches. It wasn’t until last month that Zhang learned that his symptoms were actually caused by a worm stuck in his brain.

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The unlikely love story between a 27-year-old woman and an 83-year-old famous shaman in Indonesia’s Central Java province has been making headlines in the Asian country for the past week. Despite the controversy regarding the age difference between them, the young woman claims she fell in love with her new husband the moment she saw him.

27-year-old Nuraeni first met 83-year-old Sudirgo in July, when the girl accompanied her parents to the famous shaman’s house in Desa Jatilaba, to seek his advice. It was then and there that the young woman says she fell in love with Nuraeni, and even though she left with her family, she kept finding excuses to visit the grandfather of eight. She even asked him to visit her at her family’s home, and even though the signs were pretty clear, the 83-year-old says he didn’t even consider a romantic relationship because of his advanced age. However, he could only resist love so long, and after confessing his feeling to Nuraeni and asking her to marry him, she accepted.

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A sales company in Guizhou, China, has come under fire for forcing employees to eat live mud fish and drink chicken blood for failing to meet their set goals.

News of the extreme punishment employees of a Guizhou construction material store were recently subjected to broke out after a video of the ordeal was leaked online. It showed a man handing out live mud fish from a plastic bucket to about two dozen employees and instructing them to “bite it until it breaks”. The video also shows the poor people drinking a strange liquid reported to be chicken blood, and then grimacing and retching in discussed. Faced with video evidence, a spokesperson for the company admitted that the event took place, but claimed that employees volunteered to take part…

A representative of the construction material super-store told Chinese newspaper Beijing News that the incident did indeed take place on August 4 and involved about 20 employees who had failed to meet their sales quotas. However, he emphasized that employees volunteered to eat live fish and drink chicken blood, as a form of motivation to do better in the future.

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A 65-year-old man from eastern China needed to be hospitalized after an unusually long karaoke session allegedly left him with a serious medical condition known as a collapsed lung.

Identified solely by his surname, Wang, the elderly karaoke enthusiast realized something was wrong when he experienced shortness of breath and sharp pain on the left side of his back, last week, while singing his favorite songs. He Had sung these high-pitched tunes before and never felt any discomfort, but this time was different. He couldn’t reach the high notes and had trouble breathing normally.

Wang told Nanchang News that he chose to ignore his symptoms when he first noticed them, but they worsened after he got home from the karaoke marathon, and he had no choice but to go to the hospital the next morning. Peng Bin-fei, a doctor from emergency department at Nanchang hospital, told Wang that he had suffered a collapsed lung, also known as a pneumothorax, and asked for details as to what might have caused it. Upon learning about his recent karaoke marathon, the doctor concluded that it was the high-pitch singing that caused Wang’s lung to collapse.

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