The New South China Mall in Dongguan, China is the biggest in the world. With an area of over 7 million square feet that can accommodate 2,350 stores, and attractions such as roller coasters, ghost trains and a replica of the bell tower of St Mark’s Square in Venice, you would think the place would be swarming with people. So did the owners of the mall, who expected over 70,000 visitors a day when they started building it. But today it stands empty, with almost no customers entering its gates. The 553 meter indoor and outdoor roller coaster hasn’t been operated since it was installed and 99% of the shops have never been leased out. The only ones that do operate are a series of fast food joints at the entrance of the mall and another few shops inside the huge complex.

New South China Mall was built in 2005 by Hu Guirong, who made his millions making instant noodles. He started the project with great enthusiasm, sending teams all over the world in search of ideas for his dream mall. And most of these ideas were even translated into reality. Where else in the world would be able to see a gondola on a mock Venetian canal inside a mall? But then something went horribly wrong, because when the place was completed in 2005, it simply failed to take off. It wasn’t even a dead mall, where tenants simply depart and business winds down slowly. No, Guirong’s mall never attracted merchants in the first place, as they felt it wasn’t a realistic place to set up shop.

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This is one of the grossest world records I have ever covered, but it’s just so unusual I couldn’t resist sharing it with you guys. A man has kept the around 95,200 pieces of nicotine gum he has chewed over the last six years and put them all together in what is considered the world’s largest gumball.

50-year-old Barry Chappell, from California’s Palos Verdes Estates, has been busy over the last few years, building a 175-pound chewy monstrosity with a diameter of 62 inches, out of the tens of thousands of nicotine gum pieces he’s chewed. Barry is completely aware of the fact that most people who hear about his hobby are more or less disgusted, but that doesn’t make him less proud of his achievement. After all he did stick to the task for six long years, using every one of the approximately 95,200 pieces of nicotine gum he has used to help him stay away from cigarettes. Now his efforts are about to be rewarded, as Ripley’s Believe It or Not decided to acquire his giant gumball and present it as the largest medicated gumball in the world.

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The world’s largest copy of the Qur’an was recently unveiled in Kabul, Afghanistan. It was created painstakingly by calligrapher Mohammed Sabir Khedri and his 9 assistants, over five long years. The massive project was undertaken by Khedri in an attempt to prove that the rich traditions and heritage of the nation have certainly not been destroyed by war.

The giant Qur’an is made with beautiful gold scripting that also combines millions of tiny colorful dots to create symbolic decorations around the pages. Khedri said he wanted to use as many tasteful colors as possible to make the holy book look beautiful. Interestingly, he had actually completed the project in 2009, and kept it a secret for two whole years. This was because the binding and the room to house the book weren’t ready yet. Khedri’s masterpiece is now stored in a cultural center in Kabul that was founded in the 1980s. The final copy consists of 218 pages and measures 2.28 x 1.55 m. It weighs a whopping 500kg and the skin of 21 goats was used to create the cover. It’s estimated cost is around £300,000 ($465,000).

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The huge statue of a defecating giant was put up at the Maremagnum Shopping Center in Barcelona, Spain in December 2010. It recently snagged the Guinness Record for the largest caganer in the world.

In case you’re wondering, this isn’t unusual in Barcelona at all. In fact, the caganer is a common sight around Catalonia. It is generally in the form of figurines that appear in nativity scenes. They are often placed to the side of these traditional scenes. While the origins of this tradition are unknown, the practice has been in place since at least the 1700s. Traditional Catalonian Christmas decorations consist of  large models of the entire city of Bethlehem, instead of just they typical manger scene of the English-speaking world. The central setting consists of a farmhouse with the child in a manger, surrounded by washerwomen by a river, women spinning, along with the shepherds and the three wise men. The caganer is invariably found in a corner of the scene.

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World-renown balloon artist Adam Lee has set a new world record for the largest balloon sculpture, with a giant spider made from almost 3,000 balloons. Did we mention he’s afraid of spiders?

Adam began his attempt to set a new world record on October 1, at Great Wolf Lodge, in Grand Mound, Washington, and after six days of weaving balloons into a giant version of one of the creatures he’s most afraid of, the talented artist reached his goal. ”After working 10 hour days for six days straight, I couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome,” Lee said about his experience. His scary inflatable creation measures 45 feet 2 inches wide and 22 feet 2 inches long and was created from almost 3,000 balloons. Too help guests realize just how big his spider really is, he explained that “”If I would have laid the inflated balloons end-to-end, they would have stretched for almost two-and-a-half miles!”

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Chicago-based company World’s Finest Chocolate has set a new record for the world’s largest chocolate bar, with a delicious treat weighing a whopping 5.5 tonnes.

In a bid to topple the previous record set in September 2010, by the Armenians at The Grand Chocolate factory, workers mixed thousands of pounds of ingredients to create a calorie bomb no chocoholic could hope to finish. They used 5,500 pounds of sugar, 2,000 pounds of powder milk, 1,700 pounds of cocoa butter, 1,400 pounds of chocolate liquor and 1,200 pounds of almonds, and managed to topple the old record by over a tonne. The 12,000-pound heavy, 21-meters-long and three-feet-high chocolate bar was unveiled inside the company’s factory and simply left attending children speechless and drooling.

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A lot of people have been saying McDonald’s makes fake burgers, but the world’s biggest Big Mac is so fake it’s not even edible.

I know one guy who would love to sink his teeth into this fast-food monument, but sadly it’s just for decoration. The world’s biggest Big Mac was unveiled back in 2008, at the burger’s birthplace – a McDonald’s restaurant in Huntington, Pennsylvania, to celebrate its 40th anniversary. It stands 14-feet-tall and is just one of the McDonald’s exhibits hosted by the restaurant\museum.

Created over 40 years ago, the Big Mac is the world’s most popular sandwich. It was created by Jim Delligatti, a McDonald’s franchise owner from Uniontown, and following its immediate success, it was added to McDonald’s menus nationwide. Billions of Big Macs are sold all over the world every year, with 550 million sold in the US alone. Weighing nearly half a pound, with 540 calories and 29 grams of fat, the Big Mac isn’t exactly a nutritionist favorite, but almost all of them eating one every once in a while is not a big problem, as long as it doesn’t become an everyday habit.

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The last “world’s largest hamburger” weighed a massive 590 pounds, but that didn’t stop Brett Enright from blowing it right out of the water with an even bigger calorie bomb.

Enright, CEO of Juicys traveling barbecue catering service, first thought about attempting to make the world’s largest hamburger last December, while on vacation. He looked up the Guinness Record for the world’s biggest burger, and after a talk with Nick Nicora, co-owner of Ovation Food Services, he decided to try and beat it, at this year’s Alameda County Fair.

On July 2, at 5 am, Brett and his helpers started working on their fast-food monster, by preparing 600 pounds of meat, which they expected would shrink to 400 pounds, after cooking. Then they molded 340 pounds of dough into two buns, which after baking were covered with 50 pounds of cheese, 20 pounds of onions, 30 pounds of lettuce, 13 pounds of pickles and 20 pounds of mustard and ketchup (10 of each). The burger itself was cooked on a giant, mobile barbecue called The Outlaw Grill. This mean contraption spends most of the year on the road, traveling from NASCAR events to concerts and fairs, cooking up a storm wherever it goes. This huge burger was its biggest challenge yet.

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Tennis legend, Roger Federer, has set yet another world record, after he (well, a giant portrait of him) got the world’s biggest shave, on a field near London.

Anyone seeing Gillette employees sprinkling weird paint on a green field near London, the other day, would have probably thought the company switched from shaving to landscaping, but it was only a big publicity stunt to promote its new Fusion ProGlide razors. With the help of Gillette’s Facebook community and laser-guided robots, workers covered the green field with environmentally-friendly paint to create a big portrait of the Swiss champion.

Then they used cannons to cover his face with bio-degradable foam, which they then removed with lawn mowers. To finish the job, they brought in these giant Fusion ProGlide razors to show how smooth a shave can be when you use them. Kind of a wacky idea, but they did a great job with the portrait.

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On Saturday, May 28th, a team of 11 writers and 111 designers have created the world’s largest comic strip, stretching 1 kilometer along the banks of the Rhone River, in Lyon, France.

Work on the world’s largest comic strip began Friday night, when students from the Emile Cohl Drawing School, in Lyon, were tasked with drawing up the simple but interesting script of the comic on 1-meter-long sheets of paper. They were coordinated by their teachers, while another 50 students handled the logistics of the project. It all had to be done in 24 hours to count as a valid Guinness Record and everyone involved gave it their all. “Initially everybody thought the idea a little crazy, but we did it!” said Mathieu Diez, director of the Lyon Comic Festival.

The black and white comic didn’t contain any words, but the script and graphics were simple and eloquent enough that everyone who saw it understood the story. It tells the tale of a shaggy Tarzan-like character, with a passion for drawing, who discovers the ways humanity has invented to represent itself (painting, sketching, etc.). 1,000 meter-long sheets of paper, weighing 800 kilograms, and 250 markers were used to create the 1-km-long comic strip. It was installed on the banks of the Rhone River, and passers-by reactions were very positive: “It’s nice to walk while reading. We could go on like this ten kilometers!” a young woman said while her six-year-old daughter was busy checking out the artwork.

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Remember the 80′s? Man, those were the days, right? Actually I don’t remember, I was born in 1984, so pretty much everything before 1990 is a big blur. But one thing I do recall is how popular the original NES video-game console was back then. If you remember you’re first Super Mario playing days I’m sure you’re going to love the tribute a group of Dutch students prepared for Nintendo’s legendary machine.

Electrical Engineering students from TU Delft, in the Netherlands, have created an impressive replica of the NES controller, 30 times larger than the original. The overgrown Nintendo Entertainment System controller was assembled in the town square and attracted a lot of young Super Mario fans eager to test the  unique gadget, with their feet. Since the controller was 3.6 by 1.6 meters in size the only way to properly operate it was with your feet. So players just jumped on them and played Nintendo Classics like Tetris or Super Mario on a big six meter wide LED screen.

Unfortunately, the largest functioning NES controller hasn’t gained a spot in the Guinness Book of Records, because there was no official delegation on the scene.

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Yesterday, Canadian company Dairy Queen has set a new world record by making the world’s largest ice-cream cake in Yonge and Dundas Square, Toronto.

It took 100 people over a year to plan the event, but after 30 years and 52 million ice-cream cakes sold, this was the perfect way to celebrate, according to Denise Hutton, vice-president of marketing at Dairy Queen Canada. Dozens of chefs worked around the clock using over 9,000 kg of ice-cream, 91 kg of sponge cake, around 136 kg of icing and Oreo crumbles, to beat the former world record, a nearly 8,000 kg ice-cream cake made by China, in 2006.

After the cake was completed and acknowledged by the Guinness Book of Records, pieces of it were served to the crowd gathered in Yonge and Dundas Square, with 100% of suggested donations going to Children’s Miracle Network. “When else can eating ice cream cake help to fund medical care, research and educational programs so that Canadian kids have access to world-class care? It’s the best of all worlds – a delicious treat and a great cause.” said the charity’s Paul Lethbridge.

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Measuring twenty-six inches in length and weighing a massive 3 pounds, Vat19′s giant gummy worm is 128 times larger than the ordinary worms you love to chew on.

Gummy bears are really good, but let’s face it, there way to small, and sometimes a whole bag of them isn’t enough to satisfy your craving of gooey goodness. The guys of Vat19 realized the seriousness of this issues and decided to finally do something about it. That’s pretty much how the world’s largest gummy worm was born.

Just like its smaller brothers, this chewy behemoth has a ribbed body, a nice smiley face so you know if you’re biting on its head or tail, and comes in a variety of dual flavors. The whole thing packs about 4,000 calories, but with a shelf life of around a year, you don’t have to rush and finish it all in one go.

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You might think you had your hands full with this year’s Halloween Pumpkin, but American sculptor Scott Cully had to carve his way through a 1,800-pound giant pumpkin.

Scott Cully has made a name for himself by carving overgrown pumpkins, and he even held the previous record for the world’s largest jack o’lantern, but this year he managed to beat his own record and get another mention in the Guinness Book. It took him two days, working at a pace of 100 pounds per hour, to work his way through the giant pumpkin, grown by Chris Stevens, from Wisconsin, but he managed to do it just in time for the big Halloween party. The event took place at the New York Botanical Garden, and it’s probably still on display, so you can check it out, if you’re in the Big Apple.

Scott Cully started carving pumpkins in 1988, when he and his wife got his hands on a 400-pound pumpkin, and, inspired by a few bottles of quality English hard cider, they began carving it into a jack o’lantern. Then he just kept on creating new designs, into bigger and bigger pumpkins. Using just a handful of kitchen utensils, Scott stays true to the tradition of creating jack o’lanterns, by creating scary Halloween pumpkins, with big mouths that kids can slide their heads through, and big threatening teeth.

Believe it or not, Scott Cully absolutely hates pumpkin pie. Ironic, isn’t it?

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Sushi may be a Japanese dish, but that didn’t stop a team of Norwegian chefs from creating the world’s largest sushi mosaic, at their country’s pavilion at the Shanghai Expo.

As China celebrated its ten millionth imported Norwegian salmon, last week, Norway decided the creation of a giant sushi mosaic would be a great way to recognize the milestone. Norwegian chefs arranged 8,734 sushi pieces into a beautiful mosaic depicting the intertwined Norwegian and Chinese flags.

Relations between China and Norway have been a bit tense since a Norwegian committee  awarded the Nobel Piece Prize 2010 to Liu Xiaobo, a jailed Chinese dissident, on October 8. By emphasizing on the importance of salmon in the diplomatic relations between the two nations, Norway hopes to come to better terms with  China.

Check out the making-of video of the world’s biggest sushi mosaic, at the bottom. It takes a while for the chefs to actually start arranging the sushi pieces, but it’s worth it.

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