Globetrotters looking for the world’s most exclusive accommodations will soon be able to add a new line on their list of must-visit  locations – a Hanoi 6-star hotel with a 24K-gold-plated exterior and interior.

After over a decade of development, the Hanoi Golden Lake hotel will be completed by the end of this year. The exterior is already almost one hundreds percent completed, with just the final details left to be added, and the building is already attracting attention because of its unusual decor. This 6-star hotel is completely covered in Japanese-imported ceramic tiles infused with real 24K gold, and according to developers, patrons can expect more shiny gold decor on the inside as well.

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Indian media recently reported the strange case of a man who allegedly filed a complaint against Google Maps for causing him serious marital problems.

R Chandrasekhar, a 49-year-old married man from India’s Mayiladuthurai district, claims he won’t stop short of taking tech giant Alphabet to court for ruining his relationship with his wife. The man basically blames Google Maps, particularly the app’s “Your Timeline” feature for making his wife question him about all the places he allegedly visits every time he goes out. Chandrasekhar claims that Google’s app routinely displays places he has never visited, and he has trouble explaining it to his wife.

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Photos of chicken eggs with a dark green yolk have been doing the rounds on social media these days, puzzling both veterinary experts and the general public.

Originally thought to be the result of digital image editing, the viral photos were eventually traced back to Ak Shihabudheen, a chicken farmer from Malappuram, who confirmed that some of his poultry do in fact lay eggs with green egg yolks. To prove his claims, the young farmer even posted a video of himself cracking open an egg and revealing the dark green yolk. He recently told reporters that journalists and veterinarians from all over India have contacted him about his strange eggs in recent days, but he declares himself just as puzzled as everyone else.

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Yartsa Gunbu, a fungus that infects ghost moth caterpillars on the Tibetan Plateau, is considered by far the most expensive parasite in the world, fetching up to $50,000 a pound.

A close relative of the tropical parasite that infects ants and turns them into zombies, Ophiocordyceps sinensis is only found on the Tibetan Plateau, where it infects the larvae of ghost moths while they are buried deep underground and feeding on plant roots. The larvae are most vulnerable in the summer, when they shed their skins, becoming more easily infected. The parasite slowly grows in its hose by consuming it during the fall and winter, and just when the snow starts to melt, it pushes its dying larvae host upward and grows a plant-like, spore-filled stalk that pierces the ground, becoming the way to spot the valuable Yartsa Gunbu. It is then harvested by local villagers and sold modest prices that turn into a fortune as the fungus passes through several middleman, costing the final client more that three times its weight in gold.

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A 34-year-old man abducted and sold to a childless family more than 1,000 kilometers from his home was recently reunited with his parents, who had never stopped looking for him, after 32 years.

Mao Yin was just 2-years-old when he was snatched by a stranger on October 17, 1988. He and his father, Mao Zhenjing, were walking home from nursery in the city of Xian in Shaanxi province when the boy asked for a drink of water. The pair stopped in the entrance of a hotel, and when the father turned his back on the boy for only a few moments while trying to cool some hot water, Mao Yin was gone. His family started looking for him right away, putting up posters and contacting police, but it was like he had vanished into thin air. Now, 32 years later, he was miraculously reunited with his birth parents.

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A Honk Kong entrepreneur has come up with an ingenious way of keeping the semi-autonomous city’s recent protests for democracy alive in people’s memories – by introducing a pungent, throat irritating ice-cream flavor reminiscent of tear gas.

The shop owner, who preferred to remain anonymous, told reporters that he created the new “tear gas” ice cream flavor as a reminder “of the pungent, peppery rounds fired by police on the streets of the semi-autonomous Chinese city during months of demonstrations last year”. After trying several ingredients and combinations, including wasabi or mustard, the owner settled on black pepper, both because of its pungent smell and the way it can irritate the throat, just like actual tear gas.

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Chinese media recently reported the bizarre case of a heartbroken young woman who took revenge on her cheating boyfriend by sending a tonne of onions to his doorstep so he could cry as much as she did over his treason.

For most young Chinese couples, May 20 is a very special day, the equivalent of the western Valentine’s Day, but for one heartbroken woman who recently caught her boyfriend cheating, the day will only make her suffering worse. Known only as Miss Zhao from Zibo, in Shandong province, the young woman reportedly went through her boyfriend’s phone a few days ago and was shocked to see that he had been texting other girls and had already cheated on her. Unable to cope with the pain, she ended the relationship and cried her heart out for three days after that. Meanwhile, her ex was out having the time of his life, which only made her more angry…

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A Chinese family recently sued Chinese gaming giant Tencent after their two children were left fighting for their lives a after jumping off of a building to see if they would come back to life like their favorite video game characters.

The two siblings, aged 11 and 9, reportedly became addicted to popular video games Mini World and Game of Peace during the lockdown caused by the spread of the SarsCov-2 virus. Their parents had bought them a smartphone, and they would spend up to eight hours a day playing the two mobile games at the family home in Handan, China. On March 22, the two children jumped off of the family’s 50-foot-tall residential building to see if they would come back to life, just like their video game avatars. The pair were critically injured, breaking numerous bones, and required several surgical procedures.

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At just 27 years old, Li Jiaqi is already one of the most successful online personalities in China. He specializes in selling makeup, particularly luxury brand lipsticks, which has earned him crazy nicknames “King of Lipstick” or “Iron Lips”.

With over 40 million fans on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, and millions others on various other social networks, Li Jiaqi is perhaps the most sought after beauty vlogger in all of China. Whatever product he chooses to promote turns into an instant hit, and companies are desperate to work with him, but he remains mostly focused on makeup, lipstick in particular. It’s not really the kind of career you would expect a young man to venture into, especially in a traditionalist country like China, but his success is proof that unconventionality can be an advantage. That’s how Li Jiaqi looks at it, anyway. He says that most people doubted him at first, saying that he could never sell to a female audience, but he had always been confident that he had an advantage over female beauty vloggers – stamina.

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Last month, South Korean television featured the bizarre case of a shoe repairman from Seoul who has been conditioning his body by banging his body and his head against a tree for the last five years.

Would you ever pick on a man after seeing him violently banging his forehead against a full-grown tree trunk? I myself would, steer away immediately, which is just what the hero of our story is betting on. Back in April, South Korean TV show X SBS WOW featured a shoe repairman from Seoul’s Sinchon neighborhood famous for banging his head and body against a tree every day. You’d think they had made up such a preposterous story, but this man has the forehead callus to prove that he has been doing a lot of head banging for quite some time.

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Looking at photos of Chinese cosplayer CROME拉面猫就是星空萌 dressed up as some of the most famous anime heroines, you would never guess that the person under all that makeup and female clothes is a man.

A former art teacher, CROME拉面猫就是星空萌 now works as a full-time cosplayer, regularly posting new photos and updates for his legion of online fans, attending events and working on new costumes. He reportedly started trying on women’s clothes in secret, in 2007; it was nothing fancy, he didn’t experiment with makeup at the time, and he didn’t tell anyone about it, but he considers those days the true beginning of his female cosplaying career. It wasn’t until 2012 that he was comfortable enough to go out in public dressed as one of his favorite anime characters.

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A Chinese woman claims she has had to use a strip of tape to sleep at night after botched double eyelid surgery left her unable to completely close her eyes.

The woman, referred to by Chinese media only as Ms. Ma, reportedly paid 20,000 yuan ($2,800) for a double eyelid surgery at the Jimei Plastic Hospital in Zhengzhou, Henan province, in September of 2018. The cosmetic procedure artificially creates the Western style creases on the upper eyelids, and is very popular among Asian women who don’t naturally have them. Unfortunately, in Ms. Ma’s case, the procedure didn’t turn out as well as she expected it to, so she went under the knife for second time, only to have this procedure turn out even worse than before. The woman was shocked to realize that she was no longer unable to close her eyes completely.

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A Chinese man who spent seven months away from his apartment in Langfang, Hebei Province, recently returned to find his home had transformed into a small botanical garden.

The unnamed man took to social media to share videos and photos of what he found when he entered his home, after being away for almost seven months, since before the Covid-19 crisis. You can see vines lining the walls of the apartment, using hanging photos, the TV set and furniture as supports to advance further into the home, and even some stems hanging from the roof. The video of this small botanical garden quickly went viral, leaving many social media users wondering how the plants grew so much without him to look after them. It seems the man’s brother had a part to play as well.

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An elderly couple from China’s Henan province took legal action against their own son for neglecting his duty of financially supporting them.

Filial piety isn’t that important of a notion in the Western world, but in China it’s a big deal. Failing to take care of your elderly parents is actually considered a legal offense both in China and in other countries with large Chinese communities, like Singapore or Taiwan. It’s actually not uncommon for parents to sue their offspring for neglecting them in their old age, and while most reconcile their differences before having punitive measures enforced, some don’t and police, revenue service and banks have to get involved. Such was the case of an elderly couple whose son flat out refused to support them even after being ordered to by a judge.

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South Korean media recently reported the disturbing case of a high-school teacher who scolded and humiliated a student in front of the class, causing him to take his life that same day.

On April 26th, 2020 ethics professor at Youngshin Middle School in Pohang City referred to only as “A”, for personal privacy reasons, was convicted of child abuse and sentenced to 10 months in prison and had his teaching license suspended for 5 years. His crime: shaming a 9th grade student in front of the whole class after catching him reading a light manga novel, and causing him to end his own life, because of the humiliation. The teacher’s sentencing sent shock waves through South Korean social media, with some users accusing the teacher of bullying, and other expressing fears that the case set a precedent that will put fear into other teachers, preventing them from being strict when they need to be.

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