If your name is Elizabeth Gallagher, you might just be the lucky winner of a free three-week vacation around the world. The generous offer was made public by 27-year-old Jordan Axani, from Canada, who broke up with his girlfriend after all the plans for the trip had been finalized. Now that his girlfriend won’t be joining him, he’s searching for a Canadian woman with the same name, so she can use her ticket.

“In March I booked a fairly wicked trip around the world for this Christmas for my ex and I,” Jordan explained on Reddit. “While our relationship has come to a close, I am still planning on going on the trip and she is not (naturally). And because I hate the idea of a ticket around the world going to waste, I am looking for a Canadian named Elizabeth Gallagher who could use the ticket.”

The itinerary for the epic trip – starting December 21 – includes cities like New York, Milan, Paris, Bangkok and New Delhi. “The tickets were frankly so cheap and on so many different airlines that they’re not worth the headache or money to cancel,” he admitted. So he thought it best to share the ticket with someone who is “sane, smart, and (hopefully) interesting”, who has “always wanted to travel” and is “ready for a rather spontaneous life experience.”

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Meet Nguyen Hoang Hung, a sword-wielding hairdresser from Vietnam. Believe it or not, this man actually cuts his clients’ hair with a sword! And his unusual ‘weapon of choice’ doesn’t affect the speed or quality of his haircuts – he manages to produce brilliant results every single time.

Hung said that he picked up the unique skill four years ago, when he participated in a game show where he was required to cut hair without scissors. He had used a handsaw at the time, and enjoyed the process immensely. Later, he evolved to the more sophisticated sword as a haircutting tool.

He began by using it on women with longer hair, and then moved on to shorter styles like bobs and pixie cuts. He admitted that it was difficult and risky at first, but he just kept practicing on training wigs. And after four years of rigorous, unrelenting practice, Hung is now able to create beautiful hairstyles within minutes.

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‘Haute Butch’ is an up-and-coming fashion line developed by Napa Valley designer Karen Roberts. It caters to women and who prefer a masculine edge to their clothes, but have trouble with the fit of men’s clothing.

Roberts, who studied fashion merchandising before enlisting in the U.S. Navy, had always found herself disappointed with the sartorial choices available for butch women. “I knew I was really good at what I did but what I wore really ate away at my confidence,” the 52-year-old said.

During the time that she worked in real estate, she would often dress herself in rolled-up men’s blazers, rolled-up slacks, and a rolled-up dress shirt. Everything she wore just felt awkward and wrong when compared with her female colleagues’ chic business casual attire.

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Residents of Jinshicun village in China’s Hunan Province have discovered a rather crappy way to keep healthy. They’re actually drinking a revolting concoction of mashed cow dung and goat poop that they think is a miracle cure for cancer and other illnesses.

The villagers say they stumbled upon the medicine when an elderly local woman suffering from cancer woke up one day with a bizarre request – she asked her son to collect as much animal feces as possible. Her son complied, without the faintest idea of what was she was up to.

“I was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer last January and despite going in and out of the hospital nothing was helping,” explained 66-year-old Ma Shuang. “And then I had a dream where a voice was telling me to mix the dung of a cow with the droppings of goats. When I woke, I instructed my son on what he had to do and although clearly thinking I had lost my mind, he went and did it anyway.”

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While most parents punish kids by sending them to their room, Sofia Petrova’s mother went a little further than that – she exiled her misbehaving daughter to another country. The 18-year-old hasn’t been home in three years; her mother hasn’t permitted her to return in spite of repeated apologies and pleas.

So how does a parent actually convince a 15-year-old high school freshman to board a plane to Siberia? Well, it turns out that Sofia was tricked. Her mother and stepfather told her that they were sending her on a three-week vacation to visit her biological father for the first time. But when Sofia reached Novosibirsk city, she realised the chilling truth – there was no return ticket.

That’s when her mother and stepfather informed her that she was actually being ‘punished’ for her typical teenager behavior – flunking school, running away from home and stealing money. She was to remain in Siberia with her father until she learned to change her ways. Sofia was pretty much helpless; although she grew up in the US, she was born in Siberia and had a Russian passport. So she needed her mother’s consent to return.

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This picture of an elderly man eating out with a photo of his late wife has melted the hearts of thousands after it went viral last week. It was tweeted by Madina Bashizadah, who clicked the picture while having lunch with a friend at In-N-Out Burger in Fremont, California. Since she uploaded the pic on October 22, it has been retweeted over 8,000 times.

Madina said that she noticed the man seated at a nearby table, eating his meal while staring at a framed photograph in front of him. She immediately interpreted that the woman in the photo must be his deceased wife. This moved her so much that she burst into tears and couldn’t bring herself to approach him.

“When I saw him, I got very emotional and started tearing up,” she later said. “My best friend wanted me to talk to him but I couldn’t without breaking down.” Other diners at the restaurant, however, did pluck up the courage to speak to the old man and ask him about the photo. He confirmed that the woman was indeed his wife who had passed away five years ago, and he seemed excited to talk about her and share their beautiful love story .

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12-year-old Landon Jones, from Waterloo, Iowa, hasn’t felt hungry or thirsty since October 14, 2013. He went to bed on a full stomach of pizza and ice cream the night before, and when he woke up, he had simply lost all sensation of hunger and thirst. Instead, the once energetic kid has been sick and suffered dizziness ever since.

A year later, Landon’s parents are still baffled by his condition; they have no idea what is wrong with him or how to help him. “Landon always laughed, he was always very energetic, always wanting to ride his bike, wanting to go to the park,” said Mr. Jones. “Then on October 14 of last year, he woke up and it stopped. He lost all sensation of hunger, he lost all sensation of thirst.”

Landon’s pediatrician in Iowa prescribed antibiotics, but they made no difference at all. He was then taken to doctors in other cities – Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Madison, and the world renowned Mayo Clinic in Minnesota – but no one has been able to give the Jones’ any answers. Dr. Marc Patterson, a child neurologist at the Mayo Clinic said Landon’s case might be the only one of its kind in the world.

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The Seven Mile Beach Kiosk Café in Gerroa, New South Wales, doesn’t just serve its customers good coffee, but also a lesson in politeness. In order to reinforce the importance of being nice, the café’s owners are actually charging people different rates for coffee, depending on how they ask for it.

Just so this doesn’t confuse their customers, they’ve put up a sign outside the café explaining their innovative pricing policy. According to the sign, merely asking for “A coffee” will set you back by $5.00. But saying, “A coffee, please” will bring the price down to $4.50. And if you want to go the whole mile, you could say “Good morning, a coffee please.” Then they’ll only charge you $4.00.

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As an increasing number of Japanese women put their careers ahead of starting a family, the number of services that cater to single women is on the rise. One such service is the ‘Solo Wedding’ – a full wedding day experience during which a woman gets to be bride without actually getting hitched.

The absence of a groom at a wedding might sound abnormal, but the concept is surprisingly popular. Ever since Kyoto-based company Cerca Travels launched Solo Weddings in June, at least 10 single ladies have used the service. These are women who have dreamed of wearing a wedding dress all their lives, but never really had the chance to do it.

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A pretty young woman from Shanghai is on a mission to get a new boyfriend in every city she visits in China. The 19-year-old created a stir online after she posted recruitment notices on social media, asking for temporary boyfriends. She said that she’s looking for male friends to be her travel partners, and to fund her travel expenses.

“Travel with me: Post-’95, adorable girl recruiting temporary boyfriends from all parts of China to be my travel partners,” her post read. She explained that she wanted to “recruit one temporary boyfriend from the local area when/before visiting the city” so that she could “travel all over China on ZERO yuan.”

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Almost half a century after Thai beauty queen Apsara Hongsakula was crowned Miss Universe, she is back in the news for her astonishingly youthful looks. The 67-year-old doesn’t appear a day over 35, and her recent photographs have been causing quite stir on the internet!

Born in 1947, Apsara was only 18 when she won the most coveted beauty pageant title in the world. However she chose to step out of the limelight soon after, and most people had forgotten about her. But when a recent photograph of her surfaced online last week, people were amazed at how little she had aged since she was last seen in 1965.

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Every day, 83-year-old Joao Silvestrini has the most unusual visitor – a hummingbird! It flies in and out of the kitchen window of his Brazil home several times a day, stopping for a chirpy chat and a drink of sugar water.

The story of the unusual friendship between man and bird has become popular on Facebook, after Joao filmed the bird and posted the video online, last month. The footage shows the tiny bird flying around Joao’s head and waiting patiently until he offers it the daily dose of sugar sweetened water.

Joao is a bachelor and a retired ornithologist; he wakes up at 5.30 every morning to open the kitchen window and wait for his little friend. Before long, the bird arrives in search of water and continues the routine several times during the day. “When he wants water, he is flying around me, he will not let me use the computer,” Joao laughed.

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Comfort eating is said to help in coping with emotional distress, but this Chinese woman might have taken it a bit too far. Recently dumped by her boyfriend, 26-year-old Tan Shen actually stayed inside a KFC for an entire week, gorging on chicken wings the whole time. When she finally came out, she said she did it because she just ‘needed time to think’.

Clearly hit hard by the breakup, Shen stepped into a KFC last week, near a train station in the area where she lives. “I was walking around feeling miserable and decided to stop off at the KFC at the train station,” she said. “I hadn’t planned on staying there long, I just wanted some chicken wings. But once I got in there and started eating I decided I needed time to think. I didn’t want to go back to my apartment because it was full of memories of him. So I stayed.”

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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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If you believe a zombie apocalypse is imminent, then you probably should be doing everything you can to protect yourself. Luckily, a British firm called Tiger Log Cabins has just the product for you. They’ve created the world’s first zombie-proof log cabin, designed to withstand the worst zombie attacks imaginable.

The cabin is called ZFC-1 (ZFC stands for Zombie Fortification Cabin), and it is guaranteed to protect you from the walking dead for at least 10 years. It is surrounded by barbed wire and is equipped with an escape hatch, a storage unit for weaponry, and an upper deck with a 360-degree vantage point to keep an eye out for approaching zombies.

The ZFC-1 consists of three sections, all of which are independent from each other with two lockable doors securing each area. So if a zombie were to breach the main large section, it would have to get through three very securely locked doors. The material used to build the cabin are supposed to be of the highest quality, with glazing that is factory siliconed and internally beaded to all doors and windows. Zombies wouldn’t even be able to climb on to the roof, thanks to the square cut logs at the edges of the cabin.

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