Sun, sand and surf were everyone's prescription for holiday paradise, but, in the south of Japan, they leave nothing to Mother Nature. Inside a huge dome that could house six football pitches, the world’s largest artificial sea washes over the biggest indoor beach, fringed with fake palm trees and other eye-popping innovations that have given a holiday make-over to old Mother Nature.
This evocative 21st Century resort shows that even paradise has room for improvement. In Ocean Dome, once every hour, on the hour, the surf is always up. Every afternoon is a carnival. Mechanized parrots squawk from branches of the dome’s ingenious rain forest, which remain lush and tropical without rainfall or humidity. Best of all, in Ocean Dome, you can lull for hours on crushed marble pebbles without a worry about beach vendors, bugs or sun burns.
 
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| Robot Restaurant: run by two identical couples (CHINA)
People are confused how a Chinese couple managed to run a busy restaurant 21 hours a day without getting tired. Turns out the restaurant is run by two couples … both the men and women are identical twins! Locals had nicknamed the eatery the "robot couple restaurant" as they couldn't understand how the same couple seemed to be on duty from 6am through to 3am. However, a journalist from Today Morning Post interviewedthe restaurant owner and found out the truth. It turned out that the twin brothers, 32, married a set of twin sisters from the same township three years ago and moved to Yiwu to runthe restaurant together. "Many diners thought we worked too hard and are like robots, but they don't know that we are actually four people," said Mao Zhanghua, 32, the elder brother.
The mystery of how a Chinese couple seemingly managed to run a busy restaurant 21 hours a day has been solved. The restaurant, in Yiwu, is actually run by two couples - and both the men and the women are identical twins. The couples also both have young sons who are also virtually identical, reports the Today Morning Post. Locals had nicknamed the eatery the "robot couple restaurant" as they couldn't understand how the same couple seemed to be on duty from 6am through to 3am. However, a journalist from Today Morning Post interviewed the restaurant owner and found out the truth. It turned out that the twin brothers, 32, married a set of twin sisters from the same township three years ago and moved to Yiwu to run the restaurant together. "Many diners thought we worked too hard and are like robots, but they don't know that we are actually four people," said Mao Zhanghua, 32, the elder brother. The couples say they are very happy running their restaurant, because it allows them to live together like a big family - and they quite like the robot nickname which they say aptly describes their busy lives.
  
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| Wheelchair Bodybuilder - Nick Scott
A humble Ottawa University alum visited campus for a little under an hour and caught up with more than five old friends from his college years. Nick Scott has become what some would call a local legend. He has been interviewed by the Kansas City Star and many television stations about his nationwide business of Wheelchair Bodybuilding. Nick was an avid athlete at his high school in Pomona but on Aug. 17, 1998, his life was turned upside down, literally, five times. On his way to football practice, the left front tire of his car blew out flipping the vehicle over five times. Nick was ejected from the car through the driver's side window and ended up colliding with his own vehicle before it eventually stopped flipping. He was diagnosed as a paraplegic and told he would never be able to walk again.
A year and a half after the accident, Nick used forearm crutches to walk across his high school stage to receive his diploma. He continued his education at OU pursuing a bachelor's degree in Business Administration. He was a member of Student Activities Force and a somewhat member of the Math Club. He was a somewhat member because he only joined to compete in the annual Mr. Brave pageant and reclaim the title that should have been his the previous year he was in the runner-up position. In 2004, he earned the Mr. Brave title making that his favorite memory from OU. His time at OU was up and down as he would call it. The limited handicap accessibility around campus made all of his business classes, which are usually held in the Administration Building, move to other locations. He felt as though everyone looked at him and it made him stand out, but he never heard it from the other students. He said everyone on campus was very nice and even now remembers who he is and his dream of bodybuilding.
When it came time to graduate from OU, he once again was determined to walk across the stage to collect his diploma like everyone else. He trained intensely and walked across the Chapel stage with no assistance or forearm crutches. "It meant everything to me. I took what people said was the impossible and made it a reality. It was the end to a chapter," Nick said. Nick currently trains everyday at the Ottawa Nautilus following a strict diet of egg whites, oatmeal, grilled chicken, brown rice and protein shakes everyday. He competes in an average of six bodybuilding competitions per year all across the country. He is a certified fitness consultant and a specialist in performance nutrition answering questions from anyone who asks. He is the president and owner of Wheelchair Bodybuilding and its major promoter. He is working on his second Unleash the Beast video where he is on an incline machine pressing 745 lbs. for six reps.
His goal after graduation was to start his own gym. Even though he is able to do so, he wants to wait until he takes wheelchair bodybuilding to the next level. Nick is currently working with Olympia's president to make wheelchair bodybuilding a division of the highest and most prestigious bodybuilding competition. "Most people dream about this, but I actually pursued it. Go full force with what you believe and it will eventually happen," Nick said. Nick trains on the elliptical machine and does as much as he can to rehabilitate his lower body, but focuses on what he can do and doesn't really like to think about the 'what ifs' in his life.
  
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| Largest mass wedding in a decade - Amazing Photos
The bride definitely wore white as 20,000 couples took part in the largest mass wedding in a decade in dozens of cities around the world.The 'blessing ceremony', held by the Unification Church, was its largest for 10 years and could be the last at such a large scale officiated by 89-year-old Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the controversial founder of the church. More than 20,000 people crammed into the Sun Moon University campus in Asan, south of Seoul, for the main event this morning, with another 20,000 joining simultaneous ceremonies in the U.S. Brazil and Venezuela. Some were new couples who met for the first time in recent months in unions arranged by the church, while others were married couples renewing their vows. The brides wore white veils and wedding dresses, or their national dress. The grooms wore black suits with red ties, with white scarves wrapped around their necks. The mass wedding ceremony is meant to mark Sun Moon's 90th birthday and the 50th anniversary of his marriage to Han Hak-ja, church officials said. It comes as he moves to hand day-to-day leadership of the Unification Church over to his children. Row after row of brides and groom - hailing from South Korea, the U.S., Japan, Europe and elsewhere - posed for photos, sang and practiced shouting 'Hurrah!' at a pre-ceremony wedding rehearsal.
He said: 'I pray that you become good husbands and wives, and men and women who can represent the world's six billion humankind.' Critics who accuse the Unification Church of engaging in cult-like practices say the mass weddings prove it brainwashes its followers.In the past, Moon routinely paired off couples, many of whom met for the first time at their wedding. Now, even arranged marriage couples have the chance to meet at least a few months before the ceremony, church officials said. But none of them were being whisked off on their honeymoons.
Couples are required to observe a 40-day waiting period before they cohabitate to prepare for marriage spiritually. Moon, a self-proclaimed Messiah who says he was 15 when Jesus Christ called upon him to carry out his unfinished work, has courted controversy and criticism since founding the Unification Church in Seoul in 1954. He held his first mass wedding in the early 1960s, arranging the marriages of 24 couples himself and renewing the vows of 12 married couples. Over the next two decades, the weddings grew in scale. The first held outside South Korea, at New York's Madison Square Gardens in 1982, drew tens of thousands of participants and protesters. In many cases, Moon paired off many couples from different countries as part of his aim of creating a multicultural religious world. In his recent autobiography, he said: 'My wish is to completely tear down barriers and to create a world in which everyone becomes one.'
Lee Dong-seok, a 32-year-old computer programmer from South Korea, tied the knot with Japanese office worker Fumi Oshima. He said: 'I think my wife is the most beautiful bride here.' In New York, 22-year-old Krystof Heller said his parents married in a 1982 mass wedding and he has known his new wife, 23-year-old Maria Lee of South Korea, for around four months. He said: 'It's something you grow up with. It's something you anticipate your whole life. 'It's not just about a mass wedding, there is the moral emphasis. The big crowd is just the perk.' Churchgoers watched the ceremony on a large screen flanked by the flags of South Korea, Japan and the United States in Washington. 'This is the best way to make peace,' said Fumi Oliver, a native of Japan who married an American, the Rev. Zagery Oliver, 12 years ago. 'International, intercultural, interracial marriage is the best way to make peace.' Hundreds of brides and grooms gathered in churches in Australia, said Enrique Ledesma, Australian director of the church-affiliated Family Federation for World Peace and Unification. The ceremony in Honduras marks a new start for the movement in the Latin American nation, said Omar Valle, president of the Unification Church in Tegucigalpa. He said 25 couples will renew their vows. And in Brazil some 2,000 people in 40 cities took part in the ceremony via simultaneous broadcast.
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