Oddity Central |
- Man Single Handedly Carves Orthodox Churches in the Side of Mountain
- Carrot-Obsessed Woman Covers Her Body with Tattoos of the Vegetable
- Woman Postpones Wedding to Pay for Pet Lizard’s Chemotherapy
- Zombie Shopping Mall – A Real-Life “Dawn of the Dead” Experience
- Japan’s Okinawa Island – The Healthiest Place on Earth
| Man Single Handedly Carves Orthodox Churches in the Side of Mountain Posted: 26 Mar 2012 07:29 AM PDT
It's the stuff that ancient legends are made of, but I guess you could call the story of Aba Defar a modern-day miracle. How else would you explain an old man carving four churches on a mountain side of the Ethiopian highlands, all on his own? Aba Defar is a man driven by his faith in religion. At one point in life he was a family man and a weaver by profession. But all that changed with a simple dream he had in 1959. The Holy Spirit appeared in his dream, showing him a mountain church carved out of sheer rock. The dream kept repeating itself over the next 30 years, but he never knew what to make of it. It was when he had a vision that he finally understood that his life's mission was awaiting him. In the vision, Aba Defar saw a hermit dressed in white and holding a long, pointed cross. The hermit's message was to celebrate the coming of the 'Chosen One' with the Golden Cross. And then, a white dove settled on his shoulder. After this vision, Aba Defar knew that this was nothing but his calling to religious duty. Making a connection between the dreams and the vision, he strongly believed that the white dove, a symbol of the Holy Spirit, was commanding him to carve churches on the mountain side. After a second vision, he felt confident and so he set about the Herculean task.
"I was instructed by the Holy Spirit to catch a flying eagle," he says. "It is an impossible task, but the eagle just appeared in my hands." To him this was the sign that he could indeed take up the impossible. And so, he has. It's simply mind-blowing, the way he has single-handedly carved out four churches from the hard rock, armed with nothing but simple hand tools. He does suffer, but his faith strengthens him and keeps him going. I suppose Aba Defar is living proof that the even one person can achieve incredible things if they put their mind to it. Man Single Handedly Carves Orthodox Churches in the Side of Mountain was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| Carrot-Obsessed Woman Covers Her Body with Tattoos of the Vegetable Posted: 26 Mar 2012 07:12 AM PDT
A while ago we did a story about a boy who turned orange after eating carrots. Now that I've come to know about carrot-obsessed Zizi Howell, I think she'd do anything to trade places with the boy. Unfortunately, she can't really change skin colors, but she's settled for tattooing carrots all over her body. She has 35 carrot tattoos in all, including a 24-carrot arm band (no, it's not made of Gold), four on her other arm, 6 on her back and a huge one on her stomach. Her only mission in life is to have "the most carrots in the world." But it's not just the tattoos, carrots flood almost every part of her life. Every item in the Californian woman's house is modeled after the root vegetable. Fridge magnets, tea-pots, storage boxes, dressers, soft toys, they're all themed after carrots. She even has carrot paper-towel-holders and carrot slippers. Her home has over 1000 pieces of carrot memorabilia, and she spends five hours a day organizing them. And at night, she'd rather use carrots as curlers for her hair. The only music Zizi listens to is by Carrot Top, a punk metal musician. At concerts, she wears belts that strap about 600 carrots to her chest. Photo: Zizi Howell/Facebook I guess carrots are entwined with Zizi's destiny, because it was through the vegetable that she met her husband. At a rock concert she threw a carrot in the air, which hit him right in the head. I suppose Cupid does strike in the strangest ways… Zizi Howell’s weird story was recently covered in TLC’s hit series My Crazy Obsession, and you can watch a preview of the episode in the video at the bottom. Photo: Zizi Howell/Facebook Photo: Zizi Howell/Facebook Photo: Zizi Howell/Facebook Photo: Zizi Howell/Facebook
Carrot-Obsessed Woman Covers Her Body with Tattoos of the Vegetable was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| Woman Postpones Wedding to Pay for Pet Lizard’s Chemotherapy Posted: 26 Mar 2012 06:41 AM PDT
Lizards creep me out big-time. That's why it's a little hard for me to understand what 25-year-old Lizzie Griffiths, a lizard-loving school teacher from London did for her little dragon. She loves her pet lizard George so much that she wakes up at 5.30 am every day to snuggle with him for a while. She's even postponed her wedding to be able to afford his treatment. Lizzie and George first met at a rescue center a year ago. One look at the bearded dragon lizard, and she was in love with the way he burrowed into her neck. She took him home and cared for him, even nursing him back to health from a chest infection. Soon, the scaly creature developed a tumor on his face that wouldn't go away after two surgeries. Fearing the loss of her favorite pet, Lizzie decided to empty her entire savings on George's treatment. Chemotherapy for animals is a pioneering treatment and she spent over £3,000 on it at the Animal Health Trust in Suffolk. The chemo was apparently successful. Last summer, Lizzie got engaged to 26-year-old Chris Fisher, her childhood sweetheart. But the wedding has been put on hold now. Chris doesn't seem to mind this at all. He says that he knows he will always come in second behind the lizard and seems to be extremely comfortable with that. He says, "They definitely have a special bond and if he sits on me he will just wriggle about. But when he's with Lizze he's so calm, it's like he knows she saved him.” via This Is London Woman Postpones Wedding to Pay for Pet Lizard’s Chemotherapy was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| Zombie Shopping Mall – A Real-Life “Dawn of the Dead” Experience Posted: 26 Mar 2012 03:22 AM PDT
If you’ve always wondered it must be like to actually experience a zombie apocalypse, then Zombie Shopping Mall is just the thing for you. You’ll be briefed and armed by a special police unit and pitted against a horde of zombies in a creepy condemned mall. Sounds awesome, yes? Remember the Zombie Boot Camp we featured a while ago? It was a very popular event organized by the guys at Wish.co.uk, an English website offering people the chance to fulfill their wildest dreams. The unusual training course allowed zombie fans to acquire all the necessary skills to survive a living-dead epidemic and test them in a specially designed environment, located in Droitwich, Britain. Following the success of the Zombie Boot Camp, the people at Wish have taken things one step further and created the Zombie Shopping Mall, a bone-chilling experience that takes place in a condemned mall filled with brain-eating zombies. Photo: Wish.co.uk Believe it or not, there are a lot of people out that would kill for the opportunity to fight zombies in real life. Tickets for the Zombie Boot Camp were sold out in a matter of days, even though they were a hefty $90. But in order to offer a realistic “Dawn of the Dead” experience, you need the right kind of setting. That’s why this time, Wish.co.uk has rented a condemned shopping mall in Reading, where would-be zombie apocalypse survivors can best show their undead head-bashing techniques. According to the organizers, Zombie Shopping Mall is like your favorite zombie movie come to life. Photo: Wish.co.uk So what really happens during this creepy event? It all starts with a briefing by the Police Special Zombie Bashing Unit. They’ll give you all the details about the ongoing zombie apocalypse going on in the town of Reading, and about how you have to try and fix things. Then they’ll arm you with a variety of weapons fit for an undead hunter and send you into the condemned mall along with a whole group of other like-minded zombie enthusiasts. And that’s when the real nightmare begins… With only limited ammo for your air-soft guns, and scarce opportunities to refill your magazines, you’ll need speed and quick thinking in order to survive this 2-2.5-hour long experience that unfolds in real time. There will apparently be “loads of zombies” inside the mall, definitely more than one person can handle without help from his team. Photo: Wish.co.uk One thing you don’t need to be worried about is having your brains eaten by zombies. There will be no excessive violence during the Zombie Shopping Mall experience, although the zombies will jump you, try to hold you down and murmur “braaains” in your ear. Still there will be no real fighting and participants are not allowed to bring their own weapons. Because the event in physical in nature, zombie hunters will need to have a reasonable level of fitness in order to have a chance of survival. Because the Reading shopping mall has been condemned, there is no way to know how long the Zombie Shopping Mall experience will be available for. The months of March and April have already been fully booked, but there are still a few spots available for May and June, with July being your safest bet for availability. When the date of the demolition will be set, the offer will be withdrawn from sale. To take part in this real-life zombie movie, you’ll need to fork out £119 ($190). I wouldn’t do it for free, but for a real zombie fan I’m pretty sure that’s pocket change. Zombie Shopping Mall – A Real-Life “Dawn of the Dead” Experience was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| Japan’s Okinawa Island – The Healthiest Place on Earth Posted: 26 Mar 2012 02:07 AM PDT
I used to think that there were only a handful of people over the age of 100 in the world. How wrong was I! The Japanese island of Okinawa alone has about 457 of them. It is considered to be the healthiest place in the world, where the average life expectancy of an Okinawan woman is 86, and man’s is 78. Not only do they live long lives, they live very healthy and happy ones too. A fine example is 96-year-old martial artist Seikichi Uehara, who, at his age, defeated a thirty-something ex-boxing champion. And also Nabi Kinjo, the 105-year-old woman who hunted down a poisonous snake and killed it with a fly swatter. The Okinawans’ secret, I've come to understand, lies in two things – their food, and their attitude towards life. As a happy bunch of people, the elders seem to have no worry etched on their faces, stress seems to be a foreign concept to them. An 88-year-old farmer who still works 11-hour days at the field, says, "I hardly ever get angry. I enjoy life because I'm happy at work and I think that's the medicine for a long life." I completely agree, and I wish I could look at life the way this brilliant guy does… Photo: j. spiridigliozzi Most of the over-85-years-old elderly I've ever met seem to be waiting to die, sick of dealing with their physical pains and of struggling to survive on small pensions, but not the Okinawans. They have a child-like zeal towards life, wanting to live more. Even a 100-year-old woman says she would like to live a few more years to spend with her grandchildren. As the old Okinawan saying goes, "At 70 you are still a child, at 80 a young man or woman. And if at 90 someone from Heaven invites you over, tell him: 'Just go away, and come back when I am 100.'" I think that perfectly illustrates their philosophy on life. Photo: Akira ASKR The Okinawan eating habits are certainly worth a mention as well. Their regular diet is not based on red meat, but largely on rice, fish and vegetables. One of their popular dishes, Mimiga, is made from pig ears – low in fat and high in calcium. They also eat plenty of tofu, and vegetables such as bitter gourd (Goiya) and sweet potato are a staple. The Okinawan sweet potato is especially nutritious – one medium sized baked potato is said to contain over 20,000 IU of beta carotene and Vitamin A. Sounds like an incredibly healthy diet but some of them do indulge in a cup full of a locally brewed rice wine called Awamori, each night. Doing research on Okinawa’s high life expectancy has been very motivating for me; it's great to know there are people in the world who have figured out the secret to a long and happy life. Unfortunately, the secrets accumulated by the elderly aren't being imbibed with much enthusiasm by the present generation Okinawans. As in many other countries, Western fast food joints have invaded the island, which the youth prefer over traditional foods. One youngster chomping down on a burger says: "I like thick, greasy food." "Goya is bitter," says another, "so I don't like it much." The degradation of the healthy eating habits has taken its toll on the island, considerably reducing life expectancy. The rates of obesity and lung cancer are higher in Okinawa than compared to anywhere else in Japan. It appears that when the western world is awakening to the benefits of living life like the Okinawans, their very own youth are leaving it behind. It’s sad really, but the truth is the healthy people of Okinawa are nothing but living relics whose secrets of a truly healthy life will be lost in just a few years time… Japan’s Okinawa Island – The Healthiest Place on Earth was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
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