Odd shape: Square watermelons actually exist in Japan, but they don’t come from special seeds. They are created when a watermelon of the usual variety is grown inside a box so that the final product is square. Watermelons of this shape have the advantage of being stackable, so therefore are more easily transported and stored. The taste of these watermelons isn’t like regular ones because they’re harvested before they become mature. People buy them as ornamental gifts, parting with as much as $100 USD if purchasing from a Japanese store, and for much more from specialty stores in other countries.

A place for books: There is a library like no other in Stockholm, Sweden. Stadsbiblioteket (City Library) was designed by architect Gunnar Asplund in the 1920s. Its round shape is unusual, with stacks of books encircling the huge room. Above the stacks is a viewing area, allowing visitors to take a bird’s-eye look at the hundreds of thousands of books available for reading and loaning. The architectural style is known as Nordic Classicism; some people call it “Swedish Grace.” Both inside and out, the building is a photographer’s dream, not to mention a reader’s fantasy.

Sink art: An artist in Milan, Italy, didn’t let the coronavirus pandemic get in her way. During the shutdown in that country, Marta Grossi used an everyday home feature as her canvas: the sink. Normally used for the drab tasks of doing dishes and personal care regimes, Grossi decided to breathe creative life into the basins by using watercolour paints. From sea anemones to butterflies to floral designs and animal life, she created bright, colourful scenes. She left each painting intact for 24 hours, but took photos before washing each design down the drain.

Wild winds: On New Zealand’s South Island is a windswept area called Slope Point. This forbidding place on the island’s most southern tip, almost midway between the Equator and the South Pole, experiences relentless, howling winds that come across the ocean, uninterrupted, from Antarctica. Sheep graze there, and years ago farmers decided to plant trees to act as shelters for the animals. Today, those trees are a tourist attraction because the wind has forced them to grow sideways – literally. While people like to come to see the trees, they must make day trips because there are no accommodations on this wild, windy point.

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See you soon: When prison inmates make an escape, they usually hope not to return. This was not the case for two incarcerated men in an Italian prison. Cousins Davad Zukanovic and Lil Ahmetovic managed break out of jail in the middle of the night. They left a note explaining that they had urgent family business to attend to, adding a dubious promise that they’d be back in 15 days. Regardless of the convicts’ stated intentions, police took the escape seriously and are doing their best to track the men down. If they get caught, authorities will add five years to their sentences.

Team spirit: One traditional sport that came from the Zhuang people of Gunaxi province in southeastern China requires immense teamwork. It’s called board shoe racing. In this sport, three team members place the toes of their shoes in leather straps attached to two planks that each are one metre (3.2 ft.) long. To race, they must run in perfect unison to avoid falling over. While board shoe racing requires athleticism, an important requirement of the team is working together and cooperating with each other. The sport likely dates back to the Ming Dynasty, when it was used to help train soldiers.

Lighting the way: Tobermory, Ontario (Canada), is situated near dangerous waters. Located at the merger of Lake Huron and Georgian Bay, the waters sometimes are treacherous, and the weather can be bad. To guide ships into the harbour, the Big Tub Lighthouse was built in 1885 for $675 CDN. Today, the original structure no longer exists, and in its place is a six-sided wooden lighthouse that stands 14 metres (43 ft.) high. Its existence is necessary, especially considering that two old shipwrecks can be seen in the offshore waters. Today, scuba divers enjoy exploring them.

Snow art: British Artist Simon Beck uses a unique medium for his work: snow. He creates geometric patterns on large stretches of the untouched white stuff by walking on it in a systematic way. His snowshoe footprints make the design, which he plans beforehand on paper. Many of his works were made in the Alps, but he has traveled to other snowy places to make a piece. The images take many hours to create and can cover an area the size of a football field. A high vantage point is the best way to see his snowflakes, checkerboards, and other intricate shapes. See his story and creations here:www.myCoffeeNews.ca/extra

Kidding aside: Kris Hedstrom of Odessa, Florida (U.S.), thinks she had the wool pulled over her eyes when the Nigerian dwarf goats she purchased couldn’t be registered as pedigrees. The goats – Bella, Gigi, Rosie, Zelda, and Margoat – came from neighbour Heather Dayner’s farm. When Hedstrom tried to register the animals, she was turned away because Dayner was not an active member of the American Dairy Goat Association. Not to be deterred, Hedstrom filed a lawsuit asking Dayner to pay for a paternity test on the goats.

Purple paradise: Those who like the colour purple now have a must-see destination to put on their wish lists: Banwol Island and Parkji Island in Sinan-gun, South Jeolla Province, South Korea. Authorities on these islands have planted lavender fields and various trees with purple flowers, and they are developing an infrastructure painted with purple. The two islands are connected via a purple footbridge, and some of the roads have been splashed with violet paint. Homeowners have even joined the action by painting their houses various shades of this vibrant colour. See this amazing purple paradise here...www.myCoffeeNews.ca/extra

Sculpture garden: Xilitla, San Luis Potosi, in north central Mexico is the home of Las Pozas, a surrealistic sculpture garden. It was the brainchild of the late Edward James of England and was built between the 1960s and 1980s. A wealthy man, James loved orchids, and he grew many varieties on his Mexican property. However, everything was wiped out in a hailstorm in 1962. That’s when he started building his tropical campus of interesting sculptures, with the help of his Mexican friend and foreman, Plutaco Gastelum. There are over 30 rock and concrete sculptures left today, going by such names as The Staircase to Heaven.

Tea time: It may come as a surprise that, in a tea-loving locale, the oldest tea shop in London began as a coffee shop more than 300 years ago. Today, the cafe is called Twinings Tea Shop, but when it opened three centuries ago, it was called Tom’s Coffee House. It was started by Thomas Twining, who was in the business of importing commodities, including tea and coffee. His shop became known among his aristocratic customers to have some of the best tea in the city. Today, the shop still stands at 216 Strand, and the name “Twining” has gone down in history as a popular brand of tea.

Vertical cave: A deep cave in Mexico is called Sótano de las Golondrinas (Cave of the Swallows). Located in the forest in Aquismón, San Luis Potosí, this open-air cave shaft is over 370 metres (1,200 ft.) deep, and even deeper in some spots. Its name stems from the brightly coloured parakeets and swifts that settle down along the walls at night. In the morning, all the birds fly up and out of the cave, making a spectacular sight. The Cave of the Swallows also attracts human visitors who enjoy extreme sports. They jump in with a parachute or spend a full hour rappelling to the bottom using specialized ropes and gear.

Pyramid crazy: Andrey and Victoria Vakhrushev from the village of Istinka near St. Petersburg, Russia, are enamoured by the Great Pyramid of Giza. In fact, they are so captivated by the ancient structure that they built a replica in their backyard. While much smaller than the original, the couple’s creation is still a sight to behold. They thoroughly researched the project and applied similar specifications to scale. They ended up using about 400 tonnes of concrete blocks. Finding a contractor took a while, but eventually one agreed to take on the job. See their creation here...

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Jumbo jigsaw: A jigsaw puzzle maker decided to challenge puzzle aficionados with what is dubbed the “world’s largest puzzle.” Made by Kodak, the puzzle has over 51,000 pieces that make 27 different scenes of photographers’ images, such as Venice, the Colosseum, and the Taj Mahal. When all the completed images are put together, the final product measures 8.7 metres (28.5 ft.) by 1.9 metres (6.25 ft). Alternatively, the scenes, which each measure 99 centimetres (39 in.) by 61 centimetres (24 in.), can be kept separate for those who don’t have the space to display the entire thing as one gigantic wall hanging. See the puzzle here:

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Sunken treasure: A little boy from Johns Island, South Carolina (U.S.), had just begun his new hobby of magnet fishing when he found a sunken treasure. Knox Brewer was using a magnet on a string to find metal objects deep in Whitney Lake. He was surprised to find that he’d connected with a small safe, which he hauled out of the water. His father, Jonathan, called the police, who discovered that the safe had been stolen from a neighbour’s home several years earlier. There were just a few things left inside, and Knox returned the items to the rightful owner, who was grateful.

Bedsheet shirts: Two clothing designers from Archivist Studio in Berlin, Germany, found a unique way to reuse material that would have gone to the dump. Eugenie Haitsma and Johannes Offerhaus offered to take expensive hotel bedsheets that were headed for the garbage bin, due to minor flaws and tears. The designers realized that the Egyptian linen would be perfect for shirts, and the hotels were happy to get rid of it. With so much quality material to work with, the entrepreneurs soon came up with some styles, and they intend to add more to their portfolio in the future.

Brave stance: Elephants may be quite a lot larger than crowned cranes, but that didn’t stop one of the birds from aggressively protecting its nest against a herd of the giant grazing mammals. The crane’s bravery was caught on camera in Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve. As the elephant approached, the crane spread its colourful wings and squawked loudly while moving towards the mammal in a menacing manner. The adult moved away, and then the crane started badgering a baby elephant, which didn’t go over well with the adult. All was well in the end, as the elephants wandered off.

Melon mania: Carving pumpkins at Halloween might be a normal thing to do, but carving watermelons to use as bandit masks is quite another. That’s what two thieves in Louisa, Virginia (U.S.), did to cover up their identities when they robbed a convenience store. They arrived at the business in a stolen vehicle, then strolled in, looking through carved-out “eyes” in the melons they wore on their heads. Police managed to find one of the culprits, and they are still searching for the other one. See the melon heads at...

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Colour change: Blaze, a Labrador retriever from Finland, suddenly changed from black to white, and his owner couldn’t figure out why. She wondered why a small patch of fur on her pet’s ear suddenly turned white. Then, over the course of a year, much of Blaze’s fur changed from black to white. It turns out that Blaze has vitiligo, a condition that causes the pigment in fur to lose its colour. Blaze doesn’t seem to care. He is a loving, healthy dog that likes to play and go for walks. Thanks to his owner’s posts, he has become a social media sensation.

Food art: The Japanese art called kyaraben involves arranging food into interesting and fun designs. One creative kyaraben-maker, known as Etoni Mama, lives in Tokyo and has three children. She became famous on social media for her version of the art. While any kind of food can be used in kyaraben, Etoni’s choice is fried eggs. She makes cartoon characters with runny egg yolks as the head and body, and then she adds harder, cooked pieces of yolk to serve as arms, legs, and feet. She dresses up characters with other food items, snipped and shaped to make clothing. Her children love it!

Fixing fences: Art Gladu has fixed a few fences during his time living in a house at a busy intersection in Winnipeg, Manitoba (Canada). The reason? Vehicles somehow miss the corner and end up in his front yard. It happened in the mid-2000s when a truck backed onto the property before driving off. In 2015, another car careened into the yard, hitting his pine tree. More recently, in the wee hours, Gladu woke to a loud noise, only to find that yet another vehicle had punched through his chain link fence before coming a stop on his tree. He’s hoping the city will have a guardrail installed.