How do you build a bridge on a mountainside when the grade is so steep that a linear ramp isn’t possible? Build a loop, and if one is not enough, build two. This is what engineers did when the built the Kawazu-Nanadaru Loop Bridge, also known as the Japanese Double loop spiral, in Kawazu, Japan. This double spiral brings cars up and down a full 45 meters while being seemingly suspended in a valley between two mountainsides. The spirals measure 80m in diameter and the whole ramp section is 1.1km long.

The bridge on Highway 414 between Tokyo and the Izu peninsular was finished in 1982 and has become a well known landmark since.

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British couple Lenny and Meriel Lenfesteys build tiny figures they call “sparebots” from LEDs, resistors, capacitors, wire and other electronic spare parts. The models are only three to four centimeters high.

Lenny says: “I started doing the models with my wife about two years ago, but to be honest I kind of took over after a while because she has much better things to do. We first started making the models when we got an electronics kit and then it sort of went on from there”

“Because of the tiny scale it is tricky to set up the right poses. It can take several hours before I have something I am happy with to shoot and I never like to use the same combination of parts for each figure”

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Nancy Rose has a bunch of squirrels living in the backyard of her home in Halifax, Canada, whom she has been photographing for a couple of years. They are curious animals who would inspect anything she put out on her picnic table, looking for places where she could have hidden some peanuts. Nancy decided to make some little props for them to explore and capture the fun on camera.

“The Valentine mailbox was the first thing I made that was such a big hit on Flickr and inspired me to make more miniatures,” she told Amusing Planet. “I made the barbecue out of kitchen foil cake pans, some popsicle sticks and other little items from my craft supplies. I have always been a crafter and have lots of little things I can create with, and now when I go shopping I spend more time looking for squirrel size items than for things for myself.”

“Many of the squirrel photos are of ‘Mr. Peanuts’, but there are a couple of other little squirrels who come to visit now and then, and most will eat peanuts out of my hands.”

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A restaurant in downtown Harbin, China, employs 20 robots instead of humans that cook, serve and entertain its guests. The restaurant opened in June 2012 and has since become a novelty spot in Heilongjiang province’s capital.

When a diner walks in, an usher robot extends their mechanic arm to the side and says “Earth person hello. Welcome to the Robot Restaurant”. Patrons can then place their order, which is relayed by humans to one of the four robot chefs who are able to cook various styles of dumplings and noodles. Once the dish is prepared, a robot waiter, which runs along tracks on the floor, carries it from kitchen to table. Prepared dishes are placed on a suspended conveyor belt and when the plate reaches the right table the mechanical arms lift it off and set it down. As they eat, a singing robot entertains diners.

The robots are between four and five feet tall and can display 10 different facial expressions. They can work continuously for five hours after a two-hour charge. But the staff doesn’t come cheap – each robot costs between 200,000 to 300,000 hinese yuan (US$31,500 – US$47,000) with an additional 5 million yuan (US$790,000) invested into the restaurant itself.

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Lake Huron is one of the five Great Lakes of North America, a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America on the Canada–United States border. Aside from Huron, the lakes consist of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Erie, and Ontario. Together they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth, containing 21% of the world’s surface fresh water. The lakes are so huge that they are sometimes referred to as the North Coast or “Third Coast” by the people.

The Great Lakes have been sailed since at least the 17th century, and thousands of ships have been sunk while traversing them. Many of these ships were never found, so the exact number of shipwrecks in the Lakes is unknown. The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum estimates put the figure at 6,000 ship lost, but according to some historian the total number of wrecks is likely more than 25,000. Some of the wrecks are in shallow water making them very popular spots for diving.

Shipwreck of Sweepstakes. Photo credit

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The Leipzig/Halle Airport, sometimes called Schkeuditz Airport, is located in Schkeuditz, Germany and serves both Leipzig and Halle – two of the largest cities in the country. Lack of space required the modern airport terminal structure to spill over the adjacent motorway and railway that intersects the runway at right angles. To make room for the runway without affecting vehicular traffic on motorway A14 and rail traffic, three bridges were constructed over the motorway and the tracks, that allowed the parallel runways to extend to their full length of 3.6 km. These bridges are called Taxiways. Aircrafts would taxi on these taxiways at the time of takeoff and landing, while vehicles ply on the motorway below.

Taxiway E7 and E8 on the east are used as one way taxis and connect the terminal with the northern runway, while the third taxiway W1 in the west is used in both direction.

Also see: Gibraltar, World’s Only Airport Runway Intersecting a Road and Madeira International, Portugal

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Standing on the shore of Lake Turkana, you would be almost forgiven for believing you are at the seaside. There is swell in the waters, a sandy beach, and waves are lapping up to it. A fierce wind is blowing and fisherman boats are moored nearby, ready to go. But this no sea, it’s Lake Turkana – the world’s largest permanent desert lake and largest alkaline lake in the world covering an area of about 7,000 sq km. The local people call it the Jade Sea because of its breathtaking turquoise color.

Lake Turkana is located in the north of Kenya’s Rift Valley, and fed by three rivers: the Omo of Ethiopia, the Turkwel and the Kerio. The long body of Lake Turkana drops down along the Rift Valley from the Ethiopian border, extending 249 kilometers from north to south and 44 km at its widest point with a depth of 30 meters. Between four and eight thousand years ago, the Lake stretched for more than 400 kilometers from the Omo Valley almost as far as Baringo. During this period, the Lake had an outlet, a river flowing northwestwards to join the Nile.

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Taiwan has opened a Barbie-themed restaurant in Taipei called the Barbie Cafe, after the US toy company Mattel licensed Taiwanese restaurant group Sinlaku to build the restaurant around the iconic doll. As expected, everything inside is pink – chairs are hot pink and adorned with tutu skirts and red corset lacing, while walls display Barbie illustrations showing off many stylish outfits. There’s even a life-size Barbie “box” for customers who want to feel like a real-live doll. Female waitresses are dressed in pink outfits complete with tutus and tiaras. Male servers are dressed to look like Barbie’s long-term boyfriend, Ken

The menu was created by professional nutritionists and includes calorie counts for each item. Culinary choices include hazelnut tiramisu, colorful macaroon cookies served in martini classes, Philadelphia steak salad, salmon beauty salad, an ornate Barbie cake and the Barbie 128, a pink beverage named for the address of the eatery.

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“What happens to lovers while they are sleeping?” photographer Paul Schneggenburger asked as he began his project “The sleep of the beloved.” Using the second room of his two-bedroom Vienna apartment as a studio, he set up black sheets on a mattress, lit by a string of Christmas tree lights. A self-constructed trigger outside the room started the 4×5 camera at midnight for each six-hour exposure and turned it off automatically at 6 a.m., before the sun rose. Schneggenburger, of course, was not in the room during the exposures.

Paul Schneggenburger was curious to find out how people behave when they’re asleep, whether there is any emotion between them.

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It sounds like a cheap Hollywood horror movie, but Hill of Crosses is a real place – a site of pilgrimage actually – located about 12 km north of the city of Siauliai, in northern Lithuania. Standing upon a small hill are many hundreds of thousands of crosses that represent Christian devotion and a memorial to Lithuanian national identity. The precise origin of the practice of leaving crosses on the hill is uncertain, but it is believed that the first crosses were placed on the former Jurgaičiai or Domantai hill fort after the 1831 Uprising. Over the centuries, not only crosses, but giant crucifixes, carvings of Lithuanian patriots, statues of the Virgin Mary and thousands of tiny effigies and rosaries have been brought here by Catholic pilgrims. It is estimated that there are over 100,000 crosses on the hill.

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