The most expensive bowl of soup commercially available costs £108 ($190) and is featured on the menu at the Kai Mayfair restaurant, London, UK. The soup is called Buddha Jumps Over the Wall and contains shark’s fin, abalone, Japanese flower mushroom, sea cucumber, dried scallops, chicken, huan ham, pork and ginseng. Due to its unique nature, the dish has to be pre-ordered 5 days in advance.
The most expensive Snoopy memorabilia is a HK$ 2,888,880 (£230,000, US$ 371,000) replica named “The Ever-Shining Star” created by Tse Sui Luen Jewellery (International) Limited, and unveiled in Hong Kong, China, on 13 November 2009. The replica stands 14 cm (5.5 in) and is encrusted with 9,917 diamonds, 783 black diamonds and 415 ruby gem stones, totalling 207 carats.
The Continuum Caliburn turntable, manufactured by Continuum Audio Laboratories PTY in Melbourne, Australia, is the most expensive in the world with prices reaching up to $112,000 (£57,800) depending on the finish – the tone arm costs an additional $12,000 (£6,200). The turntable’s magnesium platter is magnetically levitated and suspended in a vacuum to ensure that the playing disc remains unaffected by external vibrations.
A single blue-fin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) weighing 342 kg (754 lb) was sold at an auction in the Tsukji fish market in Tokyo, Japan, on 5 January 2011, where it raised 34.49 million Yen ($420,000 or £270,000). The fish, caught off Japan”s northern island of Hokkaido as part of the country”s annual tuna-fishing allowance, was bought jointly by the owners of a restaurant in Hong Kong and a chain of sushi bars in Tokyo. Sold as o-toro, fatty blue-fin tuna sells for around 2,000 yen
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The most expensive tourist trip is a visit to the International Space Station. As of 2009, this cost between $20–35 million. Since 2001 seven individuals, including Hungarian-born US-software billionaire Charles Simonyi (USA) and Guy Laliberte, the founder of Cirque du Soleil, have paid a fee reported to be at least $20 million for trips to the International Space Station brokered by the American company Space Adventures. The exact fee they paid has not been made public. Charles Simonyi departed on 26 March 2009 and returned
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The most expensive tooth sold at auction cost £23,010 ($36,857) and was bought by Dr Michael Zuk (Canada) at the Omega Auction House in Stockport, Cheshire, UK, on 5 November 2011. The tooth is reported to have belonged to John Lennon. The final hammer price was £19,500 and the auction house commission was £3,510.
Eon Production’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang which opened on 16 April 2002 at the London Palladium, starring Michael Ball (UK), cost £6.2 million (US$8.9 million) to stage, beating the previous record set by Cats of £6 million (then $12.69 million) on 11 May 1981. The Lord of the Rings will smash this record when it opens in August 2005.
Women of the both the Tiv and Nuba peoples of Nigeria in west Africa endure extreme scarification rituals in order to undergo a rite of passage, as in the case of the Nua, or to accentuate their beauty. The scars are made using a knife or more traditionally stone or shards of glass or coconut shell and the deep wounds rubbed with toxic plant juices to create swollen welts or “keloids”. Scarification or cicatrization of the torso begins in young Nua females at the
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Will Purcell, David Hill, David Beavis, Phil Fravel and Mike Hudson (all USA) safety rigged 160 film squibs on to a wet suit worn by stunt enthusiast Mike Daugherty (USA), of which 157 successfully detonated at EUE Screen Gems Studios, Wilmington, North Carolina, USA, on 11 April 2005. The squibs, with a total weight of 20.4 kg (45 lb) took just 11.68 seconds to set off. Normally squibs contain fake blood, but for this attempt, they used powder paint in red, white and blue.
The most expensive white wine is the single bottle of Chateau d’Yquem (1811), which was sold for £75,000 ($117,000) by The Antique Wine Company, London, UK, on 18 January 2011. The bottle was bought by Christian Vanneque, owner of SIP Wine Bar in Bali, Indonesia. The bottle was inspected on 29 January 2007 at Chateau d’Yquem, Sauternes, France in the presence of Stephen Williams (Managing Director of The Antique Wine Company), John Salvi (Master of Wine) and Sandrine Garbay (Maitre de Chais).