Caution arachnophobes, many parts of the world appear to be home to giant spiders, thankfully all in the name of art.

First up, a giant bug on top of a building in Reno, Nevada.

This spider sculpture was created by artist David Fambrough. It consists of the body of a VW beetle / bug (depending where you live) with huge metal legs. Some people wanted to squash the impressive looking bug, but it has been granted a reprieve and will instead be moved to another part of the city.

Controversy can also surround the bronze or steel casts of Louise Bourgeois‘ sculpture Maman, which can currently be found in 8 different location worldwide. In my home town, Ottawa, there’s a 10m tall Maman which cost $3.2millionCAD, though it quickly became a popular local icon.

Maman can also be found outside art galleries in Bilbao, Tokyo and Seoul.

In Kansas City Maman isn’t visible on Google Maps, but Street View reveals that she is happily menacing two women and a (doubtless quite traumatised) baby in a stroller.

Maman also lives in St Petersburg, Paris and Havana, but I can’t track her down on Google Maps or Google Earth. Let me know if you can!

Finally, giant spiders must spin giant webs … like this one in Colorado, which appears to be at least a couple of hundred metres wide.

Thanks to Steve and Bleij.

In the city of Mokpo, South Korea we can see a very mysterious aircraft, which cannot possibly be in flight or parked where it appears to be!

Look closely at the shadows of the plane and surrounding buildings, and you’ll agree that the plane must be very near to the ground. So near in fact that it couldn’t be airborne¹, as it would have already collided into one of the tall surrounding buildings.

So then the only conclusion is that the plane must be resting on the buildings, right? Well, this plane is likely to be an Airbus A300² (a passenger jet which carries around 300 people), and even completely empty it would weigh almost 82,000kg – which is rather a lot of weight for a building to support. And how would it have come to be there anyway?

Reader Graham, who spotted this sight, was kind enough to actually visit the area in question to see if the plane was still there, and how on earth it was being supported. Unfortunately a thorough search of the area proved fruitless, as there was “no sign of anything that could even remotely resemble an aircraft of that size”.

Finally, to add to the intrigue, why does the right wing appear to blend into the background of the satellite image?

Many thanks to Graham!

This is South Korea’s infamous Jeju Loveland, an outdoor sculpture park on Cheju Island, which is based entirely around the theme of sex.

The park’s website describes it as “a place where sexually-oriented art and eroticism meet”. Which means that what you can see in our thumbnail is exactly what you think it is.

There’s 140 sculptures here mostly representing couples in various sexual encounters, although only one or two of the bigger ones are visible here due to the fairly low resolution of the satellite shots. Therefore, I feel it is my duty to provide you with links to the official Jeju Loveland website, a gallery of photos from ground level, and another gallery with shots of some different sculptures.

Although it should probably go without saying, please bear in mind that all three of those links are quite probably Not Safe For Work!

Read more at Wikipedia if you dare

Thanks to Anon!

The Palace of the Parliament in Romania has a floor area of 350,000 m² which makes it one of the world’s largest buildings. Previously called the “House of the People” under communism it also narrowly misses the top spot of “largest government building in the world” behind The Pentagon.

It has taken the top spot in one category though – it’s the world’s heaviest building! Hang on, how on earth do you measure the world’s heaviest building?

South Korea’s Lotte World is not hard to spot, and is officially the world’s largest indoor theme park. So big in fact that a large part of it is outdoors on Magic Island to the South.

Thanks: Kjerstin & The Bobs