Villa Escudero Resort is located in Quezon Province, Philippines, offering a vast hacienda filled with comfortable rooms, and a museum of curious things. Perhaps the most curious thing at the villa is the amazing Waterfalls Restaurant, where lunch is served against an impressive backdrop of thundering clear spring water. Grass fringed buffet stations and bamboo dining tables stand steadily in just inches of flowing river water from the sparkling falls, as it washes around the feet of diners enjoying delicious local dishes.

The experience of dining as water is running over your feet would certainly create a memorable holiday moment, and possibly one of your most unusual experiences ever, as they boast this “is a truly singular and memorable experience only Villa Escudero can offer.”

Villa Escudero Plantations is 800 hectares (2,000 acres) of working coconut plantation and hacienda located 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) south of the city of San Pablo, Laguna province on the border with Quezon province.Since 1981, the plantation has opened its doors as a resort offering village tours, museum tour, food and accommodations. It has developed a worldwide reputation as a focal point to experience Philippine culture and history in a beautiful rural setting.

The plantation encompasses three municipalities in two provinces: San Pablo City in Laguna and the towns of Tiaong, and Dolores in Quezon province. The entrance to the resort is located just a few feet from the Laguna/Quezon boundary arch.

Villa Escudero Plantations was founded in 1872 by Don Placido Escudero and his wife Doña Claudia Marasigan. Originally planted to sugar cane, the crop was converted to coconut by their son Don Arsenio Escudero in the early 1900s. A pioneering agriculture industrialist, he built the country’s first working hydroelectric plant - Labasin Dam - to supply his desiccated coconut factory and the Escudero Plantation house, which he and his wife Doña Rosario Adap built in 1929.

The plantation was opened to the public in 1981 as a tourist attraction, offering glimpses of plantation life. The family's eclectic private collection was presented as a Museum tour. Carabao cart ride takes visitors to the resort area, surrounded by park-like setting while being serenaded by locals. Dining is offered in a unique al fresco restaurant where the dining tables are situated below the spillway of the hydroelectric dam (or the 'Labasin waterfalls') while diners enjoy their lunch dipped in the flowing calf-deep water. Later attractions include an authentic live cultural dance show choreographed by National Artist Ramon Obusan, performed with live music. The resort has since expanded offering accommodations, more restaurants, sports facilities, and a conference center.

In 2008, 415 hectares (1,030 acres), more than half of the estate, was converted into an exclusive residential development called Hacienda Escudero.

A Japanese Ninja Restaurant in Tribeca, New York, is impressing diners with kung fu fire tricks, dangling sword-carrying waiters and even exploding food.

Signature dishes on the menu include chopped conch in garlic-butter sauce which explodes in flames after its fuse is lit.

There's also the 'meteorite pot' - a clam and soy soup which is cooked over 800C rocks at your tabl



Dinner with a difference: The menu on offer in the New York restaurant is served by a range of skilled Japanese ninjas

As these hilarious pictures show the eatery is certainly not for the faint hearted especially when you're being served by a man carrying a three-foot long sword.

Photographer Jay Fine said the restaurant was a big hit with New Yorker's who enjoy a meal out with a difference.

He said: 'When you go in to the place you enter an elevator in the dark and you have these two guys in ninja outfits next to you, then they suddenly start shouting 'Hiya!', it's not for the faint hearted.'



'When I was taking the photos this one lady was really surprised when a ninja hanging off the ceiling suddenly showed his sword, it was hilarious.'

'Actually you get all sorts going for food, from couples to whole families and it is a really different place to eat, there's nowhere else like it in New York and we have plenty of unusual places.'

The ninja was a covert agent or mercenary of feudal Japan.

They figure prominently in folklore and legend, and some legendary abilities purported to be in the province of ninja training include invisibility, walking on water, and control over the natural elements.

Most Brits think it's an activity best learned behind closed doors.

But an enterprising Swedish schoolmistress thinks otherwise.

Ylva-Maria Thompson has opened the world's first international sex school to teach its students how to be better lovers.

The Austrian International Sex School in Vienna offers 'hands on' lessons in seduction for £1,400 a term.


The 'headmistress' says anyone over the age of 16 can enrol at 'the world's first college of applied sexuality'.

Students live in a mixed sex dormitory block where they're expected to practise their homework.

And at the end of the course, they are awarded a qualification.

The new school head said: 'Our core education is not theoretical, but very practical. The emphasis is on how to be a better lover.

'Sexual positions, caressing techniques, anatomical features. And we teach people hands on.'

School spokesperson Melodi Kirsch added: 'We are confident that the school will be a great success.

'Ylva-Maria has worked for a long time on this idea and has received much encouragement and interest.'

The school has already been controversial in Austria.

Raunchy adverts showing a couple making love have already been banned by Austrian TV.

One protester said: 'This is wrapped up in a very stylish way but it is just selling sex.'