Filipino students performs during the parade at the 125th Philippine’s Independence Day at Dubai World Trade Centre on June 10, 2023. (Photo by Leslie Pableo for The National)

Revellers brave the rain as they make the most of New Year's Eve in Liverpool city centre, United Kingdom on December 31, 2023. (Photo by Ioannis Alexopoulos/London News Pictures)

Julian, left, is photographed by his mother with friend Gianluca, right, under water at a public pool in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, on a hot Friday, July 3, 2015. Germany faces a heat wave with temperatures up to 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) at the weekend. (Photo by Martin Meissner/AP Photo)

Capturing the true essence of Christmas, Lapland is the perfect place to take your family for the holiday period. Situated in the arctic regions of northern Sweden, Finland and Norway, there are a villages in each country around where you can enjoy the full festive experience.

Japanese artist Megumi Igarashi, known as Rokudenashiko, holds her artwork after a news conference following a court appearance in Tokyo April 15, 2015. A Japanese artist on trial for obscenity after making figurines and a kayak modeled on her v*gina said on Wednesday that there was nothing wrong with her artwork and her arrest merely showed how far Japan remains behind the west. Words in the artwork read “Centre. 3D scan”. (Photo by Toru Hanai/Reuters)

“Kopi luwak (Malay pronunciation), or civet coffee, is one of the world's most expensive and low-production coffee. It is made from the beans of coffee berries which have been eaten by the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) and other related civets, then passed through its digestive tract. ...

“The giant clam, Tridacna gigas (known as pā’ua in Cook Islands Māori), is the largest living bivalve mollusc. T. gigas is one of the most endangered clam species. It was mentioned as early as 1825 in scientific reports. One of a number of large clam species native to the shallow coral reefs of the South Pacific and Indian oceans, they can weigh more than 200 kilograms (440 lb) measure as much as 120 cm (47 in) across, and have an average lifespan in the wild of 100 years or more”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Tridacna Gigas, or Giant Clams spew water as a traditional fisherman passes by a small sanctuary on January 23, 2004 near Bolinao in the Northern Philippines. The clams, prime builders for coral reefs and providing shelter for spawning fish and other marine life, are exposed by low tides in the sanctuary. Overfishing and pollution throughout the country are not only threatening food security, but are also starting to choke one of the few working clam sanctuaries in the world. (Photo by David Greedy/Getty Images)

A worker manually changes the direction of the bonde, the typical tram line in Santa Teresa neighborhood, using a rope in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, September 9, 2015. The Santa Teresa bonde, called “Bondinho” in Portuguese, is running with passengers as a part of a test period, after the service was suspended in 2011 following an accident that killed six people, according to residents. (Photo by Pilar Olivares/Reuters)