The gym comes to you

Instead of going all the way to the gym in the town how would you like the gym coming to the place where you are?

This was what Adam Zickerman, the founder of inForm Fitness, a popular chain of gyms across United States figured and implemented.

When Zickerman's customers in Hampton requested a place to work-out, innovative entrepreneur that he is and also inspired by the food truck he ordered lunch one afternoon, he solved the problem by going into the idea of a mobile gym.

"I realised I could solve the problem by putting a gym on a truck!" said Zickerman, who is also the author of the New York Times bestseller 'Power of 10. "We know that people are busy and that is why we are offering this service."

Zickerman initially experimented with a few designs before he decided to go for a shuttle bus. He then invested $60,000 on changing its interiors and fixing six Nautilus machines. It's basically a large bus filled with the latest fitness equipment, hardwood floors and air conditioners. You'll find everything you need for a complete workout, and here's the best part - you don't need to go to the gym, the gym comes to you!

He didn't really need an advertising budget, as the bus pretty much advertises itself - after all, it's not every day you see a mobile gym on the road, so when people spot it in traffic, they are immediately intrigued by the idea. The 60-year-old Carole Pallmeyer, for instance, found herself driving behind the Mobile Gym one day. At first she thought it was a regular bus with ads for a gym on the back. But then she realised that the bus itself was a gym, so she booked workout sessions for her entire family.

"We are all busy, but we know the bus is coming and make sure we are home at 4:30 for the workouts," she said. "You forget you're in a bus because the workouts are so intense."

The Mobile Gym is an incredibly convenient service, so naturally, it doesn't come cheap. Sessions start at $100, while in-house workouts are $65. A personal training session will set you back $500 in the city and $150 in Long Island.

But the Mobile Gym has been in operation for the past three years now, and it appears to be a big hit. The bus operates only once a week, offering Zickerman's signature 20-minute-a-week workout that builds strength and endurance. Only two clients can be accommodated at a time on the bus.

Japan's Scarecrow Village

Where have all the inhabitants gone? You might wonder when you enter the village of Nagoro in Southern Japan. But you'll be surprised when lifeless scarecrows stare at you from the entrance as well as from every nook and corner of this strange village. There are only 35 living human beings in this place but over 350 scarecrows glare at you from houses, fields, trees, streets and at a crowded bus stop, where they wait for a bus that never comes. With so many scarecrows all over the place Nagoro is called the "Village of Scarecrows".

This was the idea of Tsukimi Ayano, who made her first scarecrow 13 years ago to chase away the birds eating seeds in her garden. The life-sized scarecrow made out of straw was the picture of her father and she was so fascinated by the life-like appearance of her creation, she started making more life-size straw dolls.

Each of the 350 scarecrows crafted by Ayano over the years was built on a wooden base, with newspapers and cloth used to fill them out. They are often dressed in hand-me-downs, and the ones propped up outdoors lined with plastic to keep them dry. Nagoro like many remote villages in Japan has lost most of its inhabitant's due to the attraction of finding new life, new jobs in the cities.

Ayano, 65 is one of the beings in Nagoro's greying community.

But Nagora has undergone a different kind of attraction with Ayano's scarecrows. It has turned out to be a tourist attraction. Tourists are greeted by two lifeless straw dolls guarding the road leading to the village. The name board "Scarecrow Village" reveals the whole story.

Eco-heroes blind and armless

What can a blind man and his friend with no arms do? They can help each other and survive only by begging. The man with no arms can talk to people and the blind man can accept whatever given to them.

But Jia Haixa and Jia Wenqi had other ideas. Turning themselves into each others eyes and hands they began their beautiful partnership when they were unable to get jobs due to their disabilities.

Haixa and Wenqi are the most unlikely environmentalists China, for that matter the whole world, has known.

They have managed to use their symbiotic relationship to plant 10,000 trees, transforming a three- hectare riverbank in Yeli village, in China's Herbei Province into an environmental paradise.

Haixa is blind, while Wenqi is a double-amputee. "I am his hands," said Haixa. "He is my eyes. We are good partners." The 53-year-old was born with congenital cataracts that blinded his left eye.

Then, in 2000, he lost sight in his right eye as well after a work-related accident. Wenqi, on the other hand, lost both arms in an accident when he was only three years old.

They met in 2001, when neither of them was able to secure work elsewhere. Although their prospects seemed poor, they had to find a way to earn a living. "My son came home one day and said, 'Dad, I smelled an orange when another kid was peeling it and it was like I could taste it,'" said Haixia. "I felt sorry for my son, that he couldn't even eat his own orange. This motivated me to live on.

I had to live for him to have more. I had to work hard and focus on making money."

So the pair hatched a plan to combine their skills and plant trees that would help them earn money and also benefit future generations. They leased a large stretch of the river bank from the local government for the purpose. Given their poor living conditions, the village authorities decided to exempt them from paying rent.

Each day, Haixia and Wenqi leave their home at 7am armed with a hammer and iron rod. Wenqi carries his blind companion across the fast-moving river to reach their portion of the bank. Since they don't have money to purchase saplings, they have to manually collect cuttings, which isn't easy considering their impairments.

Haixia, guided by his armless companion, slowly scales the trees to collect cuttings. He then returns to solid ground where he digs a hole and plants the new shoot. Wenqi then takes care of watering the saplings. It's obviously slow work, but the duo have kept at it for so many years that they've managed to plant 10,000 trees - way more than what most normal people have done in a lifetime. And they have no plans to stop.

"Though we did not accomplish much in dozens of years, we recognise the effort," Haixia said. "We stand on our own feet," Wenqi added. "The fruits of our labour taste sweeter. Even though we are gnawing on steam buns, we find peace in our hearts."