The Easter holiday is just around the corner and celebrations are already on. Easter egg hunts, the fun part of Easter celebrations, have already started and will be held at parks and places of worship throughout the week. Easter markets around the world are well equipped with decorated eggs to meet the growing demand. Hundreds of Easter processions and community get together would be part of the holy week of 1 to 8 April.

A boy looks at painted Easter eggs at an Easter market in the western Austrian city of Innsbruck March 29, 2012. (Reuters)

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Romanians perform fire stunts during an event to mark Earth Day in Bucharest. (Vadim Ghirda/Associated Press)

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For the 2012 Earth Hour, a number of celebrities including supermodel Miranda Kerr, transformer star Isabel Lucas and cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar have come together to observe the event and inspire people to take much needed action for the environment.

The first Earth Hour event started in the year 2007 when WWF-Australia inspired Sydney-siders to show their support for climate change action. Around 2.2 million people took part in the event and more than 2,000 businesses turned their lights off to show their support for the initiative.

Over the years, the initiative has witnessed the involvement of people across the globe with many celebrities and known faces taking active part in the event.

Supermodel and VS Angel, Miranda Kerr, who is the global ambassador for Earth Hour 2012, has asked people to take part in “I Will If You Will” Challenge to do something positive for the environment.

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Every culture has its own unique cuisine, and the rituals to make local delicacies that are thousands of years old are still passed on through families and via street vendors today. Dongyang, in the Zhejiang province of China, however, may have one of the most unique foods that has carried over to modern times: virgin boy eggs, hard-boiled eggs soaked and boiled in the urine of boys under the age of ten.

In this small coastal town, the eggs are considered a delicacy, and urine for making them at home and for street vendors to use is collected through buckets left outside the boys’ bathrooms in Dongyang primary schools. Vendors who sell the eggs, like 51-year-old Ge Yaohua, claim the “fragrant” eggs have miraculous healing properties, promoting better circulation, increasing stamina and preventing heat stroke.”

“They are good for your health,” Ge told Reuters. “Our family has them for every meal. In Dongyang, every family likes eating them.”

Many Dongyang residents, both young and old, believe these stories, and are happy to carry on a tradition passed down for many generations.

In order to prepare virgin boy eggs, eggs must be soaked in a pot of urine and then boiled in the same liquid. (Reuters/Aly Song)

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Animal rights activists from the group ‘Animal Equality’ stage a protest during a “Day Without Meat” event in Barcelona, Spain. (Manu Fernandez/Associated Press)

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Is it possible for man to live all alone? Sostis, a 60 year-old former sailor, is the only human inhabitant of the volcanic islet of Palaia Kameni located in the caldera of Santorini. He owns a dog, poultry and lives in a 10sqm house. The drooping economy has affected the lives of many.

Greece’s economy is in recession for a fifth consecutive year and is seen contracting by 4.3 per cent this year as the government imposes austerity measures in exchange for financial aid from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

Sostis enters the Saint Nicolas church on March 17, 2012 on the volcanic islet of Palaia Kameni located in the caldera of Santorini. (Reuters)

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Spain is known for its spectacular fiestas. The Las Fallas fire festival of Valencia is the boldest, hottest, craziest and loudest festival celebrated anywhere in the world.

A pyromaniac’s delight, the Las Fallas fire festival literally jolts you out of your sleep and the mad euphoria is unlike what you may have felt anywhere else. The festival displays one of the best pyrotechniques in the world.

This carnival of bonfires take place between March 15 to 19 annually to honor St. Joseph, the father of the nation. The fiesta Las Fallas brings millions from across the world to Valencia to make it an internationally recognized event.

Las Fallas marks the onset of spring in Valencia. The festival dates back to the pre-Christian era.

The highlight of the festival is burning down of huge fallas and impressive fireworks. Fallas are huge effigies or monuments erected all over the streets in Valencia in different shapes and themes. These colorful ninots, meaning puppets or dolls, are made out of cardboard and papier-mâché and are filled with fire crackers and paraded in the streets before they are placed in specific corners in the streets. These fallas are burned in the afternoons of the festival days, triggering fireworks that last for hours, leading to a literal earthshaking experience, amid crazy cheering crowds.

Papier mache figures are burned during the Fallas festival in Valencia, Spain. (Alberto Saiz/Associated Press)

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Dallas Seavey has become the youngest winner ever of the “Last Great Race,” the Iditarod dog-sled mush across Alaska.

“I had five lead dogs on this team, and I had to have every single one of them to do their parts of the race,” Seavey said, reported the Associated Press, shortly after crossing the finish line in Nome.

Seavey, who turned 25 on March 4, the day the race officially started, travelled for nine grueling days, four hours, 29 minutes and 26 seconds with nine dogs pulling his sled to the finish line approximately 7:29 p.m. Tuesday. After 1,000 miles from the starting point in Anchorage, Seavey and his dogs were exhausted.

“It’s just now hitting me,” said Seavey, according to Reuters. “About four miles ago, I just crashed.”

The ice, combined with the frigid temperatures and windy conditions, forced many mushers to slow down. But Seavey’s dog, Guinness, who acted as a lead dog for short time, kept trudging through the Alaskan wilderness.

Musher Dallas Seavey of Willow, Alaska, runs his dogs down Front Street to the finish line, winning the 40th annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Nome, Alaska March 13, 2012. Seavey, competing against both his father and grandfather, won the race on Tuesday, becoming the youngest musher crowned champion of the storied Alaska event. (Reuters / Oscar Edwin Avellaneda-Cruz)

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Festivals and parades across the world marked St Patrick’s Day to pay tribute to Saint Patrick who brought Christianity to Ireland. In Central Dublin, an estimated 500,000 people gathered on Saturday for the St Patrick’s Day parade. Bands from Britain, the United States and Russia joined Irish volunteers in the two-hour procession through Ireland’s capital city, reported the Associated Press. Dublin City went even greener for the festival with all venues turned to green lights to create a citywide illumination for the duration of the Festival from 16 March -19 March.

Street performers leap as they make their way down O’Connell Street in the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin. Police estimate a half-million spectators lined the route of the parade, the biggest of more than 50 across Ireland. (Shawn Pogatchnik/Associated Press)

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A naked protest against the dependence on fossil fuels by riding bikes across San Francisco was held during the “World Naked Bike Ride” on March 10. According to the organisers, it aims to defend the right of cyclists to ride on the streets in safety. It also claims to “Celebrate free-body culture, bicycling as an alternative to cars and a generally greener way of living.”

A naked cyclist holds his bicycle up during the “World Naked Bike Ride” on Sao Paulo’s Paulista Avenue March 10, 2012. The event aims to defend the right of cyclists to ride on the streets in safety, according to organisers. (Reuters)

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