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July, 2013 (Page 11)

 

The latest bizarre crime story to come out of China is the terrifying and sad case of a woman whose child was abducted, seemingly right out of her belly.

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Four solid reasons why America’s In-N-Out Burger deserves to be checked out

There’s a fast food chain in a small number of the western states in the US that is popular among the locals for its ridiculously tasty burgers. It goes by the name of In-N-Out Burger and is a place that our Japanese reporter Yoshio makes a point of visiting whenever he’s in the US. Join us below as Yoshio lists four solid reasons why, even for a man who grew up on Japanese food, In-N-Out Burger shouldn’t be missed.

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With the move to flash drives and cloud storage, CD trays may become a thing of the past, but don’t write yours off as a waste of space just yet. One Japanese Twitter user has found an excellent new use for his.

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Every protest movement draws inspiration from the incubating culture and the desired message. Brazilians have incorporated soccer balls into their recent protests against the cost of holding the World Cup and a lack of public services. Last year, French dairy farmers protested the slumping price of milk by dumping 3.5 million liters of milk near the iconic Mont Saint-Michel. So what are we to make of the recent rise in streaking as social protest in China?

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When leaving the house for days on end, whether it be for work or for pleasure, those who have pets face an additional problem in planning. Someone has to feed the critters and make certain that they don’t leave any stinky surprises. Japan offers a number of different services for traveling pet owners, but one man, Mr. Haruna from Okazaki City in Aichi Prefecture, hated to see how upset his pet became after being left in a pet hotel.

In order to limit the stress of lonely pets, Haruna quit his job as a salary man and started the Pet-Sitter Gentry. “It’s the pet version of a babysitter,” he explains, and although the business has seen some hardships, the recruitment of additional staff has now allowed him to expand his pet-sitting service area into eastern Nagoya City.

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Mario Kart Arcade Grand Prix DX screeching into game centres across Japan this month

Start your engines, boys and girls! Long-running racing series Mario Kart is making its third entry into the arcade scene, with Mario Kart Arcade Grand Prix DX launching this July in Japanese video arcades!

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We try 400-year-old Ghost Child Care Candy – so good it’ll raise the dead

In the Higashiyama area of Kyoto City stands a candy shop which boasts a unique regular customer, the specter of a woman who comes for their candy. The legend began in 1599 and has been handed down from generation to generation to the present day.

The shop, now called Minatoya Ghost Child Care Candy Main Office, only sells its legendary Ghost Child Care Candy. RocketNews24’s Kuzo decided to head down to Kyoto to investigate the bittersweet story behind this candy shop’s connection to the other side.

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Japan-exclusive Oreo Sticks – Can they compete with the real thing?

There are few things with the power to excite and abhor travellers more than foreign versions of sweets and cookies that exist back home. Even though we pass them by dozens of times a day in supermarkets and convenience stores in our own country, spot M&M’s, Doritos or even a Kit-Kat in a land where everything else is alien, and immediately we feel like home is not so far away; it’s like running into a friend from your home town during your first week of college where everything else is scary and unknown. What happens, though, if that same friend has a weird new haircut and is affecting some peculiar accent just because they’re in an unfamiliar town?

Oreo Sticks, a snack exclusive to Japan, will likely have the very same unnerving effect on snackophiles. With packaging familiar to millions, yet containing a snack entirely different to those we’re used to, Oreo Sticks have the potential to shatter cookie fans’ dreams, but with a little courage they could also be something quite wonderful.

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Despite its image as a high-tech country, a lot of Japan’s government paperwork still takes the form of bound collection of hard copies of legal documents. The National Diet Library has the responsibility of housing countless numbers of these collections.

However, like a fiery balrog, water is the bane of physical printed documents (which admittedly have a bit of a problem with fire, too). The National Diet Library occasionally has to deal with restoring books that have become wet before water damage sets in. Recently, the library revealed its simple, easy to copy technique for properly drying out a soggy book.

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The restaurant that powered the team behind one of Nintendo’s biggest hits

Kyoto has a long-standing reputation as a center of traditional culture, justified by its numerous significant temples and shrines, not to mention the artwork they house and their surrounding gardens. However, the city is also home to a site of great importance to modern pop culture: the headquarters of video game maker Nintendo, responsible for many of the titles that shaped modern gaming.

There’s a saying in Japan, though, that you can’t win a battle on an empty stomach, and that goes for designing great games, too. We recently visited the restaurant that powered the development team of one of Nintendo’s biggest hits ever.

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My, Kitty, haven’t you grown!? Japan’s favourite feline gets a risqué remake

Oh, Kitty-chan, you look… different! Sent to us by Madrid-based reader April, these photos of a cheeky t-shirt riff on everyone’s favourite Japanese cat are sure to raise a few eyebrows both at home and abroad.

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Mr. Sato shows us how to make a frozen slushie with our favourite sodas

If you’ve ever been to Japan during summer, then you’ll know how the energy-sapping, mind-melting humidity can make you want to do crazy things like wear ice-cream shorts and invest in USB-powered neck coolers. So of course we weren’t surprised when Mr. Sato came into the office insisting everyone shake their carbonated drinks and put them in the freezer. While some of our more sensible staff members made it clear that they wouldn’t be sticking around to clean up any fizzy explosions, our man Mr. Sato managed to convince us all that this would work. And work it did. In fact, this may be one of Mr. Sato’s most sensible ideas yet!

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Oh, dear heavens! What’s this?

Is Tokyo having freak, concentrated snowfall in the middle of summer? Have Mr. Freeze and Iceman been duking it out in Ginza? Is it a cotton candy terrorist attack??

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Police in Sakai City, Osaka are currently investigating a 46-year-old man found hanged in an public housing complex apartment that wasn’t his. The actual owner, a 21-year-old man, has since disappeared. This strange story all started when the young tenant received a phone call from an unidentified man speaking in a Tokyo area dialect that said “someone is dead in your room.”

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