Audrey Akcasu

Audrey was born in Michigan, raised in Los Angeles but has felt most at home in Nagasaki, Japan. While teaching English in Omura, she discovered her love of nature, the countryside and ultimately Japan. When not working on her black belt in Ryukyu karate, or mastering her Nagasaki dialect, she wrote for and ran the English language magazine Nagazasshi. She loves traveling, frolicking all over Japan and Asia (with a few stints in Africa and Europe). But her best trip to date was her two-and-a-half weeks hitchhiking from Nagasaki to Aomori. Although she has relocated back to the States, she will probably be out the door to somewhere new in no time. Until then she’s enjoying the great outdoors and the bugs that come with it, doing anything from running to rafting, although her current "boom" is rock climbing.

Posted by Audrey Akcasu (Page 4)

Thai celebrities join in as “Don’t Judge Challenge” takes a turn in the opposite direction

Oh, the Internet and its hours of mindless entertainment and controversy. The latest trend, hitting all the main photo and video sharing networks, has been the “Don’t Judge Challenge.” While it all started with a positive, self-esteem raising message, it’s turned into something that is quite the contrary. Some Thai celebrities have started joining in on the “challenge”, but not everyone is happy about it.

Read More

Amazing watermelon cake to be available on Rakuten… for just one hour

Few things are more refreshing on a hot summer day than a nice big slice of a juicy, red watermelon, whether served plain, salted or drizzled with lemon juice. Internet marketplace, Rakuten, however, thinks they have a match for fresh watermelon, and it’s available to order for a discounted price on one day, for one hour.

Welcome back to the scene, Suika (Watermelon) Baumkuchen!

Read More

Vlogger walks us through a traditional Japanese handicraft fair 【Video】

Although the world is becoming more and more technologically advanced every day, many people in Japan are holding fast to the traditions of the past. While robots and machines can do a lot for us, they will never take the place of the men and women who carry on many of Japan’s traditional crafts, such as woodwork and sword-making.

Last weekend, YouTuber Sharla in Japan paid a visit to the Arakawa traditional handicraft festival in Tokyo and made a short video briefly showcasing a variety of these traditional goods.

Read More

Stop-motion karate, because we’ll never actually be karate masters 【Video】

For those of us who grew up with kung-fu movies and fighting games, sometimes it can be hard to cope with the crushing reality that we’ll never be able to pull off backflips or spinning bird kick like Street Fighter‘s Ryu or Chun-Li, no matter how hard we try.

YouTubers CorridorDigital, found a way around the years of martial arts training required to become a King of Fighters, turning two low-level “karate students” into gravity defying, super-speed karate masters with the help of a little stop-motion video and some clever camera angles.

Read More

Dirty cash: Chinese Yuan filthiest money in Asia, two bank clerks feel full effect

What’s minuscule, potentially harmful and is very possibly lurking on your cash money? A multitude of bacteria and viruses, that’s what.  It turns out that coins and bills are some of the dirtiest things you touch every day. Two Chinese bank clerks recently learned this the hard way after contracting a very unpleasant condition, supposedly on the job. Heads up, you might not want to read this while eating.

Read More

Mother teaches son life-lesson with a hilariously devious trick

Every mother wants her children to grow up to be functional, well-rounded adults, right? It’s hard to get them in shape for that if you coddle them all the time, so sometimes you just have to throw them in the deep end of real-life and hope they can at least doggie-paddle to safety.

One Japanese mother may have been a little sick of pampering her teenager and decided to toughen him a bit by playing a dirty trick on him.

Read More

Abandoned Chinese fishing village gets a natural facelift and it’s awesome 【Photos】

There’s something about abandoned buildings, such as Nagasaki’s famed “Battleship Island,” and the ghost skyscraper in Bangkok, that is so creepy and mysterious that we just can’t get enough of them. One Shanghai-based photographer recently journeyed out to the nearby Zhoushan Archipelago to document the remains of a once-prospering fishing village, now abandoned and being consumed by nature.

Read More

Man creates series of videos documenting his attempt to walk from China to Germany

You may not realize this, but the English version of RocketNews24 (there’s a Japanese site too!) has only been around for a mere five years! Believe it or not, cool and quirky things happened around Japan and Asia before we started writing about them, so there are years worth of interesting things that we didn’t get to tell you about. Sometimes, like today, we bring you stories from the past, because they are so cool, they should see the light again.

Today we take you back to a story that started on November 9, 2007, when Christoph Rehage, a 26-year-old German, started his 45,000-kilometer (27,962-mile) walk across China. He documented his adventure in various mediums, but most notably, in a five-minute time-lapse.

Read More

What do you see? Japanese netizens are having a hard time distinguishing between a bird and ginger

Here at RocketNews24, we never cease to be amazed by the animals of the world, whether they be pets, like floating dogs, or wild ones like the ezo momonga. One of the coolest parts of the animal kingdom is that it’s full of creatures that have funky feathers, colors or skills that are sometimes part of intricate camouflage or mimicry.

Usually, camouflage helps animals blend into their surroundings, or they will use mimicry to make themselves look like a different animal, plant or inanimate object — preferably ones that give them the appearance of being much more dangerous than they really are, so predators won’t mess with them. One funny Japanese bird seems to have misunderstood the concept of mimicry, though, and turned out looking a lot like a harmless, if not healthy, food. 

Read More

Crazy Filipino DJ literally turns up the heat with his stove “turntable”【Video】

With the increased popularity of house and dance music, the DJs behind the booths have been becoming celebrities with massive followings and fan bases.

While not necessarily a big name before, this Filipino DJ has found his niche not by standing behind the electronic mixing turntables you might expect, but by “DJing” one of the most useful appliances in his kitchen: the gas stove.

Read More

Sushi suitcase covers are back, this time with new flavors!

In most countries, when you think of conveyor belts you might think of factories, but in Japan, most people’s minds would probably jump first to sushi. Conveyor belt sushi is not only delicious and cheap, but it adds a little fun to your meal.

Some innovative designers decided to take that fun and add it to another common conveyor belt: airport luggage carousels. Last year Parco released their first edition of sushi suitcase covers, but this year they are back with three new flavors.

Read More

Japanese guy can’t afford to go to USJ, builds Back to the Future ride in his room

Although Universal Studios Japan (USJ) recently announced that they may be building a new amusement park in far-off Okinawa, it probably will not help the long lines and high ticket prices, and time and expense of traveling to Japan’s favorite amusement parks.

These same obstacles have been standing in the way of one young Japanese man and his yearning to experience Back to the Future – The Ride at USJ Osaka. His desire was so strong and his pockets so empty, he reinvented the ride in the comfort of his own home, and it’s actually a pretty believable substitute!

Read More

Japanese dog accidentally reveals his secret superpower! Oops, now it’s on the Internet

Have you ever heard about how dogs and cats seem to know that their owners are coming home from as far a mile away? That’s pretty weird. It raises questions about what other special and secret talents our pets possess.

Recently, one Japanese Shiba Inu accidentally revealed one of is special talents: The ability to float. All other floating dogs should be wary because his picture was taken while in action!

Read More

We visited the new JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Café and really liked the elevators

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure fans, listen up! Or don’t because you might walk away a little disappointed. Tokyo’s Tower Records Shibuya location has collaborated with JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Stardust Crusaders to create a café dedicated to JoJo for the month of JuJune.

Read More

Is one Japanese library’s “book dominoes” event disrespectful to books or just a day of fun?

In Gifu City there is a library. This library has recently been renovated, designed by a famous architect and envisioned to be more than just a space to read and borrow books, but also a meeting place, an event venue, and an area that all members of the community can enjoy. Sounds nice, right?

In hopes of promoting this new library, the city has planned a book dominoes event with which they want to set a new world record for the longest chain of books to be toppled. As fun as it sounds, the city is receiving some heavy criticism over the event and for their alleged general disrespect of books.

Read More

Adorable cat inadvertently teaches us Japanese【Video】

If you haven’t noticed by the number of cute cat videos or the famous character Hello Kitty, a lot of Japanese people kind of like cats. In fact, they like cats so much, that many common words and phrases have developed using the word “cat” in them, such as nekoze, which means “hunchback” or “bent back,” (neko is “cat”, ze is “back”).

One Japanese cat owner found their kitty sitting in the exact posture that brought this word about in the first place, but the cat was set straight again by quite a surprising (read: adorable) event.

Read More

Beijing Opera meets sun protection: Facekini 4.0 for skin tone and fashion conscious bathers

June has come, which means summer is just around the corner (in the northern hemisphere at least)! While Westerners rejoice at the chance to work on their golden brown tans, their Asian counterparts have a completely different take on health and skin tone, and want nothing more than to avoid the sun’s harsh rays.

No one, even the most vehement proponents of milky-white skin, can avoid the lure of the sea or pools on hot summer days, however, so they’ve turned to the help of the Facekini, a ski-mask-esque sun cover-up that emerged in 2006 and was thought to become the next big trend.

While it hasn’t quite taken over the globe yet, the new generation of masks are sure to get the attention of the fashion world with their wild Beijing Opera-inspired designs.

Read More

Did South Korean cutie DJ Soda get plastic surgery after high school? Some fans think so

These days, it’s not really out of the question to think that people, especially young Korean women, may have had plastic surgery at some point. Really, it’s almost becoming the norm in some places. However, we’d like to think that there are still plenty of natural beauties out there too.

Recently, some photos surfaced on the Internet that are supposedly the high school photos of the South Korean beauty, DJ Soda. While normally one might think, “Wow, she really grew up!”, thanks to the cosmetic surgery culture in South Korea, people are saying, “Hey, wait a minute, did she get work done?”

Read More

Hestia reappears at Anime North in Canada, we realize how much we missed her

Earlier this spring, the Internet was endlessly entertained by cosplayers dressing up as Hestia from the anime Danmachi (Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?). The character’s signature bust-accentuating, blue ribbon caused quite the stir and countless real-life (unsuccessful) attempts to get the same voluptuousness. Although she’s been getting less attention recently, one brave fan brought Hestia back at the Anime North 2015 festival in Toronto, and she’s better than ever.

Read More

7-Eleven store manager writes the most sincere, desperate job ad we’ve ever seen

If you are unemployed and living in Japan, we may have found a perfect job for you. No experience is necessary, it’s a pretty safe gig and you won’t have to do anything too difficult. You will, however, be a savior, a hero, and a knight in shining armor for one overworked, stressed-out, and understaffed, 7-Eleven store manager in Tokyo.

Read More

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. ...
  9. 12