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How Your Old Videogames, Books and CDs Could Help Educate a Child

Take a quick look around your home. See anything gathering dust? Any old books sitting on the shelf unloved? That AKB48 CD you bought last year but are too embarrassed to listen to? How about those Playstation2 games that you never got around to playing before your console died?

Well now’s your chance to have a good old clear-out. Grab a cardboard box and turn that stuff into an education for a less fortunate child.

Japanese recycling giant Book Off is working in conjunction with Shanti Volunteer Association (SVA) to provide books and learning materials for children who have found themselves homeless as a result of war or natural disasters. As well as donating the in-store buy-back value of any books, CDs, DVDs and videogames donated by regular folk like you and me, Book Off is pledging an extra 10% of that value to the charity.

In short, some less fortunate kids get an education; you make some space in your home and get to feel warm and fuzzy. Read More

 

Japan is known for being one of the cleanest countries in the world, surely a point of pride for many Japanese people. But is it enough to pull a knife on someone for littering?

Last month, Tokyo police arrested a 60-year-old man for threatening a female high school student with a knife after they threw their trash on the ground of a public park.

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Looking to get lucky with the ladies but can’t seem to get anything going? Has every date you’ve been on died in the water? Then this guide may be for you.

The following are the 10 most fundamental rules when dealing with women on any level of intimacy compiled on the Japanese blog Nanapi.  For many men, many of the rules will seem like no-brainers.  However, there is a reason this list was created – most women have experienced one or more of these things!

So while most of you guys think you’re not a dummy when it comes to women, you might be surprised.  Chances are a vast majority of guys are dummies in one way or another. Or is it just Japanese guys?

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Live Out Your Fast and Furious Fantasy: Night Drive in Tokyo Video

It’s okay, you can admit it.  The second you finished watching The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, you wish and hoped and prayed that some day you would be able to live in Tokyo and be a badass street racer.  For most of us (all of us?) that is just a mere fantasy.  Short of hopping a plane, foolishly challenging the local Drift King, destroying a Nissan Silvia S-15, drift practicing your ass off, watching your friend die in a fiery car crash, and eventually beating the Drift King himself…what’s a daydreamer to do?

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Be Nice to that Roach in Your Kitchen, It May One Day Save Your Life

It appears that the fastest growing field of robotics is cockroaches.  Once thought to be the domain of Roachbot and Roachbot 2.0, researchers from the university of North Carolina have raised the bar further with what has got to be the first functioning cyborg cockroach.

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Icha Icha is a Japanese term used to describe anything from light flirting to making love. It includes things like ‘necking’ and ‘making out’, but also holding hands or even just entwining pinky fingers.  Drawing close and giving long meaningful looks is also included in the realm of icha icha.  

Traditionally, Japan is not a touchy country.  Unless you are jammed up against somebody on a rush hour train, you tend to keep yourself to yourself.  Just think of how hands off bowing, the traditional greeting between two people, is.

Although more young people these days tend to hold hands or hold on to each other in some way, kissing in public, is still quite taboo.  It has always been quite shocking to see any couple kissing in the street or on the subway in Japan.  (Possibly the refrain to “Get a room” or “take it elsewhere” is universal, but such public displays of affection have always been less frequent in Japan than say, the US or France.)

Being a relatively new thing, this public icha icha-ing,  has no guidelines to it.  More and more people find themselves in the uncomfortable situation of coming face to face with icha icha without knowing how to react to it.

Yahoo! Japan asked readers for their thoughts on where they draw the line on public displays of affection. In other words: How much public icha icha you are willing to put up with?  

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Just 45 Minutes From Haneda Airport, And I’ve been Flying to Okinawa like a Chump! – Six Things That Make Hachijō-jima a Hidden Gem

Technically a ward of Tokyo, Hachijō-jima (Hachijō Island) is just 45 minutes away by plane, making it an incredibly accessible get-away destination. Despite being so close, few people have actually visited, or even heard of, the island, and whenever they’re asked to think of an “island holiday location”, most people living in Japan immediately respond with “Okinawa”. That’s only natural, of course, since Okinawa has a well-earned reputation for being an exotic island paradise (and for being the home of The Karate Kid’s Mr Miyagi…), but we hope that after reading this article our readers might also consider Hachijō-jima the next time they feel like jetting off for a break on the beach. Read More

Eggshell in Your Cake Got You Down? Try Baking the Entire Cake in an Eggshell Instead!

There’s nothing worse than sitting down to enjoy a big slice of your favorite cake, only to feel the unpleasant crunch of an egg shell between your teeth.  Well, what if your entire cake was baked in an egg shell?

One of our reporters has cleverly devised a way to cook a cake inside an egg!  She’s got a cute idea, but I prefer my cake eggshell-free, no matter where the eggshell ends up.

If you’d like to try your hand at making an egg cake, have a look at her recipe and commentary:

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New Fad, “Frog Mouthing” Popular Among Young Caterpillars Results in One Death

Caterpillars around the world are joining the newest trend of frog mouthing, in which caterpillars film or photograph themselves near frog’s mouths.  Posting the video or picture on YouTube or SNS is an integral part of the game.

However, this fad turned tragic when one year-old caterpillar, Josh Ketzlwyck of Indiana was fatally eaten while frog mouthing.  The incident was caught on tape by friend, 10 month-old Chip “Skeeter” Wendel and uploaded to YouTube.

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Man Frames Octopus for Murder or Vice-Versa, Trial Ongoing in South Korea

In Incheon, South Korea, a bizarre murder trial is taking place surrounding the 2010 death of a 22 year-old woman, referred to as Ms. Y.  The defendant is her boyfriend, 31 year-old Mr. K.  Prosecutors are demanding that Mr. K be sentenced to death for her murder.

With a key piece of evidence missing, he must convince the court of his side of the story: an octopus did it.

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When Goombas Just Won’t Die: East Indian Trade Expo Borrows Super Mario Bros.

You know when you have one of those dreams in which everything seems perfectly normal at first, but then you notice that something isn’t quite right? A tiny little hole in your otherwise immaculately woven subconscious tapestry opens up, and within seconds you realise that none of it is real. The image unravels like a fake Burberry cardigan thrown to a litter of kittens, and before you know it you’re wondering how you ever fell for it in the first place.

Techno-management festival Concetto’s Super Mario Bros. themed website had exactly the same effect on me the first time I saw it. As a man who, since the age of 7, has probably finished the original game about a hundred times, the effect of seeing much-loved videogame imagery used as a third party website is at once captivating and unsettling. Read More

Bull Sumo in the Oki Islands 【You, Me, And A Tanuki】

Starting this week, RocketNews24 will feature blogs written by people living in Asia who we hope can offer a unique glimpse at the country they call home. The first of these is You, Me, And a Tanuki by one of our own writers, Michelle. Originally from California, Michille is currently one of only two foreigners living in a tiny fishing village on one of the Oki islands in Japan.  We’re still looking for more unique and interesting stories from Asia to share with the world, so drop us a line if you’d like to have your own blog featured on RocketNews24.

The Oki Islands, nestled in the Sea of Japan, have a tumultuous history.  Once used as a place of exile for fallen emperors, the islands have been shaped by its unique past and transformed into an area rich in traditional culture and events.  One such event is ushi-tsuki, or bull sumo.  Used as a form of entertainment for the exiled Emperor Gotoba and dating back to 1221, the tradition of bull sumo is still proudly preserved by the local people of Oki.       

Unlike the famous “man vs. beast” bull fighting of Spain, Oki’s bull fighting pits bull against bull in a fair battle of brute bovine strength.  The match is over when one bull gives up and runs away and neither bull is injured in the ring.  There are even weight classes and bulls of comparable weight fight against each other.  Humans are present in the ring, but only play a supporting role facilitating the fight. 

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Some photos recently posted on reddit of a shopping mall in central Osaka surprised those not living Japan some of whom wanted to live in the mall. This, in turn, surprised Japanese people who didn’t know it was that amazing to others.

The mall, aptly named Namba Parks certainly looks beautiful from this angle but there is actually function as well as form at work here.

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Starbucks & ANA Bring You a Coffee Tumbler So Cute, You’ll Forget About the Price…Oh Wait, It’s 50 Bucks…

ANA (All Nippon Airlines), Japan’s largest airline, has teamed up with Starbucks to release a limited edition stainless steel coffee tumbler.

With it’s clean white color and charming little whale/rainbow combo, you can’t help but scream, “IT’S SO CUTE!!!”  One of our reporters was so enthralled with the cuteness of this limited edition tumbler, that she stopped an unsuspecting bystander and demanded to know where she procured such an adorable item.

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Breaking up is hard to do at the best of times, but when one half of the couple is still head-over-heels in love, it’s even harder. As much as we’d all like to think of ourselves as decent human beings who step up and address situations like these with the haste and sincerity they deserve, more-often-than-not we take the coward’s way out: we drop as many subtle hints as we can and draw the break-up out like an awkward teen melodrama. We call less often; we glaze over when the conversation turns to ‘us’; we switch from Corn Flakes to Alpha-Bits cereal and routinely leave phrases like ‘it’s over’ and ‘go away’ on the counter-top….

Thank goodness leaving social network services is so much less awkward. Click, click; done. Computers don’t have feelings, right?

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Biohazard Teaser Site Hints at an Ambiguous “New Terror” Coming September 14

There’s a lot of cool stuff going on for Resident Evil fans recently. You’ve got the S.T.A.R.S. restaurant in Tokyo, the Resident Evil attraction at Universal Studios Japan, Resident Evil: Retribution movie coming to the big screen this September and of course the OH MY GOD ZOMBIE RIGHT BEHIND YOU!!!!

…sorry, what we were saying is: and of course, the October 2 release of Resident Evil 6, which will undoubtedly be less scary than the zombie attack　text adventure above, if more recent titles are anything to judge by.

But hey, Capcom hasn’t lost it yet! Just check out their new teaser webpage, titled “Biohazard Hisotry.”

But be sure to turn the volume down and scroll down slowly, otherwise you might GAHHH HEADCRAB RIGHT ABOVE YOU!!!

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A Candy Store Variety ‘Cream of Corn Soup’ Flavored Ice Cream Bar Fit for a Fancy Restaurant

If you give a kid a hundred yen to buy a treat on a hot summer’s day, he’ll most likely skip off to the candy store to buy himself a Gari Gari Kun, a very popular ice cream bar sold just about anywhere. It is also the preference of many dark jedi. The standard Gari Gari Kun (gari gari is the sound of ice being crunched or scratched, and kun is an informal address aking to ‘boy’) comes in blue packaging and is cream-soda flavored. When it comes to ice cream bars, why give up a good thing?

Because right now, there is a limited-edition cream of corn soup flavored Gari Gari Kun! Gari Gari Kun comes up with different flavored ice cream bars all the time, though they’re usually a special seasonal flavor, like grape or melon. Although there is no season to cream of corn soup, it would be safe to say that cream of corn soup is a standard ‘soup of the day’ for many fancy European restaurants.

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Summers in Japan are unbearably long, hot and humid affairs that many of us would happily trade in for a couple more weeks of winter. But, sweaty or not, life goes on, so we do what we can to stay cool. Some invest in portable fans; some buy high-tech, sweat-wicking underwear; some make the fatal error of freezing a can of soda and seriously injuring themselves in the process.

Throwing a damp towel or facecloth into the freezer to use later as a frosty pick-me-up is a common method of beating the heat here in Japan, which is exactly what one young lady decided to do before heading off to ballet practice. Or so she thought… Read More

Elementary School Child’s Design Chosen For Japanese Commemorative Coin, “Unsophisticated” Drawing Shown No Mercy

Japan’s Ministry of Finance has just announced the chosen designs for coins commemorating the reconstruction efforts for the Great East Japan Earthquake that rocked the northern area of Tohoku on March 11, 2011. 

A premium gold coin with a face value of 10,000 yen (US $127) and a premium silver coin with a face value of 1,000 yen (US $12.75) are schedule to be produced in 2015.  Most are engraved with beautiful symbols of Japan, but does one of them look a little funny to you? Read More

According to researchers, Japan might be about the add volcanic eruptions to the list of catastrophes that have dogged it over the past year, and the volcano in question is none other than the iconic Mt. Fuji. Read More

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