Obama celebrates Obama

When I saw this I quite literally laughed out loud. The west coast Japanese town of Obama had a huge party celebrating the victory of President-elect Barack Obama. 

There they are, that's them on the left. They even had Hawaiian-dancing "Obama girls," since everybody who reads this blog knows that Obama was born here in Hawaii.

Perhaps the Obama connection can bring a nice little tourist boom to the Fukui Prefecture town along the Sea of Japan (East Sea), which prior to the junior senator from Illinois's run "had been known in Japan more for its fresh seafood, proximity to nuclear power plants, and for being home to two Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea." (Yasushi Chimura and Fukie Hamamoto were returned alive many years later.)

The mayor says they plan to put up a statue of the newly elected American leader. 

The town's name, by the way, means little beach and it is sometimes called "Nara by the sea." It is also a sister city of Kyŏngju (Gyeongju).