o-town. (NOT the band)

i've relocated to osaka- which is west of tokyo in the kansai area of japan, for those who are geographically challenged (as i am). joe small, a fellow swarthmore '05-er who's here doing a fulbright on taiko drumming, has been kind enough to accomodate me for my stay- THANK YOU JOE. the vibe here is nice- i already like it better than tokyo. its so different that you even stand on the opposite side on the escalator (tokyo- left, osaka -right) haha. people are nicer, people are more relaxed, and it's less crowded- people don't seem as uptight. (though my friend told me there was a study and they found that osaka people are more in a rush than in tokyo- measured by their length/speed of stride... haha). i could even say that the shopping is better than tokyo! so if you ever come to japan- i say spend a day in tokyo- there's not much to see as far as touristy sites to see anyhow- everything is down here, in kansai (kyoto, nara, osaka, kobe, etc.).

but yes, i am trying to prepare a gigantic blog update to chronicle my time at tokyo, so expect that soon. i've hit the ground running here- i came with no contacts, but i managed to find a hiphop/funk record store while walking around- and the store owner, takezo, happens to speak english really well. had a few drinks with him tonight, met a pretty famous mc on the street (marky, who just got signed to a major label and is doing collaborations with rhymster), and met some of his friends. i'll be going to a show he organized tomorrow night... so things look good.

anyhow, i'll work on uploading pictures and video also- sorry about the long leave!

oh and the polls are in. everyone in asia thinks i'm japanese, even the japanese. they will keep on telling me, "i thought you were japanese, you look very japanese" over and over and over. well some koreans were convinced i was korean also- but not as many. chiese people didn't think i was chinese haha. ah well.