When the Earth Shakes You Break "Dance"

03月17日2011年

Their names are Akira, Coney, and Kodama. Street dancers from Osaka who practice Buddhism and love to dance to early 90's Hiphop.

They wanted to jam on the streets but the boombox they were carrying had no batteries. So we were on an adventure all over Umeda looking for D batteries. I believe it was a 2 hour search that ended in failure. All the blackouts in Tokyo had everyone buying out flashlights and the D batteries required for them. I didn't mind hanging for the ride. I mean I met a group of Japanese dancers that I can really relate to, plus they barely knew English and that allowed me to get in a lot of Japanese language practice. They taught me Japanese curse words, which was hilarious cause they told me one word I didn't know あまっちょ。So I ask out loud in the middle of a crowd
あまっちょは何ですか。Suddenly everything became quiet and they told me to quiet down cause I just said out loud "What is a Bitch?" a true baka gaijin moment.

After the ping ponging of looking for batteries, the crew was gonna say forget it but I refused to let it go and since we were able to find AA batteries I offered to buy a radio that only required AA batteries. When it came time to buy it, again my money was no good. I even snuck the cash in Coney's bag for him to come at me 1 hour later and force it back in my hand. If their desires to come to the states comes to light then I gotta give em the same treatment.

Ight so we got the boom, the batteries, and the music. Next search was for a location where there were several places considered but I kept it moving until we found the perfect spot. The unfortunate news though was that it was already taken by a earthquake fundraising group. To me that was good news and luckily Ayako was there to translate some complicated talk. I figured we get a audience from the dancing and have all the donations go to the people fundraising for the earthquake victims. Both sides agreed and in no time we had a crowd and a guy with a Hollywood camera come out of no where and start filming them like they were for some sort of a documentary or the news.

It was all beautiful until the cops came to end it all (♯｀∧´) Apparently we needed a permit for dancing there. It ended sooner than it should have but not before we got donations higher than coins and loose change (=´∀｀)人(´∀｀=) afterwards we just chilled and danced (yes me too) at some random corner and that was a blast except for the part where I hurt my wrist. Zombieland rule #18: Limber up (~_~;)
Afterwards we headed to an area in Namba (a district of Osaka) called Amerika-mura (which means America village). They call it that because it has a lot of American culture influence. On our way there we passed by a underground circle of street dancers that hung around the Namba train station. B-Boys and even more B-Girls (#^.^#) When we hit the strip, I get to try out a foreign dish called Takoyaki. They are essentially fried octopus dumplings and dam good too. It's one of those delicacies that Osaka is famous for and highly recommended to eat if you stop by that city. I also ran into several record stores and kicked myself in the ass for not carrying those mixtapes! I know what to do tomorrow morning (^_-)

On our hang out in Amerika-mura we happen to cross paths with a friend of the KK crew and this guy was quite a diverse character. He was a black Italian who spoke fluent Japanese （；゜０゜）who says Japan isn't diverse?! We decided to end our night by hitting a karaoke spot and singing and dancing up in the room. I killed that Drake track and the KK crew rocked some Japanese tracks while dancing to them. You dam right I borrowed some dance moves （＾◇＾）Heres a video of them dancing in Umeda.

Keep it 元気