TOKYO: When the US president arrived in Japan on Friday to kick off his first Asia tour in office, no one was happier than his most fervent fans in the country - the residents of the town of Obama.

To welcome the US leader, who spent part of his youth in Hawaii, and whose father was Kenyan, the town of 30,000 people dispatched its team of hula dancers to perform a dance outside the embassy of the African country.

The tropical-style welcome was actually performed several hours before Barack Obama's plane touched down in a cold drizzle - but the undeterred organizers suggested it was the symbolism that mattered.