My favorite English games

So, I'm nearly at the end of my contract here and I'm thinking about what to tell my successor. I keep noticing certain games that I reuse, so I thought I would share them.

How school is during February

So, just last week I had the contract for re-contracting with JET before me on my desk. This is the 2nd time I'd seen this paper. In my first year it came a a surprise. You receive the paper in January and must submit it sometime in February. In my first year I felt like I had only just arrived, and I was being asked to decide on another year (with 6 months remaining on the current contract).

Sumo in Fukuoka - tastes of Japan

So, I hopped on a bus with some friends from Nagasaki and took of to Fukuoka for a 1 day 1 night holiday. The main thing on the schedule was Sumo wrestling! I really had no idea about it, but I have learnt a few things. Firstly, this is something you have to do at least once! It is far more interesting to go there in person than it is to watch on TV. Here are a few things i've learnt:

-Most of the famous fighters fought later in the day. Since we got there early we saw all the juniors fighting each other. They weren't even displayed on the ranking sheet. Though, this was still really awesome. You can see that there are hardly any people in the picture (taken in the morning)

- Acquaint yourself with the schedule.

- You'll probably be there for quite a while. Get some food because I don't think you can go back out (though in Fukuoka there was food and omiyage (gifts) down in the lobby.

- If your getting a cheap seat (in the back) make sure your camera has a good zoom... obviously mine didn't.

Yeah, but really try it out once at least. It cost me about 3000 yen for a cheap reserved seat.

A theory about making a good English lesson - part 1 - concepts for a good lesson

So, I have recently just finished my TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language) course. It was a 100 hour course with ONTESL which I would recommend. 100 hours doesn't sound like to much, but it ended up taking up a lot of my time (maybe this was just me). It had 3 modules: learning styles, grammar, and lesson planning.

The one that I see as the most important would probably have to be the lesson planning, even though I was in it for the grammar module. As a ALT on the JET program we don't always get to create the lesson plans, but when you do, you'll want to understand how to create a decent lesson. I'll give you a brief run down on some of the structures and points it taught me about lesson planning.

"Time bomb" search game - TESL game

So, I came up with this game the other day when trying to think of a game to spice up a lesson on "Health problems". But I can see that this game could work well for those lessons that have a lot of vocabulary (which was the challenge I had at the time). This is only an activity, a part of the class, and is geared to getting the students speaking to each other. It would be good at the practice stage of a communicative lesson plan.
So let me explain how it goes.

Nagasaki Takengei performance

It has been such a long time since my last post. I have been doing a 100 hour English certificate, so i'm sure I'll have something to say after that.

But, I have been to some recent events in my city, Nagasaki. One of which is Takengei　竹ん芸.
So this event takes place in mid to late October. The performers (some as young as 3 years old) do some amazing acrobatics on the flexible bamboo poles. It is better that you just take a look at the pictures.

Improving your students reading comprehension

So I came across a great website recently that gives some great tips about reading strategies - Mind tools.

Firstly, before introducing the link... 

The article isn't exactly aimed at foreign students, but people fluent in the language. However, these are still really valuable tips. There is one important thing, make sure that you don't use the information to "slot" your students into a certain "learning level". Don't box them in. Instead, when wanting to improve the student's skills (in this case reading comprehension), first identify what they need to work on and then suggest an appropriate strategy to employ. Consider the variables, what content are they trying to tackle, and for what reason (test, report, etc)

One of the things I liked about the article is about how deep one should read. Useful for students that struggle to comprehend some vocabulary. Having a brief skim of the text can give you a lot more context.

Anyway, take a look at the article. I'm sure it'll give you a few strategies you can teach your students.

http://www.mindtools.com/rdstratg.html

Summer in Japan - a couple of hints - something practical for the incoming JETs

So, it is pretty much summer here in Japan. I believe that it is still suppose to be the rainy season, but including today we've had 3 fine days. You know when it is summer when your on the way to school in the morning and you think it would be a great idea to go for a dip in that small river next to school. When you are hoping that the bus gets here quicker so you can sit/stand in the nice air conditioned interior. When half of the English department goes for a mission to the closest supermarket for icecream.

The photos that I promised recently and more

Ok, so here are some recent photos from around Nagasaki, Japan. Also include photos of Hotaru (fireflies), and Kousoutai (High school sports meeting).

Nagasaki - China Town

Nagasaki - down town

Karate sparring - Kousoutai

A dam not far from Nagasaki. This is where the firefly live.

Hotaru are hard to photograph!

A Japanese girl managed to catch one

The event called Hotaru ホタル in Japan (fireflies)

One thing that I love about Japan is that it seems to have a season or time during the year for everything. Sakura (cherry blossom) in spring, maple leaves and colour in autumn, Hotaru in the rainy season, etc, etc. I live in Nagasaki, a small city, but it has a fair share of its own events, some of which are famous around Japan (e.g. Lantern Festival).

Anyway, last night I went to see about the 蛍、ホタル、Hotaru (fireflies) around Nagasaki. In fact, I found that Nagasaki has a website setup for giving Hotaru reports (check out other locations around Japan here). So the fireflies are doing their glowing, dancing business from the end of May to mid June. Some famous spots will also have a Hotaru Matsuri (Firefly festival). 

Personally, I loved seeing these things floating around, giving off a kind of magical feeling. The best moments are when you get a good view down the river/stream and see like a tunnel of glowing, pulsating orbs swirling around.  These things were tricky to photograph but I got 1 or 2 keepers that'll i'll post up later.

Any way, cheers, these critters are still about for a bit longer, so get out and see them if you can ;)

Prefectural high school games - kousoutai 高総体

Hey there, long time no post.
So as I have said through some of my posts, working at schools in Japan is not only about the classes. There are many events through the year. At different times in the year, you may feel like you're attending more events than actual classes. One of these events in high school is Kousoutai 高総体 (high school athletic meeting). This event (in Nagasaki prefecture anyway) is prefectural. That means all the high schools in Nagasaki-ken (prefecture) have to compete against each other in different sports.

This event is quite big. The sports are played in various high schools and sports grounds around the prefecture. Usually it has a city that it is based in, but the events are held in various places. During this time students either participate or cheer on their fellow students. There are no classes, but there is no stay at home option ;) Students are given tickets they must hand to teachers to show they had attended the event to support their high school. Though in reality they only needed to hand them in and then leave, but the many I saw enjoyed watching the sport. Same goes for the teachers (including me), we had to attend. However, teachers don't need to hand in tickets. The Kousoutai takes place over about a week, and narrows down to the winning high school sports teams.

I quite enjoyed the Kousoutai. It is quite a nice time of the year for it to be held. Now it has just entered the rainy season, so the days are warm, but not too hot like summer. I, myself, went to watch Karate on the first day, and then swimming and volleyball on the second day. The atmosphere of the city changes a bit with all the highschool students out in groups wearing uniform. It was an interesting day, meeting students, walking around, watching sport, relaxing, etc.

Well just a quick post explaining the event. Might put some pictures/video of some sports later. Cheers.

Buying a Nintendo 3DS over a electronic Dictionary - Japanese/English Dictionary

It was some time ago that I thought it was about time to get a electronic dictionary, esp because i'm meeting a Japanese friend once a week for 1-on-1 English/Japanese lessons. Having a dictionary is just plain helpful, esp if you can enter kanji in it.

So the features I really wanted were Kanji entry, Jap/Eng dictionary (and of course the opposite), and some good examples in the definitions.

Well, I finally finished looking around the shops and figuring out what the best product would be for me. I checked out a whole bunch of the new Electronic Dictionaries...

Castle game - simple but great ESOL game

Hey guys,

So I read about this game somewhere, but it is easy to adapt and can be used on any type of quiz or whenever you want to turn answering questions into a game. Pretty much anything which has a lose/win scenario. I've used this game on classes with 15 students to classes with 40 students. It creates a bit of playful competition and can liven up a class if done right.

So this is how it goes. Firstly, I break the class into 2-6 groups. Each group has a castle on the blackboard that represents them. I usually draw the castles myself. The students usually love this part. Watching as my castles get worse and worse as I quickly draw them. The castle usually consists of 2-3 wall segments (dependent on difficulty) and 1 tower which has a flag. Usually If I have a large class, or want a shorter game, i'll only use 2 wall segments. Now you just start the quiz, any team that answers the question correctly first has the choice to destroy another teams castle (and I also allow them to rebuild their own if damaged). You can simply erase a wall segment of an attacked castle (or draw in the damage). Once a team is down to only their tower, it is their last stand before the other team can steal their flag. If a teams flag is stolen it can be placed on the attacking teams castle. And that is how it goes. Really the game can last as long as you still have questions to ask (and I always chuck in a few fun questions like who is this actor just to wake them up).

So I just quickly spewed this out. Now that you get the general idea you can easily adapt it as you wish ;)
Cheers.

Relationship with Students and generally just people on the JET programme

So things have been getting pretty busy again in school. The new year has started up and is in full motion. Things have been moving fast. Summer break is coming up, which means the new JETs are getting ready to arrive.

You may think your first challenge here will be your first class and introductions...wrong! Well, it may be a little challenge, but I don't remember it being terrible. The major challenge in human life is and will always be: relationships. This is because they have a great potential to reward or destroy you. Working on your relationships with people will really be beneficial for your time in Japan. I mean you won't exactly be invisible here, in fact you might as well glow. Plus, Japan is a fresh start in a brand new place for many, so why not try something new. Relationships, I believe, are really the flavor of life (i'm not just talking about romance, think more generally ;). So before I get philosophical/theological I'll let you know how it is for me.

So, I'm not exactly a relationship guru or anything, but i'm not ignorant, and have spent time working on this area in my life. Anyways, when I first was told I was going to 2 high schools I was thinking... NO! Not high school! I want cute little Japanese kids that love you no matter what. However, even though a challenge, i'm glad I got this placement.

Here is how my first day meeting some of the kids went:
During a summers day roughly 1300hours, I was sitting in the staffroom while the English club girls prepared their ambush. They shyly waited at the door trying to catch a glimpse of the new foreigner. Then, as the english club supervisor (one of my Japanese English Teachers) approached me, they took this as their cue to attack. The group came to surround the area at the end of my desks-group aisle (what do you call those?? haha). It was a brief meeting, but I felt kind-of awkward with all the people. But it turned out nice. One of the girls that was especially genki　元気 (full of energy, lively) said many random things (which is great for students to do: not be afraid). I called her crazy. They were kind-of shocked at first, but then I explain "good crazy" which they accepted. Since then, she is called crazy, mostly by herself. Great attitude. Great kids. They visited me nearly everyday when I first came. I see them every week at my English club now.

Another situation may also crop up. Many students have come up to me and ask "What is my name?"   I got this from day one. I'm like, you haven't even told me your name! So they tell me. Next day... "What is my name?" just to make sure. And it won't stop there. I've been asked this question since the start of the new year by the same students (and they know I know). It has now been continuing for about 3 months with other students joining in. So, if you haven't guessed, it pays to remember students names. This year, actually last week, a group of 4 students (all girls) waited outside of the class before I arrived. When I arrived they all proceeded to ask me "What is my name?" I won that round. I lost a round once at the start of one class. The group all said "what is my name", and I knew all but 1 of their names. Then they celebrated "We won!".

You can start a good relationship with students just by trying to learn their names. You may be thinking, what is going on? All the students he mention are girls... whats up with this guy...      Thing is, and I've asked around with my JET friends, I think students from the opposite sex to the JET teacher find it easier to engage with the foreign teacher. So males students may all gravitate to the female JET teacher, etc. (If you are on JET or are a  foreign teacher, let me know what you think about this)

In life, perhaps one of the most important things you can know about someone is their name. It counts. Back in my home country before I left to Japan, one of my Chinese friends told me "Thank you so much, ... because you remembered my name" (it isn't as romantic as your probably thinking). She explained, being Chinese (a minority) not many New Zealand people would remember her name.

So my simple piece of advice is: remember peoples names. Common knowledge, I know, but make a special effort. When you arrive in Tokyo you will probably receive a small schedule/calendar/notebook. I am now using this near exclusively to write down peoples names and details to remember them by. Not just students, but teachers, and others. Also, another helpful thing to know (I didn't know this for a while) is that most schools probably have a book filled with the names/pictures of each classes students.  If you ask, you can probably scan your classes and start writing the student names next to their pictures. The names are all in Kanji (and first names can be impossible because of the amount of different readings) but you can slowly write in names as you learn, or ask teachers. Another way is to assign homework that requires marking. Ask them to write their names in English, and their class and student number (this is standard anyway). Usually you can match the student number and name to the same number in the photo book. A lot of teachers also make seating maps for the students. If you ask you might be able to get a copy for your classes.

Doing this can be really hard from some JET members. I only have 1 school now, some JET members visit more than 7 schools. Sometimes they won't see the same students for a few weeks. So yeah, it can be difficult, but worth the effort. If you can get a photocopy of the students names/photos then you can jog your memory if you have many schools.

A few hints. Hope they help.

My trip around Kyoto - Part 1: around Kinkakuji and Arashiyama

Since I've been on the JET Programme I've been to Kyoto twice for holidays. I think I could easily go back again, the place has so much to do and see. At the moment, it is my favorite place that I have traveled to. To me this place seemed to have a laid-back style or maybe that was just because of the way I choose to do the sightseeing. It also has the traditional Japanese feel to it because of the many temples and markets you can explore.

If you look at a map of Kyoto you can easily split up the sightseeing locations. I split my sightseeing into 3-4 different sections. Since I was there for about 5 days it worked out nicely. It seems to split up pretty nice into the North, East and West. East is around the area of Arashiyama (my favorite zen garden in Kyoto), and the West is around the area of Gion (geisha territory, if your lucky you can spot them being bused around in their taxis). You will probably be doing a lot of walking, but Gion in general is a nice place to walk around and explore. Further North is Kinkakuji (the Golden pavilion) and Ryouanji (zen rock garden).

If you plan on going for a few days, you might want to fit Nara into your plans. Nara is a great little place that you can conquer in about half a day. It has some amazing temples and everything is inside a massive garden that is filled with pesky deer (they ate my damn map!). You probably get on the train from Kyoto in the morning and make it back in the early afternoon.

If anyone is looking for a good place to stay in Kyoto I would recommend Kshouse Kyoto backpackers hotel for accomodation. I have been there twice and have not been disappointed. It is a great hotel with awesome staff, and only about 15 minutes walk from the station. You can easily book with their website. I would go back again (esp because it says outside: New Zealand style backpackers... NZ pride or something).

Anyway, the best way to introduce this is through pictures.

The Golden Pavilion 金閣寺

The Golden Pavilion is situated North of Kyoto's station. About a 35-40 minute bus ride.

The Golden Pavilion is probably Kyoto's biggest attraction. The pavilion itself is situated in a nice Japanese style garden. You can almost walk right around the pond. It is surely worth seeing. I mean it won't blow your mind away, but it is a nice tranquil place, beautiful and a great walk.

Ryouanji 竜安寺

Just a short walk away from the Golden pavilion is Ryouanji 竜安寺 (zen rock garden). Actually, on the way you pass a nice kaiten sushi place (conveyor belt sushi). I'm pretty sure it is a chain restaurant, but still cheap and good.
Ryouanji is also situated in a nice garden. In fact, the garden has got a lot more places to explore than Kinkakuji. This place is really worth going too. Even if the rock garden doesn't interest you, there are other nice things to look at around the garden. The whole thing can turn into a nice relaxing stroll.

There are a few smaller but great temples in this area. One of the places include, I think, Japans largest pagoda. Check them out if you wish. They are easy to find on maps in the area, and are also in walking distance. I can't go through it all, it would take far too long.

Arashiyama (嵐山) - Bamboo grove

Arashiyama, in the west of Kyoto, is a great place to spend an afternoon. Located around Arashiyama is a Zen style garden also with a rock garden.  Right next to the garden is a road through a bamboo forest. Also, a place that I really wanted to go to, but didn't make it: the monkey park.

I went during winter, so this day was especially freezing. I thought I would rather try to survive the cold (quite literally) than try the monkey park.

ESOL English game - dice, vocabulary and grammar - JET programme

Hey there,
I thought I would share with you all the most successful game I made for my Japanese High School's English Conversation class. In every English lesson I have an activity or game that helps to teach the targeted English. Whenever you are teaching a foreign language it is great to get the students using it in a fun way, and make a good teaching environment. This game in particular really succeeded in waking the students up, they actually became quite excited to play it. Let me tell you how to works...

Well, I call this one "dice, vocabulary and grammar" for a reason. It is pretty much exactly that.

The goal:  Review/Practice recent grammar and vocabulary that has been taught in the classroom.
Required: Dice. I gave each team 2 dice (you can probably pick up at a 100 yen store). A set of cards (printed if you like) with vocabulary on them.
Class size, etc: I played this game in a class of about 16 students (senior high school students). I think it could be easily scaled up. You would have to have more vocab and bigger teams however. I think if you make the number of teams close to the size of teams (e.g. 5 teams with 5 in a team) then that'll work better.

How it goes: So this is how my class went down... My class had just learned about weekend activities (going to the gym, watching TV, etc), so I based it on this. I made some vocab cards from the different activities e.g. "watch T.V.". As I said, I had about 16 students. I broke them into 4 groups. Make sure that each team gets about 4-5 vocab cards (scale up/down if needed). Each team gets 2 dice.
So how it works is: 1 or 2 students from each team stay at their table and all the other students will go to other teams tables to try and take vocab cards from them. To steal a vocab card from another team a student must ask a question (based on the grammar/content you are trying to learn). For example "Did you watch TV this weekend?". If the team being asked the question has the vocab for "watch TV" then they must hand it over and say "Yes, I watched TV in the weekend". The student then takes it back to their team. However, before they are allowed to ask the question they must roll the dice. If the student who wants to ask the question win the roll, they may ask. If not, then they must continue on to another group. Whatever team has the most vocab cards in the end wins (time of this activity is decided by you).

Note: This may need translation into Japanese if the students don't understand (which is likely). Ensure you explain the game adequately to your Japanese Teacher of English (JTE).

The dice roll makes the game exciting because of the element of chance. This game works great to teach the grammar and vocab that class is currently working on. It can pretty much be adapted to any targeted grammar or vocab list.

If you ever try it, leave me a comment and let me know how it went. If it works any well, it might just be one that you can print off and save for those surprise classes you will probably receive ;)

Japanese language text book with Manga examples (learn with Manga) - My first textbook

I just wanted to let everyone know about the book I first started learning Japanese with.
So when I first started learning Japanese I was looking for something interesting and also for a text book which actually had good content. I wanted something to follow the Japanese pop culture but also have good teaching. In short, after spending a long time reading amazon comments, I went with the book "Japanese in MangaLand". Yeah I know how it sounds haha, but the cover itself will intrigue you before you even get to the contents.

The title "Japanese in MangaLand" makes it pretty obvious you will be learning Japanese with manga. The book itself consists of around 30 lessons (covering big topics). Each of these lessons has an example section that makes use of Manga illustrations to get across the lessons content. I believe the book itself is aimed at people wishing to read manga. What I like about this is that it starts from the useful Japanese straight away. Traditional textbooks will teach you the formal Japanese long before any casual Japanese. You don't want to be stuck in formal forever, and i'm glad that this book quickly introduces both. This is done especially because Manga (and anime) often use informal language. 

So, this book is about learning the basics (as it says on the cover). It lead me through learning all of the writing systems: hiragana, katakana and beginning kanji (Chinese characters). After first introducing the writing systems at the start, with great charts and an excellent Kanji reference in the back, it will then use them for the rest of the book.  In my opinion, i'm glad the book had a solid stance on learning all of these from the start. Many people will know one or two of the writing systems, but you really need all of them to even begin reading. The sooner the better (esp because the more kanji you know, the easier it is to learn new words and guess meanings of new words).

The books topics range from the writing systems, to basics like counting, days & months, to things like Swear words and insults, onomatopoeia,  particles etc. If you actually have the guts to stick with this book (which isn't to hard to do because of the manga) you'll come away with a good foundation. Of course, this will not be your only Japanese textbook, but it does a great job getting past those basics and actually covering some advanced grammar. Again, this shouldn't be your only textbook, you will never only have 1 textbook when studying languages. One thing this book doesn't have is audio so you can hear the new vocabulary, however, the Japanese language is not exactly the hardest phonetically. But make sure you have a few text books to strike a balance ;) I myself use about 2-3 different sources (textbooks and online).

To those about to come to Japan. If you haven't started studying the language yet, you could probably pick this thing up and get through it nicely (at a nice pace) in 2 months or less.

Anyways, cheers, hope you find this book as helpful and enjoyable as I did.

(Also there are workbooks, intermediate and advanced levels of this book)
     

Planning your first lesson - JET Programme

Hey there. Just finished being told that New Zealand husbands (followed by Italian) are highly sought after in Japan. Yeah! I was just thinking of making a song called "I still don't have a Japanese wife", guess there is still hope. Hold off on that song for now.

Any way, I want to tell you a little about preparing for you classes (in a Foreign English teaching environment). Just so you know, I work at a High school with both a general English course and a fishery course. So here are a few tips. I can't spell it out to the details, it is highly variable.

Firstly, perhaps most importantly, know what kind of situation you are about to teach in! Best way to do this is to talk to your predecessor about the type of preparation they did for classes. For me, I will plan a class a few days in advance (and sometime on the day). Recently, I've been sitting down with everyone that is involved (same material, different classes) and making a teaching plan. However, I heard from a friend that she just finished planning months of classes in advance. See what I mean by different situations, yeah! So figure out what your getting into.

Secondly, your predecessor should have left you a nice bunch of previous lesson plans (if they are nice people). Use these to get a general idea of how a class goes down. If not, you can always ask your Japanese English Teachers that you'll teach with.

Next, when you come around to planning that first class (and all classes) don't forget the objective. What type of class is it? Oral Communication? General? Reading? Writing? Meet your objective.

Write it down! You will probably have a bunch of classes, you can't remember it all. I just write it down on scrap paper and keep it safe. Many go full on with printed templates and things (at least that is what they tell you in seminars, realistically...?). If your you're into that, then do it that way ;)

Plan for the small things. Write them down, don't forget. I try to guess how long things take and make up a 50minute period. Try have some games you can use in the case you have time to spare.

A lot of the time you may have a book that the teachers follow (ask if you use one).That is great, it can provide guidance. However, not all are great books. Adapt the lessons to make them more interesting for the students. Think about encouraging participation and what environment you want in each class. For example, a list of vocabulary is pretty boring. Learning by repetition is not exactly fun (unless you can funk it up). The same vocab can probably be learned in more interesting ways with games, worksheets, in class examples, etc. You will be teaching for at least a year, if the method is interesting for you, it will probably be interesting for the kids.

So without any more rambling i'll let you in on how my lessons go down.

Intro: Greet the students. Ask about their weekend etc, Ask new questions, introduce a new "cool English phrase".

Warm-up: I will play a English song for the students while they fill in the blanks. Quiz them on previous classes, homework check, or some game to wake them up. I mean, not all of these, but around a 10 minute warm up.

Introducing the content: Today I did a little skit with my Japanese English Teacher. I tried to involve the students by asking random students "May I borrow your pen", "Could you open the window" (new grammar). Just someway to make the new content fun. 

I always seem to have worksheet so the students can work on the new material. This can be many things from filling in blanks to writing a letter/story. 

I usually have a game that is directly related to the new content. I love involving props and stuff. Bringing dice along to class and making up a game with them turned into one of my most enjoyable classes.

I usually like to do a range of activities in the period. If there is too much pair-work, it can get sluggish, to much monologue up the front, they'll go to sleep. Too much paper work, and it can lack interest. Try balance it all out. Think about it as cutting a class into sections of pair-work, self-work, class activity, instruction and talk from the teacher. Of course, you can't segment lessons perfectly, but you can ensure it isn't too unbalanced. 

I can probably write a whole lot more. For now, that is enough. But finally, a great tip. If you want to study Japanese (or another language) try and go along to classes, small ones are preferable. Then, steal teaching methods from your teachers ;) I went along to a free Japanese lessons once a week. A whole lot of fun, and it shows you some good teaching tips.

Ask me questions. I'll answer you directly.

My problems finding a computer in Japan

Recently I've been wanting to finally get an upgrade to my 7 year computer. T'was a long time ago that I could play a decent game on this computer. That is where the problem starts. To begin with, Japan is great for electronics. At the moment they have every kinda 3D appliance you could want; TV's, laptops, computer monitors, Nintendo 3DS. It is easy to find the latest phones, mp3 players, anything with an 'i' in front of it. They surely keep up with the tech and they can do a good deal.
All this is great and a paradise for me, however, gaming computers are absent. I've been to many a store looking for a decent gaming laptop. It seems the only computer with a dedicated graphics card is the ones capable of 3D movies and games. I'm not quite on that boat (though you can turn off the 3D). All I want is a decent graphics card in my laptop! It seems hard to come by in a Japanese store. In fact, most of specs here don't mention anything about video cards (who would if you have integrated).
There is some relief, Dell in Japan sells the same computers it does everywhere else in the world. It is also somewhat cheaper than in my home country (New Zealand).

So, just a heads up to those gamer types out there ;) Unless you are into your nintendos and PS3's then make sure you come prepared!

Now I really hope someone can correct me and show me some more options here in Japan. Perhaps tokyo has more options, but graphics cards seem rare. Probably because there is no demand. I mean, I haven't meet many core gamers in Japan (COD, Halo, Counterstrike, Battlefield, etc), and if I did I bet it would be PS3 anyway.

Tokyo Dogs - Japanese Drama - Recommended viewing

Hey guys,

We'll you are either in Japan, love Japan, or are about to come to Japan. Either way, it is really good to dig into some decent drama, and other media. Watching dramas is an awesome way to become knowledgeable about the famous people of Japan (which tend to be all in one actors, singers, comedians). Which is why I will recommend to you an awesome drama that I watch called Tokyo Dogs. Pretty much, if you want to watch something with great comedy, a decent story, and awesome actors (cute girl... suppose the girls like the dudes too) then yeah, i'd watch this.
I don't want to give to much away, but it is a story involving 2 detectives with an interesting working relationship (introduced quickly) and a cute girl that happens to come along for the ride (for reasons I won't give away). The relationships between the characters provides the main comic relief. The reason I found it so great is because each of the characters in the story has a really well built up personality which just makes the comedy that much more great.
The action is not terrible either. I mean there are a few of those cliched moments, but it is surely entertaining to watch.

In all, this small drama (with only about 10 episodes) will become a favorite to both the girl and guy audience. Haven't meet anyone that has walked away disappointed.