Ohayoo! Konichiwa! Konbanwa and Oyasumi nasai!

First up, my apologies for the lateness of this article, Japanese computers confuse me. The last week or so has been something of a roller coaster for your resident "out of town" reporter; missing RAM slots, airport wireless connections, international flights in excess of twelve hours, Tetris, its all been quite an experience in itself, and there's at least two months and three weeks to go!

Now, you're here for the gaming, or to laugh at my misfortune, so I'll make the inane, non-gaming story as short as I can.

Prior to my leaving gloriously overcast Britannia, I spent my final week with my girlfriend, and to a lesser extent, trying to locate a RAM-chip for my rapidly fossilising laptop. Much to my surprise, locating said RAM-Chip was the easy part, as my PC World had a single chip left in stock. The difficulty arose when I realised that there were only two panels on the back of my laptop, one for the CPU-fan and the other for the HDD. Fortunately my girlfriend is quite at home with computers and she had the laptop popped open with its insides on show quicker than you could say; "*Gasp* I heard something snap!" which is lucky because she was similarly quick putting the chip in and the laptop back together, thus stopping me intervening in a vain attempt to prevent any further, imaginary damage. On the subject of laptops, I realise mine is quite old, but when did my keyboard get so dirty? It looks like a Mars bar has been systematically wiped upon the keys I don't use very often; I think I can make out tiny colonies of bacteria…

Anyway, after a somewhat painful goodbye at Heathrow I was on my way to Tokyo Narita International Airport, alone, with no godly idea of whether or not they'd even let me in. Fortunately Japan is either very lax with its immigration control, or someone had called ahead, because I was off the plane, through the immigration control booth and onto my connecting flight to Sapporo Chitose Airport almost as quickly as my laptop was opened a few days before.

After arriving at Sapporo Chitose, I was met by the Probationary Secretary General of the Hokkaido University of Art and Design, a very friendly fellow who saw me through the dangers of my first ride on a Japanese train. From here I was chaperoned through a short walk under the cold of night and snow fall that had seen over 2 feet of snow deposited in some places, not the rubbish English snow either, powder snow, so soft and light that you can pick up a handful, make a ball and never have a wet hand to show for it. In fact, all of Hokkaido appears to be under snow - it might be cold, but it is really quite beautiful.

So that was that, I had arrived in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan with nary a hiccup. Well, I did struggle to play Tetris on the flight from Heathrow as the controls were inverted, but that's hardly a hiccup, even if it is a blatant display of improper controller set-ups.

On to the gaming. As we all know, Japan is the spiritual home of gaming, and despite being quite far from Tokyo, that link is still quite obvious. I spent the evening of my first full day in Sapporo taking in the sights of the City Centre, a sprawling place that stretches to the stars just as much as its underground network of shopping malls stretches towards the core of the Earth. Despite being utterly bewildered by the sheer scale and neon intensity of the place (think Time Square or Piccadilly Circus on every building), I managed to make out a plethora of gaming iconography.

Stepping off the subway train and into the underground station in the heart of Sapporo I expected many things, but the original NES Mario of Super Mario Brothers, dressed in a pixellated bikers jacket and standing four feet tall was not one of them. As of yet I lack even the slightest clue as to what he was advertising, but I hope to be able to tell you in three months or so…

For the first hour or so, things went smoothly, with no further gaming memorabilia or iconography popping up - that said I was doing a very good job of being the ignorant tourist and my camera and I were likely far too busy to notice a bus headed straight for us, let alone something as trivial as gaming nick knacks.

However, after descending the TV Tower (a 150m tall TV mast with a viewing floor that displays all of Sapporo in glorious panorama), I quickly found myself looking through a shop doorway, only to gaze upon what was easily a thirty inch wide screen TV, playing Dead or Alive 4 with an Xbox 360 display unit sat to its right. I am sorry to say that our white friend was drawing a massive zero members of the crowd and my companion on this little adventure wanted to keep moving, so I was unable to investigate further, but rest assured, as soon as I can find the store again (it is one of around five hundred on that street alone, a street I'm not even sure I know my way to) I will be sure to take a closer look, and if, as first looks suggested, it was a playable demo, I'll be sure to get back to you with what I think, though by then you might well have the game!

Again, things on the gaming front went quiet, that is until I rounded a corner to find myself staring at a six foot tall, embossed metal disc with a giant Sonic the Hedgehog head in its centre, advertising the "Sapporo Sega Centre". The crowds here were immense, and as such I was unable to enter, but the building looked to be quite expansive and certainly will see my return at a later date, unfortunately, we were hungry and were close to "Ramen Alley", and food always comes first when it tastes as good as a bowl of Miso-Soup.

That is the end of today's tale I am afraid, can't have me babbling on forever, tune in next week when I may have managed to ask someone why they're not playing the Xbox 360 demo unit and received an answer I can understand (my Japanese is somewhat scuchi right now) and when I will hopefully have made my way into the Sega Centre.

Take care, avoid Japanese Windows XP installations, they are the devil when attempting to use Word, and send me any working heaters you may own that use Japanese sockets, as its literally gone from gentle sun to a raging blizzard outside!

Sayonara until next week!