Looking back, I can recall so many games that I enjoyed it is hard to pick one.  So, to simplify things, I will divide them into games that I played with my family and those I played with my friends.  When I was a boy we didn’t have video games and watching TV for many hours a day was not as common as it is now. I can recall that during the Christmas season my family would enjoy playing a lot of board games.  In particular we played Monopoly and Sorry.  I don’t know about the latter, but Monopoly is certainly still very popular.   We had a very old set that used to belong to my grandmother.  It was surprisingly heavy because the board was made of very thick cardboard and the counters that the players moved around the board were different vehicles made of metal. We also spent many hours playing card games.  One our family favorites was called ‘pelmanism’ which in Japanese is known as ‘shinnkeisuijaku.’

I played some of these card games with my friends too. But, on the whole, as I got older I actually enjoyed playing chess with my friends.  This is an extremely popular pastime in British schools. I have to confess I was never very good at it.  Some ten years ago I started to study Igo as a result of watching the classic anime ‘Hikaru no go.’  Sadly, although I studied quite hard, I was never any good at that game either!