Point cards

I was searching for something among the various items in my office desk drawers when I came upon my stash of old point cards I had accumulated during my student days in Japan. So I took a photo of them in collage style.

Clockwise from upper left: Yodobashi Camera, HMV Music Store, Tower Records, RECO fan, and Yamagiwa

Among the five point cards, only Yodobashi Camera is an electronics and appliance chain. The others are all music stores. I patiently scanned the RECO fan store near Yokohama Station for second hand CDs (I accumulated a lot of these that still survive and I listen to from time to time). I also did so for Yamagiwa's Kannai and Akihabara stores. Though there's a Tower Records store near the JR Kannai Station, my favorite was their big store in Shibuya where at its peak each floor was a music category. I get lost in the Jazz, Classical and Pop/Rock floors. But perhaps my most memorable buys at Tower Records were Far Side greeting cards that I sent to my future wife.

I also should have the point cards of other shops like Bic Camera, Sakuraya, Tokyu Hands and Laox as well as some hobby shops in Akihabara, Shinjuku and Shibuya that I frequented even just for window shopping. Many of these stores and branches are no longer there; victims of the changing times (e.g., Who buys old CDs now?). I would love to go back on another sentimental journey to Japan if only to go around and see what stores are still there in my former haunts.

-