Second Hand Shop Japan
I had the chance to go to an amazing little store selling lots of preloved, preused, preowned collectibles, games, star wars figures and more that I now refer to as that second hand shop japan.
Initially I didn’t think there’d be much in this one store in Niigata. In fact I quickly found they had so much stuff they had actually split them into two stores. One contained books, videos and DVDs, (Book-Off) the other contained all sorts of clothing, sporting goods, cutlery and plates and…toys. (Hobby-Off)
I almost felt like crying when I saw rows and rows of matchbox and other toy cars hanging in little plastic bags. I thought they’d disappeared forever, but here they were, hundreds of them ready for the next child or collector to enjoy.
There were old Star Wars figures, Commodore 64 and Amiga computers, Nintendo games, Gameboy cartridges and so many other things that I thought had gone into landfill years ago that I was beside myself with joy. Not because I wanted to own these things again but because it proved to me that they still existed somewhere. Not everything was lost to time.
The exciting thing was I was finally able to find a Donkey Kong game that I used to play when I was in primary school, aged 10. The one I played at school had belonged to a female friend of mine. It had been so exciting to have this electronic device, this futuristic game, when I was a kid, that I was very happy to see that at least one of them had survived the years.
Of course, with a limited budget and even smaller amount of space at home, as much as I was tempted to buy a few things, I actually ended up buying a blue shirt. How times have changed!
