and every time I went to the 'big city' (Morioka, sometimes a day trip to Hachinohe while visiting friends on the coast, Sendai once in a while, or Tokyo when I was lucky/traveling home) I'd make sure to hit the used CD stores (vinyl was impractical for a # of reasons). Loved seeing 'chuukoo CD' on a window and stopping in randomly.

This was in the late '90s,and there was a ton of stuff up my alley going on in Japanese music, so given the price differential (I'm assuming a used CD there still costs as much as a new CD here? Maybe the .mp3 has changed that a bit, but I haven't seen any fluctuation in import prices) I was pretty much only looking for Japanese stuff I knew I wouldn't be able to find when I got home.