Monday 2 August 2010

Pin badges

This was my bag yesterday, as it has been for a couple of years now. Since I started sticking pin badges on it.

I love pin badges. Perhaps too much. But I have rules.

The rules of acquisition for pin badges (version 0.89)

1. Only one pin badge may be bought from any one series. That is, only one from any machine of the same type.
Machines in the same city or representing the same location - but with a different set of pins - are fare game.
2. On receiving a pin from the machine, no matter how much fishy Japanese food it represents, the pin must be accepted.

One of my favorite things about travelling around Japan is the promise of new pin badges. I managed to get a whopping seven on the trip to Okayama and Hiroshima. Of course, now I've left Japan, I worry I wont be getting many new ones any time soon. I had to get rid of my old bag which I'd been carrying around for three years wherever I'd gone. It was my primary means of displaying my pin badges. It looked so bald and barren when I took them all off:
 I was inspired when I was in China in March and saw a giant world map covered in pin badges. I want a collection like that some day. I'd like to start a blog in future dedicated to the acquisition of pin badges from around the world, where people would send me badges along with stories about the places they came from and I'd post them along with pictures of the badge.

That's if I got enough readers to make that possible. A man can dream!



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