A stationery surprise

We spent this morning exploring Ginza and I was honestly braced to spend quite a chunk of cash on some delicious Japanese stationery.

The stationery surprise mentioned in the title? I didn’t buy a single thing.

Maybe I’m getting mature in my old age, but every time I reached for a notebook, pen or ‘hilarious’ set of Japanese stickers, I remembered that I had something quite like it (or exactly like it) lying in a drawer back in my home office.

So while I could have handed over quite a shed-load of cash this morning, I ended up carrying @TheFrankFlyer’s various purchases, despite visiting the enormous Muji, Loft and Itoya stories. I mean, they’re basically the holy trifecta of stationery in Tokyo and I didn’t purchase anything.

Probably because my home office closely resembles a stationery store…

Anyway, I’m sure it won’t apply for the entire trip. I’m positive I’ll slip up in a local Muji and buy some of their amazing pens or just have to have a unique sticker somewhere. But whereas ‘old me’ would have bought first and asked questions later, ‘new, mature me’ patiently returned things to the shelves and moved on.

Who’d have imagined?!

As I’ve said before, I’ve already moved after ‘attacking the stack‘ and I don’t think I’ll need a single insert for my Midori Traveller’s Notebook until well into the 2020’s. I’m also going to use up the various Moleskine (and Moleskine-esque) notebooks I have on various projects before buying more.

I’m really enjoying writing a reflective journal again, as well as maintaining my travel journal, so it’s not about abandoning paper. It’s about buying what I need.

I know.

I may need a drink to get over this shock…