tokyo girls trip!
hello, 2025! we're over a month into the new year and it's been going... actually really well for me, LOL. i know i shouldn't feel weird about that, but i'm so used to being tense and panicked about life even when things are nice, and over the past month i have Not Been. yay for mood-regulating medication?
anyway, part of what made january so fun was that my sister and i took a short girls' trip to tokyo, which i want to document here!
we both had reasons for wanting to go: my sister wanted to get some hobonichi stationery that was coming out (specifically: a stamp with a dog on it), and i wanted to nab the duck triplets merch released at tokyo disneyland in late december before it sold out. it was kind of an impromptu trip, and we mostly half-planned it in the month before heading over, so i'm very happy it was a success!
here are some highlights of the trip.
hobonichi expo
we went to a free expo called 生活のたのしみ展 (i have no idea what it is in english), which featured a ton of stationery, novelty goods, clothing, jewelry, food, etc. we were there for... the hobonichi stuff!!!
i'd never seen a hobonichi before this, and wasn't really interested in looking into it because i didn't really see how a specific brand of planner could be lifechanging. but i am a sucker for a bunch of stationery gathered in one place, so of course i browsed while my sister examined the box set she was looking to get.
and then i ended up buying a hobonichi myself......
here are some of my spreads.
i used to be a hell of a planner girlie back in college, but mostly liked performing organization more than actually being organized... i did use my planners more than i decorated them, but still don't think i maximized their usage LOL.
i once read someone talk about keeping a log of how their days looked (instead of what they were thinking about), because that's something concrete you can look back on. it's hard to visualize what your life was like at a certain period based on your navelgazing from that time, but much easier when you remember what you were doing and how you were living. i liked that idea!
so with my hobonichi, i've been taking that approach. instead of using it as an organizing tool, i use it to note what happened that day. this seems... like an obvious use case for a notebook like this to most people (it is called a "diary" sometimes and not a planner!), but not to me for some reason!!! anyway, since i started doing this, it's been easier to keep up with on the daily, and honestly very fun. i also bought the 5-year techo, which i'm using in a kind of similar way (just less detailed).
the planner itself is not necessarily life-changing, but there are two things i like about my hobonichi. the generic thing i like about it is that it's small! this is my first A6 planner and i think it's the perfect size – it doesn't feel like an intimidating amount of space to fill. and the hobonichi-specific thing i like is that they've got a website with a bunch of resources/ideas on what you can do with your techo. seems – again – like such an obvious move, but this is the first i've seen any stationery brand put that much thought into their customer base's wants.
meetup with E
i made plans to see my friend E, who lives in tokyo, on our last full day there. hard to describe how E and i became friends LOL... we knew each other in high school, vaguely, but were in different circles, so we only really got to know each other after college! they'd already been living in japan for some time by then, but we would meet up whenever they'd visit/when i was in tokyo.
we met up in kichijōji and had a really chill afternoon out! we ate at a cheap udon place (my favorite sort of lunch...!), then headed to loft and spent... maybe over an hour there, browsing separately LOL. they then took me to a small coffee shop they liked, called sarutahiko coffee.
this is clearly not E.
we also went to a nearby pet goods store and some subway shops before splitting up in shinjuku. we talked a lot at the coffee shop... we probably spent two hours there!
whenever E and i get together, we always end up at the topic of languages or, like, living in different countries, LMAO. i guess we both spent our college-age years somewhere different from where we grew up and had to learn to assimilate there, so it makes sense. it's nice to have a friend of a similar background to talk about this stuff with!!
tokyo disneyland!!!
i saved the best part for last, since it was the whole reason i wanted to go!!!
the day we went to disneyland was PERFECT. the weather was bright and not too warm or cold, and the park wasn't too crowded. best of all, scrooge and donald were right at the entrance, ready to greet us when we arrived that morning!
artist's recreation of her interactions with scrooge and donald.
i was so glad i brought my hobonichi (and that i had purchased it the previous day!), because it gave me a way to get the mascots' attention while people were crowding around them. now the first few pages of my 2025 diary have donald and scrooge's signatures on them!
the mascots really spend time with you and when they're giving you attention they don’t look at anyone else 😭💖 very cute and nice... i think scrooge blew me a kiss even when my sister and i were backing off and letting him interact with the others T__T i wonder if this is the same in other countries, or if idol culture in japan has lent itself well to mascot interactions at the tokyo disney resorts specifically. i've really only ever been to tokyo disneyland, and only one other time (as a child!) before this trip, so i wouldn't know.
the interaction with scrooge was particularly cute. when he noticed me, i used my mediocre language skills to ask “could you sign… 🙏”
scrooge: 👉👈
scrooge: (faces away n covers his eyes)
me: ????
scrooge: (holds out his hand, pinching two fingers for the pen)
SOOOO MOE... after i got his sig, i asked “picture…? 🥹” and then HE DID THE SAME THING... pretended to think, waited for me to plead with him a little, FACED AWAY DRAMATICALLY, then held out his hand to hold. be still my heart.............
my sister and i also ended up lining up to interact with donald in a woodchuck uniform – this was, i think, a special event, hence the lining up? daisy had her own line, which was longer than donald's, to my surprise.
anyway, the setup was different from the entrance greetings: you had individual time with dona in a woodchuck-themed room at camp woodchuck kitchen. you could get a photo with him, take a photo of him, or just interact :) we decided to ask for a totem pole-type photo, so we prepped a pic and showed the staff.
us: is it ok?
staff: ummmm
me: (jp) is it too difficult?
staff: (full on jp response assuming i'm fluent)
me: a (<- ISN'T FLUENT)
my rudimentary japanese skills help me sometimes, but not always... eventually i understood that they were like “you should ask donald” lol. we asked 2 staff and they both said to ask donald. that was kinda cute. donald has agency.
the girl before us (clearly a donald otaku, love it) chose to photograph him with a pro camera, but she messed up the 1st shot, so she needed some time to reset. while she did that, donald would look over to where my sister and i were waiting and make apologetic/cute gestures... DONA!!! you are my friend!!!
i felt a little spoiled because he seemed to give us a bit more attention while this was going on + even slightly after the girl’s photo was successfully taken 🥰
we took a very cute photo, and i got to show him the huey figurine i brought with me on the trip. he gave us both high-fives and hugs.
those mascots are so well-made by the way!! soft and nice to hug, and whoever is inside is able to hear you when you talk to them + hold a pen well enough to sign things for you... well done, disneyland.
donald signing my hobonichi.
in which mei is not normal about guys doing their jobs
i have to say... i'm kind of floored by how happy the mascot interactions made me, LOL. i thought getting the merch would be the highlight of my disney trip but man... i did not expect the power of the donald n scrooge interactions...... as a triplets otaku i thought i’d be normal about the uncles. or at least normal about interacting with MASCOTS of the uncles knowing there are randos under there who are adults doing their job!!!!!!! indulging me, an adult at disneyland!!
but no… you’re really drawn into playing along bc they greet u sooo warmly 😖❤️ you can't help but play along. i'm sad i don’t have any POV videos of the character interactions… i don’t normally take videos but i wish i'd recorded them. it was refreshing and fun to suspend disbelief and play pretend that characters are real ^__^ thank you to the actors who indulge people like me. thanks to you i get to hold hands with scrooge mcduck.
HELLO??? what about the triplets???
OF COURSE... YES!!! i did indeed get the merch i was after! i was worried that it was considered "limited merch" and – having some idea of the obsessive collector habits of disney otaku – was worried it would be sold out by the time our trip came around. i was slightly happy to find out that it was still very much available, and right in one of the frontmost stores.
(i was slightly sad about it too... i want these triplets to be popular SO THEY MAKE MORE STUFF OF THEM... but i also want to be able to get stuff of them... the struggle)
my haul!
i only bought the shirt and socks initially, but when my sister and i got lunch (at, of course, Huey, Dewey, and Louie's Good-Time Cafe), there was the option to purchase a small bag (not offered in the regular stores!) along with your meal. i didn't buy the larger tote sold at the regular stores because i thought it was too big, so i felt very lucky that i happened upon an unlockable option that suited me more!! yippee ^__^
the food at HDL's Good-Time Cafe was good, actually. i recommend it. plus it's very cutely designed. i took a bunch of pictures of my huey figurine in front of the restaurant.
here's me taking pics of my huey figurine at toontown, too. thank you to my sister for humoring me and waiting patiently as i engaged in deranged girl activities...
miscellaneous
- i really vibe with the elegant, feminine fashion at adult women's clothing stores in japan (+ the pastel color palettes!), so i try to buy clothes whenever i visit. i bought three sweaters, a skirt, and a cardigan!
- i have no jp media blorbos right now, so i didn't buy anything at animate. to be honest, i've always thought most of the merch there was nothing special – it's just easy to get excited because it's an otaku goods store in japan, lol.
- surprised myself by not buying any cosmetics either, or going to takeshita-dori. girl who has aged out of youth fashion...
- before seeing my friend E on the day we planned to meet, they also invited me + my sister to this bar they work at in shinjuku. i thought it was a quiet sit-down bar but it was Very Happening...!!! surprise of my life
- new niece dropped while we were at disneyland :) so exciting!!!
- i got some progress done on a commission even while i was there. please clap
- i probably had kitsune udon four times over our whole trip.
- here are some outfits i wore:
reflection
it was my + my sister's first time traveling together as just us. this trip solidified my hunch that our travel habits jive well!! we're both slower shoppers than the rest of our family and don't mind eating at weird times, so during this trip we were able to peruse things at our leisure and eat when we were hungry.
i'm also much more a homebody than my sister, and we were both easygoing about, say, one of us being out and about (her) while the other stayed in the airbnb (me). that didn't end up happening too often anyway, but it was nice not having to worry about resentment on either end. we're good travel partners, it turns out! i hope to go on more trips with her!!
also, i counted when we were on our way back home from the airport, but this was my eighth japan trip and i was kind of wowed by that fact. even though i always go to the same places while there, i'm never sick of it. it really is one of my favorite places to visit... i should throw myself back into my language studies in earnest.
next time i go, i would like to:
- meet up with an online friend, possibly?
- upload netprints again
- go to a quiet sit-down bar
- look for indie bookstores/stationery stores
- spend more time thrifting/window shopping
- go to a museum or library
- GO TO DISNEYLAND AGAIN... (i hear disneysea is even better, but i wonder if the ducks are less likely to show up in the annex disney resort than in the main "disneyland"... i have priorities)