daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad
I stopped by Kinokuniya today to look at stationery and manga. I expected a few 2027 Hobonichi items, but they had way more than I thought. The single item I wanted from the 2027 line-up was actually in stock, but I managed to resist. Instead, I picked up a small sketchbook and a dot-grid notebook for drawing. Browsing stationery stores is easily one of my favorite activities these days! ✏️📖
I’ve been slowly working my way through the candy and snacks we picked up at Ohmachi Shop. The actual candy inside is pretty basic, just sweet pressed sugar powder, and not particularly good. But I feel a sense of obligation to finish every one. The packaging though is really fun, very retro Japanese, and each wrapper is getting glued into the daily pages of my Hobonichi. 😄🍬
I’ve been using the Hobonichi Cousin Avec for a couple of weeks now, and I’m really enjoying the bigger size. My little A6 techo is compact and cute, but the A5 is just a better writing experience overall. The pages lie flatter, so I can use my Clampy, and I get to write at my normal size instead of concentrating on keeping my letters tiny. There are still spots where small writing is a must, like the daily timeline in the photo, but even there I’ve got twice the space to work with. And on the free-writing pages, I can just write without worrying about size at all. As a bonus, I’ve got more room to print bigger photos too. Overall, I’m happy with the mid-year switch to the Avec ✏️
Today’s daily photo is a simple snapshot of my Sony headphones and my Hobonichi. That reflection coming off the Tomie illustration is pretty cool though, right? 📸
Three months into my Hobonichi Techo A6 and still really enjoying it. 📓
Writing small has been a challenge, but I’ve slowed down and started paying more attention to how I form my letters. It’s a different kind of writing than my morning pages, which stay big and loose since that’s all about getting thoughts down fast.
The slow, deliberate approach has been a nice surprise. Turns out I like it a lot.
I finally settled into a journaling layout that feels right. 📓 The left side tracks the day’s timeline, the right side gets a few short notes. Top left is for the day’s high and low temps, and top right has a checklist for tracking my language learning.
I keep tweaking things here and there, adding icons with a stencil or pasting in little bits of ephemera. I’m having a lot of fun with it!
We spent the day shopping in Umeda, Osaka, and it was a really good time. 🛍️
First stop was the Nintendo Store. We were in there for a while, just soaking it all in. I’m a big Splatoon fan, so I picked up a keychain and a notebook. I had my eye on a mini skateboard too, but no luck on that front.
From there we headed to Loft, where I found exactly what I was looking for: the Tomie A6 Hobonichi cover! Just the cover by itself, which was perfect since I can swap it right onto my current setup. Yatta! I also grabbed a Tomie Weeks (March start), which is super cool. I’ll use it for Japanese vocabulary notes. I still need a pencil board and an A5 cover to complete my Tomie Hobonichi collection, so the hunt continues. 👀
The last stop was Tsutaya Books, and wow, what a place. The layout is circular, so you just browse in one direction and loop back to where you started. They had an amazing wall of fancy fountain pens, a solid selection of more affordable pens, and even a camera section where I checked out the latest Fujifilm and Sony gear. Highly recommend if you ever find yourself in Umeda.
