Enough to last me a week.. maybe a week and a half.

Look at all this candy I bought on my trip….

 

So much good stuff.

Hi-Chew and Puccho galore.

Tsutaya books.

I bought a bunch of books–comic books to be precise–to help me get more practice reading Japanese. There were quite a few of them but the sales associate was kind enough to wrap them all up for me. I didn’t feel like taking a photo of every single one but the above gives you a pretty good idea of what they look like. I tried to select books with furigana so I can use them to help expand my kanji vocab which is pitifully small… I also decided to grab two novels to give myself a concrete goal to work towards. One of them is a novel that I know is also available in English (The Little Prince) which I figure will be helpful for when I get stuck and the other is just one who’s cover I thought was pretty not that I can see it anymore now that it’s all wrapped up…

SPAO backpack in my favourite colour.

Lots and lots of socks. So many socks. Too many socks.

I couldn’t stop buying them and ended up with well over 20 new pairs. The Gudetama ones aside, they were only like 55 cents each!!!!!

Plastic Gudetama envelope, and another view of the Holika Holika Cushion Refills.

Daiso baskets for skincare storage.

New collection of pens and highlighters.

As if I didn’t buy enough at MUJI, I bought pens, markers, stamps, and stickers galore. Korea and Japan are both a crafter’s paradise and I found it so difficult to narrow down everything to what I wanted to buy. Here are a few highlights.

Above you can see another bundle of pens which includes Pilot Frixion erasable everything from highlighters to stamps. Between this and the mermaid yarn, I think it’s pretty obvious what my favourite colours are and i’m glad to see Japan had no shortage of these; everything in this bundle was purchased from Tokyu Hands Shibuya. I also picked up a couple Zebra Sarasa retractables to see what all the fuss is about. I plan to do a review and comparison in the future.

Artbox goodies.

Artbox in Korea was one of my favourite places to go because it was bursting with cute stuff but for a fraction of the price of our Artbox here in Canada. I bought some bear stickers for decorating my notes and planner.

More stickers.

And even more stickers.

I actually bought this particular one to stick onto my luggage and was disappointed to find that it didn’t even survive the short 2 hour plane ride from Seoul to Tokyo. It did, however, actually include two stickers rather than just the one I had thought when I bought it so I was pleasantly surprised.

Cute post-it notes.

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My favourite pens.

How can you go to Japan without visiting MUJI? Actually, I found one in Korea too which was a nice surprise. I was able to stock up on enough notebooks, highlighters, and erasable pens to last me for the next couple of years I hope…

Kanji notebooks.

Plastic pen cases.

Another plastic case–I think originally intended for pills–where I store my skincare samples.

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Ghibli goodies.

I always have so much trouble resisting the urge to shop when it comes to Ghibli merchandise. I have accepted that it’s inevitable that whenever I visit Japan, I will always return with at least one or two items. Pictured above is a super cute albeit overpriced JiJi Keychain that I bought at the Jamsil Ghibli store in Korea. Also grabbed myself some Ghibli finger puppets which are now sitting on my shelf masquerading as figurines.

Postcards from the Mitaka Ghibli Museum in Tokyo.

Totoro plush sewing kit, also from Ghibli Mitaka.

Mini ramen keychain from Tokyo Disneyland, complete with a cute Mickey logo in the spoon.

Massive haul of goodies!

I did a lot of shopping in Japan and Korea–perhaps more than i’d like to admit–but anyway, here we go with part 1 of my shopping haul: skincare and cosmetics!

In the months leading up to this trip, I was finding it more and more challenging to drag myself out of bed everyday and push through my daily routine. Whenever I find myself in a rut like that, I look for tangible motivation–something to focus on to pump me up and get me excited to move forward each day. In this case, I decided to give myself the reward of a little bit or a lot of much needed retail therapy.

Now I realize that this haul is pretty massive… and I did feel a bit guilty about it at first… but when I consider the fact that if I were to walk into a Canadian Sephora and spend the same amount of money, I would get less than a quarter of the amount of stuff, it makes me feel much better about my purchases. Even ordering online is pretty unappealing because for the amount I spend just to cover the shipping costs to my house, I could have bought a whole extra product. I also likely won’t be able to make it back to Asia for at least the next two years so this is my stash until then.

 
I did a lot of research before leaving on my trip and learned even more while I was there. Here’s my haul:

Masks, sunscreen, and skincare galore.

Essences, peels, concealers, scrubs, cleansers, and more.

CosRX AHA/BHA Clarifying Treatment Toner, Advanced Snail 96 Mucin Power Essence, and AHA 7 Whitehead Power Liquid.

Klairs Mochi BB Cushion and Freshly Juiced Vitamin C Serum, especially excited to try both of these.

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