As the chances of taking a trip this year as planned dwindles daily and, at the same time, I've fallen into a nostalgia-hole thanks to this year's reading list and thinking of better days past, I decided to re-live some past vacations with a particular set of souvenirs. Plus, I'm sure I talked about eventually doing this post while writing my "Grand Adventure" stories. And what kind of souvenirs have I been staring at longingly? you're not asking. In fact, you're probably thinking, "Dammit, everyone knows you're making all this up as an excuse to show off your notebook collection!"
Study Abroad Japan 2009
These are the notebooks I brought back from studying abroad in Japan back in 2009. I know what you're thinking. "You bought 4 notebooks in 4 months!" I know, right, I'm surprised I didn't buy so many more, too. The first two on the left I happened upon while wandering the aisles of Don Quijote looking for actual survival-related items. The worst part is that I still do that: walk around stores and if I've got a bunch of purchases, maybe I'll just buy a new notebook too while I'm here. Unlike my other souvenirs, I wrote in them while I was over there and when I came back, though neither are full (not sure why I stopped).
This one I got at a Naruto anniversary exhibit ... I forgot exactly where. I know we saw the giant Gundam in Odaiba earlier that day so I think it was close by. In Naruto, there's a character called Sai that carries a notebook telling the story of two warriors fighting foes, their stories starting at opposite covers of the book until they inevitably meet in the middle. And that's why I loved this notebook once I saw it, because it sort-of replicates that from the manga.
The Gundam notebook I picked up when I went to see the giant Gundam in Odaiba. There's nothing uniquely special about the notebook itself. What does make it special is the story associated with it. I got the notebook on my third visit, the same trip that I finally managed to get my hands on a souvenir Gundam model. Several of us wanted kits but they sold out every previous time we went. On my third trip no one else could go, so off I went alone with the goal of grabbing as many kits as I could. The issue though was the "one per customer" limit. Once I got to the site, I immediately grabbed a model. I walked around for an hour, and then came back to the souvenir tent with the model shoved in my backpack. Knowing that I look like tourist, and in case someone recognized me, I bought not only another model but the notebook, a poster, and probably some other things that I've lost by now in the hopes that the extra purchases might throw off their suspicions. "No, he couldn't be the same guy that was here earlier just trying to get a second model, or why would he be buying all those extra things, too," they'll think to themselves. With the two models, I now needed a plan to get a third. Hiding two in my backpack wasn't going to work. I attempted to ask a guy with two small kids if he could buy me a kit since he was only buying one but I couldn't figure out the words fast enough. I did try to explain/lie to one of the workers that my friend loves Gundam but is sick so can I buy two but he wasn't buying my bullshit. I think eventually I got a call from someone at the dorm that we were doing something/drinking that night, so I gave up and left.
Portland/Seattle/San Francisco 2010
I got both of these in Seattle at ... I don't remember the name of the store. The first one is just a regular lined notebook but the cover made me laugh. I think the real reason I haven't used it has less to do with it being a souvenir and more to do with that thick spine. As I've mentioned (and no one cares) I do a lot of my writing sitting on my bed using a half-inch binder as a table, so I tend to bend my notebooks in half or else it's just burdensome to write upon.
The other notebook is filled with pictures of walls. Am I supposed to use it to practice tagging? To figure out stencil sizes? Are they supposed to be famous walls? Who knows. I'm not even sure what I can use it for. What types of stories do I write in it?
Australia 2013
The infamous blue notebook! I bought this from a random street vendor selling a bunch of (what I assume) are leather-bound notebooks. No, I can't tell you what drew my eye to the blue one, but I bought it instead of the other brown ones. What a mistake as I discovered the shitty dye job when the color smeared onto my fingers. Update: it still smears as I have blue ink on my fingers yet again. And that's why it stays in its own ziploc bag all the time to keep it from touching my other notebooks. Besides all that, I still like it. It reminds me of a notebook an adventurer on an epic quest or journey might carry, paper bound in hide and I can use the string to tie it all up to protect it from the elements. I know, why don't I write more high fantasy, swords-and-sorcery type stories?
New York 2015
I got all of these at museums while I was wandering New York. The black one and the two smaller, pocket-sized ones on the bottom I got at the Metropolitan Museum of Art while the white one I got at the Museum of Modern Art. The black one I got from the MET is definitely the cooler of the four: it's a hardcover with three different types of paper (lined, graph, and blank) and a flap in the back cover to hold loose notes. I meant to use it to write a fantasy, "swords and sorcery" type story to utilize all the paper types (lined for prose, graph for maps, blank for pictures) but now I don't even want to use it (I'll just buy another graph paper notebook instead).
The two on the bottom are smaller, pocket-sized notebooks. At the time I thought they were a weird size, as they were bigger than the ones I carried in my pocket but smaller than the ones I carried in my bag. Recently though, I've been carrying notebooks about this size and finding they're just the right size for either writing notes or even short sections of stories on the go when I've got the free time - waiting for my food order, sitting at a bar, between phone calls at my desk, etc.
Seattle 2017
Honestly, I almost didn't buy a notebook on this trip. There's nothing really special or interesting about it and I don't care for the plastic cover. I bought it just because I needed to buy a notebook. I really wanted to get one from the Museum of Pop Culture that I visited earlier in the day but I couldn't find one I liked. Or, if I'm remembering correctly, I just couldn't find one. And the writing workshop wouldn't be selling any because, really, as if the people attending the conference wouldn't have their own notebooks, as well as their own peculiarities and personal preferences regarding their notebooks. I'd definitely recommend visiting the Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum. The shapes and shadows and lighting and colors, it was mesmerizing and, if you have the same loose grip on reality that I do, perhaps you'll see something in those shapes to use in your next story, or nightmare, or wherever your personal demons and hallucinations take you.
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Grand Adventure (Japan/Korea) 2018
Both of these notebooks are from the Korea part of my trip. I just couldn't find a notebook I wanted while I was in Japan. I know, I could've just picked one off the shelf in a Don Quijote or Family Mart but it wouldn't be the same. I think the only place I would've liked to buy one was from was the Jump Store but I couldn't find one I like there (I haven't been watching as much anime as I used to). The first notebook I picked up from a Line Store I visited my first day in Korea. At the entrance sat a giant Brown. Thanks to the crossovers with popular animes, I spent a good deal of money on that Line Rangers game. The other one I got from a palace gift shop while I was touring with Tina. Honestly, if you showed me pictures and told me to match them with the names of the palaces, I really wouldn't be able to match them correctly except by sheer luck. At some point they all started to look the same. That said, I also can't tell you which palace I picked it up from.
Hopefully, once this current crisis is over and we can go traveling safely again without all the restrictions in place, I'll get to add more notebooks to the collection.
As a bonus (why are you still here?), here's pictures of some of the notebooks people have brought me as souvenirs from their trips, kind of like how people exchange shot glasses, or other things I don't know I'm not good with gifts.
