For many hard-core diarists, having the right kind of journal can make or break the experience of writing in it. There's nothing worse than going to a darkened cafe and sitting down to poignantly spill your observations onto paper and finding that your notebook doesn't really speak to you. Perhaps its cover is too bright or its lines too wide, or maybe it just looks like a poser's journal? You've wasted a dollar on coffee and a morning full of dreams. You go home, having scrawled a measly paragraph or so. It needn't have been thus. For a selection of journals that will never fill you with self-loathing, visit NBC Stationery in Japantown. Its shelves are filled with notebooks for every mood and ambition, and the reasonable prices will let you save for one of the store's delicate paper mobiles, to stare at on days when you write at home.