Pretty Busy: Emma Benshoff packed light for Tokyo (on purpose)...
Five days in Japan with the Lit Girl co-founder, featuring gyoza the size of bananas, blind boxes galore, and beauty products worth clearing out suitcase space for.
I’m always curious about how other people move through the world—what fills their calendars, what they do when they’re in between things, and how they take care of themselves along the way. In Pretty Busy, I ask them to walk me through a couple of days in their life, hour by hour. The goal: to see what it really looks like to juggle work, beauty, and everything in between.
So far, Ställe Studios founder and aesthetician Elizabeth Grace Hand has taken us to London, Anfisa Skin founder Aly Korchemniy took us to London, and now,
is taking us to Tokyo and Seoul.Emma is the co-founder and brand director of
, a literary brand and consulting agency that bridges strategic marketing with cultural commentary. Based in New York (we met when we were both working at Meta!), she works with authors, publishers, and brands—particularly in fashion, beauty, and entertainment—to create smart, story-driven campaigns around books and adaptations. On the editorial side, Lit Girl publishes a themed syllabus each quarter that explores literature through a cultural lens, blending reading lists with essays, film, TV, art, and music.In April, Emma flew to Japan for five days in Tokyo (and later, three days in Seoul) with her best friends Emily and
(her Lit Girl co-founder!). The plan? “Eat a lot of good food, see some cultural sights, and do a lot of shopping”—naturally—while scouting locations for future Lit Girl literary city guides.Ahead, Emma’s full Tokyo itinerary (Seoul will follow tomorrow!). Keep reading for restaurants to add to your bucket list (including one with banana-sized gyoza), snacks to try (such as mint chocolate chip milk and strawberry-and-cream sandwiches), and, of course, beauty products (like the bang glue beloved by K-pop stars) that’ll make you want to book a flight.
Sunday, April 27
5:45am: Landed in Tokyo after a 14-hour flight from JFK. That flight is no joke—by some miracle, I actually slept quite a bit, but my skin is dry and my back is aching. I try not to touch my face on planes, so considering I last did skincare in an airport bathroom over 15 hours ago, my face is… not great.
6:45am: After grabbing my (purposely half-empty) suitcase and meeting up with my friend Emily, we headed to our hotel in Ginza. I’ve been to Tokyo once before—probably my favorite place I’ve ever visited—so I’m thrilled to be back. As soon as we got to the room, I unpacked my skincare. I packed light knowing I’d stock up here. My simplified AM routine: Skinfix barrier+ cleanser, Innbeauty Project extreme cream, Prequel vitamin C serum and Ultra Violette supreme screen. The Innbeauty cream is my favorite moisturizer—I go through a bottle every four to six weeks. And the sunscreen is new to me but I’m obsessed with the texture and scent.
7:30am: We rallied and went straight to 7-Eleven for the essentials: strawberry and cream sandwiches, TikTok-famous syrup-and-butter pancakes, and gummy candy to hoard in the hotel room.
10:30am: Since shops open later in Tokyo—especially on weekends—we took our time getting ready before heading to Shinjuku City for a lunch I’ve been thinking about since 2018: carbonara udon with tempura bacon from Udon Shin. The line is usually insane, but we made a reservation and were seated immediately. It was just as good as I remembered—and easily in the top five meals of my life.
12:30pm: First beauty mission: a blow-dryer brush. I didn’t want to risk bringing my Shark FlexStyle, but with bangs and keratin tip extensions, air drying isn’t an option. We stopped at Bic Camera—which sells basically everything—and I found one, along with Utena Matomage bang glue, which I’ve heard all of the K-pop girls use to lock hair in place. Nearly every girl here has bangs—my people!—so I know I can trust the rec.
3:00pm: We spent a few hours wandering Shinjuku, popping into stores and enjoying the weather. I tried to keep my shopping to a minimum since it’s only day one, but I couldn’t resist a Hello Kitty bath bomb from Lush—our hotel has a tub, and I was still sore from the flight. We ended the afternoon at Kinokuniya’s flagship, one of the largest bookstores in Tokyo. I loved browsing the different editions of books I’ve read. In the English section, I spotted a copy of 1984 I’m still regretting not buying.
6:00pm: We took the train back to Ginza—and the jet lag really hit. I was determined to stay up until at least 9pm, so we walked around the neighborhood more. I fell victim to a Sonny Angel display in a toy store. We’d been joking all day about how we’d inevitably end up with a bunch of blind boxes—something Japan has no shortage of. My first Sonny Angel was the eggplant. Cute!
7:30pm: Too tired for a proper dinner, we walked to 7-Eleven for snacks. Back at the hotel, I used my bath bomb and took a long soak before showering and testing out the new blow-dryer brush, which pleasantly surprised me. I had gotten a spray tan before the trip with Cassidy at Sunless Sol, so I used the Jergens Natural Glow wet skin lotion, —my secret for keeping a tan looking fresh longer. My simplified nighttime skincare: the same Skinfix barrier+ cleanser, a Dr. Dennis Gross peel pad, the Rhode glazing milk, and Innbeauty extreme cream.
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