Important update:

Please be advised, Pilot Pen Station featured in this old blog post has since CLOSED! It sadly closed in 2016.

Hello! It's been so long! Happy New Year!

M and I recently went to Japan and did some major stationery shopping. Do I have stuff to talk about! But first, as promised on Twitter, here are some pictures and thoughts on our visit to Pilot PEN STATION Museum & Café.

PEN STATION is comprised of a café on the ground floor and a museum on the second floor, at Pilot's corporate headquarters in Tokyo's Kyobashi neighborhood. Did we know this before we went to Japan? Nope! That's what's really neat about this part of our trip, that it was totally unplanned. We were in the neighborhood for something else when the familiar Pilot logo caught our attention from across the street. Pen museum?!? Sign us up! And free admission? Awesome. We ignored the (crowded) café and headed straight up to the 2nd floor.

As we guessed, the museum featured many of Pilot's pens in chronological order. It also had a couple videos and displays that explain how various types of pens work, how fountain pens are manufactured, how their Maki-e pens are made, etc. All in all, quite an educational place. By the way, I apologize for the low quality of these snapshots (no flash photography allowed!). I tried to focus more on soaking everything in, rather than taking great photos. Plus, most of the descriptions were in Japanese only. That takes effort to read. :D

The atmosphere of the museum was actually pretty nice and relaxing, I thought, with rich, shiny wood floors, glass everywhere, some artworks made with Pilot pens, and café tables. It wasn't crowded at all when we went. We noticed there was a large desk at one end of the main room where a couple people stopped by to talk to a Pilot representative. Huh! I learned later that you can get your Pilot pens repaired there. Cool!

While there, I really wished I was more experienced in fountain pens to appreciate all the pens on display. I'm a total n00b, so I didn't really know which pens to pay particular attention to. They all looked cool to me! I'm sure there were many pens pen addicts would drool over because there were several “Not for sale, display only” signs. Like this one:

Hey! I spot Pilot MYU 701! (right below 1971)

Satow Asuka is one of the artists featured at the museum who uses Pilot pens. There were some incredibly detailed artworks by her, made with her favorite pen Hi-Tec-C. And check out those whimsical shoes! (Hey, I have that Namae pen! It's sort of like Sharpie. Does that mean I can draw like her?!?)

The main takeaway for us from this museum was testing all the Iroshizuku colors. Next to the service desk, off to a corner, was a set of short fountain pens, each loaded with an Iroshizuku ink, and pads of paper. We later learned this is not unique to this museum (I think it was at Itoya where we found a similar sampling corner) but it was nevertheless a very memorable experience. Like I said, this was a random find, only on our 2nd full day in Tokyo! Anyway, we had fun testing each color, especially M because he's more of a fountain pen user than I am and had just gotten into Iroshizuku inks.

I think even if you don't know Japanese but love fountain pens or are a fan of Pilot, PEN STATION is worth a visit. Especially if you're going to be in the neighborhood anyway. It's in a more business-y neighborhood though, with many corporate office buildings. What were WE in the neighborhood for? There was a chicken yakitori restaurant (Isehiro) and a chocolate café (100% Chocolate Café) we really wanted to try. They both turned out to be great, especially the chicken place.

Various brochures I picked up at the museum, as any stationery nerd would do, right?

Pieces of paper with Iroshizuku colors we tested at the museum. That helped us make ink purchases later in the trip. :)

Here is the link again to the museum's official website with more detailed information: PEN STATION Museum & Café

In case you missed the note at the very top, Pilot Pen Station is CLOSED.

A Japan trip has been on M’s and my mind lately, so I decided to look back at stationery goods we purchased on our last trip to Tokyo. Turns out, we didn’t buy that much, compared to our previous trips. Probably because we were constrained by time and stationery shopping was not one of our primary goals of the trip. This was before we started getting into fountain pens after all. Yeah, that's probably it.

We had a few items in mind before the trip, though. First and foremost was M’s favorite notebook, L!FE spiral notebooks. My shopping list, on the other hand, was more vague. I knew I wanted some mt washi masking tapes for sure but I also wanted something whimsical, with characters on them like Miffy or Totoro, and anime goods for the fun of it. They tend to be hard to find and way overpriced here, so why not pick some up while in Japan? I had no idea what those would be exactly but I sure found many options once I got there. Anime stuff isn’t pictured and I won’t get into them here but basically many of my purchases ended up being of the stationery variety. Smaller, useful, and easier to pack. No giant stuffed Totoros for me (anymore)! :D

One of our favorite stores for stationery is Delfonics at Parco 1 in Shibuya. That is where M discovered L!FE spiral notebooks with pocket in size B6 years ago. L!FE notebooks are available in the US but this particular design in size B6 is pretty elusive, and he’s a big fan of B6. If I were him, I would’ve stocked up, but his self-control is far superior than mine. He just got ONE. Can you believe this guy?

Taken at the hotel on day 1. Record-keeping! :)

I got my fix of character goods as soon as we arrived at JR Tokyo Station, at Miffy Style on Tokyo Character Street, which is inside the station. There were so many character goods stores there, it was overwhelming. I just focused on one store and declared done after buying a couple pens and a roll of tape. Maybe I met some sort of a purchase minimum but they threw in a pair of wooden clips as a bonus, all in a cute shopping bag. Score!

The pen with the pink tip and the ears is a ball-point multi-pen with black and red inks. One ear can be pushed down for black, the other ear for red. I don’t use ball point pens much anymore but it was too cute to pass up. The ink flows pretty smoothly but the way the pink tip squeaks occasionally reminds you that the material is indeed cheap plastic.

Doesn’t this pen look like a Zebra Sarasa Clip? I bought it assuming it was but nowhere on the label does it mention Zebra. The refill inside says Zebra on it though, so I’m just going to assume it is Sarasa. It looks identical to a regular Sarasa and sure writes like one!

Our other favorite stores to hit while in Tokyo are Spiral Market and Itoya, where I was able to find these mt washi tapes. Spiral Market is a spacious and relaxing place to shop, not just for stationery but also for kitchenware, table linens, and general home goods. Itoya, as some of you may have heard, is stationery lovers' heaven. We didn't have time to go to the Ginza location, so we stopped by the one inside Midtown (our general shopping destination of choice anyway). That's where we found some fun sets of bags and envelopes by Midori. The tan envelopes with button & string closure are trompe l'oeil. They’re actually a pad of tear-off sleeves with an image of the traditional manilla folder. Ha! I have since found them locally in different designs.

Postcards from Nezu Museum. Some sent to friends.

Small, white folder and postcards + museum ticket

The postcards are from Nezu Museum. They are beautifully designed and the printing quality is awesome. The plastic folder came in useful for keeping tickets and receipts during the trip. I still use it today! It features an image of one of the museum’s highlights, an ancient bronze vessel in the shape of two sheep. We quite liked the museum store. It felt like a natural extension of the museum, a serene and quiet space to browse and soak in everything you’ve experienced. Can't say the same thing about many other museum shops. If you are in Tokyo and are into design, make time for Nezu Museum! And I haven’t even shown you its wonderful garden in the back.

Last but not least, here is a single Muji pen I bought in Japan, an erasable pen in 0.4mm. Yup, just one pen. An impulse buy at Muji To Go during our last-minute shopping spree at Kansai Airport. I hadn’t seen it at my local Muji, so I had to give it a try. It’s my first erasable pen, so I have no idea how it compares to others in the same category. But it writes smoothly and erases cleanly. I wish the ink was a darker black but I assume that’s just the nature of erasable inks in general.

以上です。That’s it!

Almost a year has passed since the trip and we’re still going through these purchases. We didn’t go too crazy, did we? I like that whenever I pull these out, I think of our trip and remember the places we visited.

On the list for our next trip are Loft, Tokyu Hands, Édito 365 and Wrapple. And we are going to add more to the list, after we study these magazines on stationery. It's going to be EPIC. Have you done stationery shopping in Japan? If so, what are your favorite places to shop?

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