Note: This is part of a series. Read my other posts here, here, and here. 🙂
I’m sad to say that I’m back home now. Japan was a wonderful experience and two weeks didn’t feel like enough time. Unfortunately, we didn’t go to Osaka so I didn’t see Nagasawa. 😦 I did check out the Traveler’s Factory and Muji in Narita airport though.
I was excited to see this Muji-to-go after seeing all the great stationery stocked in convinence stores. But the selection was small and not very exciting.
However, The Traveler’s Factory sold Traveler’s Notebooks and its accessories. For those who don’t know, TN’s are leather covers that can hold small notebooks, or “inserts”. This allows you to carry around several notebooks in a portable package. I bought inserts with special covers exclusive to this store. I also bought vintage-style Pan Am stickers. My dad bought a brass bullet pencil and ballpoint. He was actually interested by the shop! My plan to convert my family is working. 😉
I also bought some stationery from convenience stores. The most common ones were Family Mart and 7/11. Yes, the latter is apparently very popular in Japan. These small stores actually have good selections of name-brand stationery like Kokuyo and Muji. Some 7/11’s had their own branded notebooks too! The items here were cheap yet high-quality.
I’m still surprised that such nice stationery is widely available and cheap. I’m used to the terrible paper sold in U.S. stores. I spotted nice pens used for signing stuff a few times. I guess Tombow pencils and Uni Sign pens are the equivalents of Ticonderoga’s and Sharpies in Japan!
Found at the Edo-Tokyo Museum
Found at the Meiji Shrine
I hope you enjoyed my blog series! I’ll try to post more reviews but college is starting up for me and I need time to settle in. For those who are interested, here are some non-stationery related pictures of my vacation:
Note: Read my other posts about stationery shops here and here.
So I went to Itoya Ginza and its related shop, K. Itoya, during my last day in Tokyo. Itoya is in the center of the Ginza shopping district, surrounded by luxury stores. Just look for the giant red paper clip jutting out from the building!
Itoya presented the stationery beautifully. It must have taken a long time to arrange all the stationery so perfectly. There were endless rows of letter paper, washi tape and pens. There were 12 floors, so a lot to choose from! Not all the floors catered to stationery lovers. I spotted travel and home good sections. There’s also a nice restaurant!
Gorgeous cards!
Wax seals and stamps
Expensive glass dip pens
But most of it didn’t really speak to me. The items was either too expensive or not my style. The service was also quite slow. Compared to Sekeido, Itoya was too upscale and curated for me. The notebook selection was lackluster in the main store. There wasn’t enough variety and everything was full price. I liked the K. Itoya better. It was less sterile, and had a good notebook section. There were also cute school supplies. My favorite part was the table devoted to astronomy-themed stationery!
A notebook making section. I was going to order one, but nobody was at the counter
Love Kokuyo Soft Rings
Life paper is great
Astronomy themed supplies
I did buy a Pilot Custom Heritage 91 in Yama Budo color, a pen I’ve coveted since the beginning of my pen obsession. And I grabbed Pilot Iroshizuko Momiji for 1500 yen!
I had a much better time when I went to Kyoto. There I visited Loft and Tag Stationery. They were two very different stores. Loft was a Target-style store, with many different floors devoted to fashion, travel, home goods, gifts, etc. Tag Stationery was a smaller, specialized shop.
Loft was in a busy part of Kyoto, near my hotel. It had several floors, but it wasn’t all devoted to stationery. The third floor had all the journals, pens, art supplies and planners. There was a rainbow of notebooks in even more colors and types then I’d seen before! This had the best notebook section out of all the stores I visited so far. The Copic marker aisle was small and not as good as Tools. The fountain pen and ink counter was also small. But there were Loft exclusive Pilot Kakunos with magenta, pink or purple pen bodies. I got the purple pen. 🙂 There was even a cute Traveler’s Notebook set up. I even convinced my mom and sister to visit Loft. They both enjoyed it! My sister even bought a Traveler’s Notebook in passport size and some inserts to go with it. So proud of her. 😀
In comparison, Tag Stationery was a small niche store. Apparently that’s where the Tag inks came from. It was in a bustling shopping area. A small temple was next to it. I loved that about Kyoto, finding little shrines and temples everywhere!
I already had Kyo-no-oto Adzuki-iro but I bought Kyo-iro No. 2 Ohara’s Morning Snow and Kyo-no-oto Hisoku. Besides, the store-made inks, I also purchased a pinkish red Sailor demonstrator. There was an exclusive pink Pilot Prera but I didn’t get it. Tag also had a wonderful collection of letter writing paper and envelopes. I bought a nice set with flower patterns printed into the surface. I was surprised by the array of notebooks for young children. It seemed like the type of notebooks you’d buy for kindergarten. It had an unusual ruling, a large grid made up of four squares. They had pop culture references on the cover like Disney and Peanuts and Moomin. I always like finding new rulings!
Although, I didn’t enjoy Itoya as much, the other two stores more than made up for it! Next, I’ll post about the Traveler’s Factory store in Narita airport and other assorted places where I got my stationery.
Note: This is the second blog post in a series. The first post is here.
I’ve been lucky to stay in a hotel in Shinjuku for the past few days. Besides the thriving restaurants and nightlife, there are also many stationery stores! Today, I went to Tools, an art supply shop in the Lumine EST underground mall. I also stopped by Sekaido, a stationery store very close to Kingdom Note.
I heard about Tools from this blog post. My main reason for going there was its large stock of Copic markers! For those who don’t know, Copics are alcohol markers known for their vibrant colors and blending qualities. They are popular among manga and comic artists. The problem is that they’re expensive in the United States. I was slowly building my collection, one $7 marker at a time. 😦 But here, a single marker is 380 yen and 340 with the tax refund. This made them a lot more affordable.
Tools is on the 6th floor of an underground shopping mall called Lumine Est. It’s near the East exit of Shinjuku Station, close to my hotel. It’s one of many stores that sell clothing, lifestyle items, makeup, etc.
Tools is an artists’ paradise! I was instantly bedazzled by the endless rows of washi tape, stationery and pencils. But seeing the Copic marker selection took my breath away. Tools had all 358 colors in the Sketch size, along with all of them in the Ciao and Original type. It also had a variety of Copic-friendly marker paper and sketchbooks and even Copic multi liners. There were small pads for testing the markers.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAH SO MANY MARKERS
Copic markers come in every color imaginable, from the palest shadow to rich pigment. They are divided into several color groups and are rated on a scale of how easily they blend with other markers in the same group.
I also bought Staedlter fineliners, marker paper and a sticker set of samurai and geisha figures!
I spent so much time in that store, whittling down which Copic markers to buy. It’s truly an experience. It helps that the tax refund counter is on the same floor so I can get my 8% refund back easily. If you’re an artist, definitely go here.
Later, I spent time in Sekaido Shinjuku Nishiguchi, which is only a block away from Kingdom Note. It has 5 floors, and two basement levels, all packed with stationery. And this isn’t even the main outlet! There were painting frames, letter paper, paint and canvases, pens, ink and pencils. It is basically jetpens in a physical location! The price on jetpens is usually higher because it‘s imported. But getting it from the source makes it cheaper. Sekaido also has a permanent 20% discount on all of its stock. The fountain pen and ink floor was lacking, unfortunately. There were some interesting pens but most were Pilot Kakunos or Preras. There was a display of the new 20ml Sailor bottles. It was nice to see the colors but I’ll wait to buy them at Itoya Ginza.
The best section was the gel pens and notebooks! There were a dazzling array of Hi-tech C’s, Zebra Sarasas, Pilot Juices, Uniball Signos, Gelly Rolls and countless brands I never heard of before, in every tip size from .28 mm to 1mm. I restrained myself from getting every single color.
The notebook section was amazing for back to school shopping. There were Kokuyo Campuses, Maruman Mnemosynes, and Maruman Spiral Notes in A5 sizes. There were pocket notepads, letter paper, A6, A5, B5, A4. I was fangirling so much! I wouldn’t use these notebooks for stories or journaling, but they are great for being stuffed into my backpack for note taking.
My mom went along with me to Sekaido and she enjoyed it! She doesn’t quite understand my stationery obsession but I tried to convert her anyways. She got three notebooks for work, two Kokuyo MIOs and a B5 Maruman Mnemosyne. I persuaded her to get a Zebra Sarasa Dry Gel. She got some beautiful origami paper too.
As for me, I got a five pack of 30 page Kokuyo Campuses. They were decorated with little fruits and flowers. There was a Disney princess set that I was tempted to buy… I also got a Kokuyo soft ring spiral notebook. It was amazing to me, as a lefty that hates when metal rings dig into my skin as I take notes. I bought a few Pilot Juices, Hi Tec Cs, Pilot Maica, and bought a pack of fountain pen friendly flash cards.
These two stores are great and I highly recommend going to them if you’re in Shinjuku. I’d like to mention Smiths, also in the Lumine EST map next to Tools. They have a selection of Rollbahns, not really my favorite notebooks though. Also look in the small convenience stores in the subway for Muji notebooks and pens. I bought two notebooks and a gel pen that erases better than the Pilot Frixion does. Here are my pictures of my purchases!
I’m excited to see Itoya Ginza tomorrow, the last leg of my epic Tokyo stationery journey.
My first stop of the day was at Kingdom Note! I’ve heard so much about this place. It’s a store that stocks pens, inks and notebooks. It has an exclusive line of inks that are inspired by animals and plants. Kingdom Note also collaborates with the Sailor company to make veggie themed pens! These store-exclusive products are not available in the U.S. I’ve seen them on Ebay for exorbitant amounts of money but I’d rather not pay those prices.
The store is on the 6th floor of a building in Shinjuku and is hard to see from the street. You will see a sign for KN and a camera shop. Luckily, its 5 minutes from my hotel!
The store was smaller than I thought it would be. Only a few people work there. The attendant helping me was really nice and he knew enough English for us to communicate. The store was filled with a wide variety of fountain pens, many of them European. The small selection of Nakayas dazzled me. There was a rack of notebooks, but nothing very special. My eyes were immediately drawn to the vegetable themed pens and the giant wall of ink. I bought a “green pepper” fountain pen in a broad nib but there was also a pumpkin themed one. You could buy matching 20ml inks for it. I certainly did! There were also demonstrators in bright colors but I already spent all my money for the day. 😛
I also tested a variety of inks. There’s a whole wall of them, both European and Japanese! I was given a binder full of ink sample cards then I chose which one to try. The attendant let me test them with a glass pen. I bought three inks, two of them in 50 ml bottles and the other in a tiny 20ml one. I bought the Mycena pura, a dusty pink color based on mushrooms. I first heard about it from a post on Reddit, but I thought I would never buy it! I also got Thysanostoma thysanura, a pinkish purple like a jellyfish. And I bought the matching green pepper ink to go with my pen. When I get back from Japan, I hope to have ink reviews up for them.
Make sure to get the tax refund taken care of! Foreigners have to pay an 8% tax rate for some purchases, but you can get it refunded in kiosks and at the airport. I got a slip of paper with my purchase that I can turn in later.
The people working there were really kind and I felt welcomed inside the store. I’m glad I got the opportunity to go to a small boutique style store.
Tomorrow I’m going to Mt. Fuji on a tour but hopefully I’ll get to Itoya Ginza and Maruzen Nihombashi soon. I also added the Tools art supply store and Smiths to my list. It’s in the Lumine Est department store underneath the Shinjuku train station. I’m going to get Copic markers there. I will post more about the pen stores I visit!
Notebook Joy 