Almost every time after going on an extended break away from Sydney with my wife (which, for her, means taking annual leave from her work, that her employer usually has to pressure her to take), we — or, more precisely, I — come home thinking, “Damn, I need a holiday after all that!”

 

Now that she's back at the office, and not merely working from home today, I finally have some peace and quiet, and the space to take stock of what transpired over a very busy umpteen days just past.

 

We booked flights to Tokyo and flying home from there, enticed by the budget airline's marketing offer of nominally “free” flights for the return leg, a while back, with dates and the destination largely constrained by ⑴ availability of discounted flights there and “free” flights home, and ⑵ having to attend a friend's out-of-town wedding in November, before we had any (even just vague) plans for what we'll do while overseas. We jointly agreed that we'd share a single up-to-20kg item of checked baggage for our eleven-day stay in Japan, since the way budget airlines operate is that passengers have to pay additionally for everything (other than water) outside of a seat on the flight — no included checked baggage allowance per passenger, no food provided in spite of the planned flight duration of close to nine hours, and so on — and we went with the commercial offer eyes wide open. I thought — and declared — that on this trip I wouldn't buy any Japanese paper products (despite knowing they would be cheaper and easier to get in Tokyo), on account of how much weight that would add to our baggage; any bottled ink, because we aren't risking leaks and/or breakage getting them home in the suitcase that is apt to be throw around and knocked about in the course of checked baggage handling, but getting liquids onto the flight in our carry-on luggage would be a pain because of security regulations; or any fountain pens, given I've already bought well over a dozen pens sold and shipped by Amazon Japan earlier in the year, and won't have any spare “budget” left besides.

 

That was before I discovered that the Tokyo International Pen Show 2023 three-day event was to be held the weekend prior to the Monday on which we would fly out. OK, we decided that Day 10 — our last full day and night in Japan on this trip — was locked in, and we'd just plan the rest around that. Admission tickets were secured in advance, although not entirely without drama. Thankfully, because we've packed so lightly that, had we decided on bringing a folded up 90-litre cargo bag instead of a suitcase with wheels, we could possibly have flown to Japan with no checked baggage but only our carry-on luggage. As it was, we had roughly a total 15kg of allowance up our sleeves, so to speak.

 

By midday on Day 2, we'd already loaded up on accessories such as zippered A5-sized organisers, gel pens, etc. On Day 3, notebooks and fabric covers too, … and a Pilot Custom Heritage 912. Day 4, more notebooks to fill the fabric covers already bought, and more fabric covers yet to fill. By the end of Day 5, all aspects of my earlier pledge have been abandoned, and I'd even bought a bottle of Dorcus hopei binodulosus ink in spite of a number of reservations about the purchase, along with a new Diplomat Excellence A2.

 

Our day at the Tokyo International Pen Show was still almost a week away.

 

---

Not quite as many temples and shrines we've seen on this trip, but nevertheless we visited (not in chronological order):

• ancōra in Ginza 
• Bungubox in/near Kanda
• Cartoleria (beneath Kinokuniya Books) in Shinjuku
• Itoya in Ginza
• Itoya on Motomachi in Yokohama
• Keio Department Store in Shinjuku (where Itoya runs the entire stationery department, and even wraps customers' purchases in Itoya bags)
• Kingdom Note in Shinjuku (where I inadvertently left my running cap 🙍🏻‍♂️)
• Marui Syoten in Ueno (note: very difficult to locate, as it is inside an old-fashioned shopping arcade)
• Maruzen Marunouchi
• Maruzen Nihombashi
• Maruzen Ochanomizu
• Moriichi in Nihombashi
• Tsutaya Maruouchi
• Tsutaya in Yokohoma

among many stores that sell fountain pen models of note from the Japanese “Big Three” brands of Pilot, Platinum, and Sailor. I've learnt a thing or two about these stores, and now know which ones I'd recommend to my friends to selectively visit — if they go to Tokyo and are interested — and which ones I'd just “hard-pass” myself any future visits to Tokyo.

 

One possibility that may entirely slip a traveller's mind, is that while one is staying in Japan, it would be possible to order from Amazon.co.jp and Rakuten Ichiba, for “local” delivery to one's hotel, and access lower-than-retail prices, even if buying tax-free on those platforms isn't an option (to date) in spite of one's eligibility due the status of being a short-term visitor to the country.

 

Tax-Free Shopping

Since applicable government regulations and company policies can always change, instead of exactly who does what and who does not, I will call the following out for your attention, so that you can do more up-to-date due diligence and/or ask the store staff the right questions upfront, to avoid being disappointed or frustrated at the point of finalising your purchases — especially if it takes time, effort, and train fares to go on a special expedition to find and visit some of the stores on your list. 

1. Not all stores accept credit card payment, even for pens that are priced at the equivalent of several hundred Australian (or US, or Canadian) dollars.
2. Tax-free shopping is a matter for the individual store to handle and process for you, on your visit, upon making purchases. Just to be clear, that means you don't get it refunded by Japanese officials in the passenger terminal on your way out of the country; and, as precise and inflexible Japanese practices may seem to be sometimes, you do not get to argue or insist on consistency across purchases made in different stores.
3. Not all stores will allow tax-free purchases, even if by government regulations you are eligible to make them.
4. More often than not, you don't get a tax refund from the store; the domestic consumption tax (of which the currently applicable rate is 10% for products, but 8% for most foods) component in the tax-inclusive price is removed when calculations are performed at the tax-free shopping counter. If you're expecting to get a flat “10% off”, then you'll almost certainly be wrong (and perhaps disappointed, both in the transaction amount, and in your own comprehension and/or mathematical ability). Getting an item for ¥10,000 instead of its ¥11,000 marked (税込, tax-inclusive) price is only getting 9.091% off.
5. While the tax rate and your tax-free shopping eligibility are prescribed by law and/or the country's government, individual stores are free to apply extra rules in when and how they will handle tax-free shopping. Some may charge you an arbitrary fee (with actual examples I've encountered being 1.55% and 3%); and some may even insist on cash payment for tax-free purchases, even when they'd gladly accept credit card payment for tax-inclusive purchases.
6. There is a minimum amount below which you're not eligible to shop tax-free; currently that is ¥5,000+tax. In stores that handle tax-free shopping by not charging you the tax component upfront at checkout time, you will not get to combine your spend on the same visit across several transactions that add up to an equal or greater amount than that minimum. Some stores will not allow you to take un-purchased items from one level of the store to the next; so, if your plan is to buy three ¥1,100 notebooks tax-free by grouping them with the purchase of a ¥3,300 (or even ¥33,000) fountain pen, you may not be able to so in a large store that stock notebooks on one level and fountain pens two floor up (or down) from that.
7. Bring your passport with you when intended to make tax-free purchases. I have not encountered, on this trip, a single store that uses the Visit Japan Web QR code on one's phone to formally establish a traveller's eligibility for tax-free shopping.
8. Government regulations do in fact allow consumables (a category that includes ink and paper products) to be bought tax-free; the store simply has to put the items in an officially sealed bag, for the traveller to take out of the country as-is. Just to be clear, that means if you broke the seal on that bag (which will be apparent), you're liable to pay tax on its contents; and you may be asked to present all your tax-free purchases to Japanese Immigration officials, to verify that you're bringing, without having consumed or transferred, all of your tax-free purchases on record out of Japan. You don't get to open the bags up and repack its contents to best suit the constraints of your baggage allowance, or in which item of luggage you want to carry what. More or less, you have to carry every item purchased tax-free in your carry-on luggage.
9. Here's the tricky part: in my most recent experience, you have to first go past security screening (for admission to the restricted section of the airport where the boarding gates are), before you get to the Immigration counters. Airport security officials may/will insist that you present all liquid (including gels, ointments, etc.) containers for inspection in a small (no larger than 20cm by 20cm, when flattened) clear, resealable (think Zip-loc) bag, and allowing only one such bag per traveller. Anything other liquid substances the officials find in your carry-on luggage, they're entitled to just take out and dump in the bin. If you have a 50ml bottle of ink (which is unlikely to meet the ¥5,000 minimum for tax-free eligibility on its own) or two in a tax-free sealed bag, you don't get to take the glass bottle out of the cardboard packaging for inspection (and the sealed bag will be physically larger than the allowed size for security screeing, especially if it also contains other products such as notebooks or a boxed up new fountain pen). If you break the seal on the bag so as to be able to do the right thing with regards to the ink, then theoretically you'd have knowingly ceded your eligibility to get the ink tax-free.

 

Don't even think about tax-free shopping at such an event as the Tokyo International Pen Show. Stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen; it's not going to happen.

 

---

So, what was it that I/we got on the trip, after all that?

 

This is most of what contributed the 12kg weight gain to our collective baggage:

 

 

 

 

Some other new “rats and mice” acquisitions in that vein are not shown; for example, a handful of Pilot Iro-utsushi dip pens with plastic handles.

 

 

The Diplomat Excellence A2 (or is it only an Excellence A? It has a snap-cap, as opposed to a screw-cap, and is therefore not an A+) in Rome Black Blue was a surprise, impulsive, and opportunistic purchase. I certainly wasn't planning to buy imported German fountain pens in Japan, and I wasn't aware that the Excellence A2 came in that colourway, which quite frankly wouldn't be in my top five choices for the model. But then, I have been hunting for the opportunity to “try” a Diplomat gold nib, at the “right” price, for a long while now — since way before the La Couronne du Comte business went under, over a year ago, without fulfilling my paid-for order of a gold-nibbed Elox — and seeing two of these new pens offered at nominally half-price in Kingdom Note took me completely by surprise. Moreover, one of them has an EF nib (and the other a B nib, if I recall correctly), and I get to try it out in-store before committing to the purchase. It seemed to write at least as well as Diplomat's excellent steel EF nibs; the Excellence A2 is my favourite Diplomat fountain pen model; and, given the tax-free purchase price would be on par with, or perhaps lower than, what LCdC would've charged me for something like that even with multiple discounts stacked, I was immediately sold.

 

The Pilot Custom Heritage 912 was an impulse buy. I've been mildly curious about the WA nib for some time, but I wasn't going to buy another CH912 in black with chrome trim, that looks just like the one I already have (fitted with a PO nib), to try it out — or, in other words, add one to my personal library. Seeing as there are three “limited” colours of the CH912 with gold trim, that are difficult to buy outside Japan, I committed after trying the WA nib (on a run-of-the-mill black CH912) in Itoya Ginza, which incidentally didn't get the sale because ⑴ it only had the WA nib available on my least-favoured out of those three colours, ⑵ not being able to combine purchases from different levels for tax-free shopping annoyed me, and I wasn't going to queue up again on different levels to pay for what I would want to buy, even if it was possible to them queue up once more to get a refund of the consumption tax amount once all the purchases have been settled; and that's before I even knew that ⑶ Itoya charges a fee for processing tax-free purchases.

 

The Sailor Professional Gear Slim Mini in Rose Taupe was a surprise find, which I didn't come across until the very last day of our trip, after all our luggage have been carefully packed and we've checked out of the hotel already. My wife and I already have three of the six first (re-)release of the PGS Mini, in the since-discontinued design that had the external thread on the end of the barrel (onto which to screw the pen cap for secure posting); and I've been regretting for years that I didn't get the others when I had the opportunity to get them equally as “cheaply”. I almost settled for the Mustard Yellow one, when I saw it (being the only colour) offered at a tiny bit more than full (tax-inclusive) retail price on Amazon.co.jp, even though that would be my least favourite out of the six muted colours, which are nevertheless all nice. I “ultimately” decided against ordering it; and the decision was locked in, when the only unit in stock was sold. Seeing all six of the first release colours, alongside all six of the second release colours (on pen bodies without the external barrel thread), in Maruzen Marunouchi melted my “resolve” at once, especially since it was cheaper for me to buy it there on the spot — with or without paying tax on it. Maruzen sold it to me tax-free, and even threw in a complimentary (not same-branded, in this case) pen case.

 

I've had several failed orders on Amazon.co.jp trying to secure a unit of the discontinued Pilot Lucina fountain pen in the past year or so. Being able — again, on the last day — to bag one at 30% off in Moriichii, even though I didn't get the advantage of tax-free shopping (note: it was possible, but I just didn't agree with the terms of such a purchase) was unexpected.

 

The Pilot Cavalier and Lightive pens weren't quite as interesting to me, but all the same, being able to get them from Amazon.co.jp at a discount (albeit having to pay tax on the purchases) — with same-day delivery fulfilled by Amazon, and next-day delivery shipped directly by the Marketplace seller, respectively — was nice. Along with those, three cheap Pilot Iro-utsushi dip pens, which are gettable but very overpriced in Australia, after the Sailor Hocoro dip pens proved to be disappointing (because the nib units wobble slightly in the handle when writing); the three Sailor Hiace Neo Calligraphy pens, which use the same type of nibs (but not in removable nib units) as the Hocoro, is my “answer” to the latter problem, even though they have proper feeds and therefore aren't as convenient for quick use as dip pens with which to test several inks in quick succession.

 

At the Tokyo International Pen Show, I uncharacteristically picked up two ‘vintage’ pens, even though neither of them were on my radar until then, and buying used pens isn't really my style. The Pilot Custom Grandee with maple body and a gold SU nib appears to be in great condition, although with my poor eyesight these days, i didn't spot the spots of corrosion on the “rust ring” at the forward end of the grip section; no matter. That neutralised my urge to buy a second new CH912, in a different “limited” colour with gold trim and SU nib, for what would be a lot more spend. The Platinum Pocket pen with gold F nib only cost me ¥2,000 all up, and seemed to be in pretty good nick, so I thought, “why not?” after testing it dipped in ink, and it seemed to write a lot better than another Platinum Pocket pen with gold SF nib, in much worse cosmetic condition — including corrosion on the nib — but with a higher asking price. (I subsequently discovered that my Platinum Pocket pen took a lot of work to get working properly, and I'm still having some reservations about its performance.) Also, a “new” Sailor Profit Jr. (sans box and supplied ink cartridge) in translucent red for just over half the retail price, when Sailor's official table at the show was selling the full retail package for the full retail price (and tax-free purchasing was not possible); that almost completes our “collection“ of all the see-through colours of that pen model.

 

No such advantage to be had for the two Pilot Kakuno and the white Platinum Preppy Pernapep pens; they're just hard to get (with F nibs) from Australian stockists, and they're relatively cheap models in Japan.

 

Oh, and the TACCIA Tamamizu ‘Green Shadow’ urushi pen for my wife was effectively half-priced from Amazon.co.jp, and cost me slightly less than what I paid for its black ‘Reflected Moonlight’ sibling almost a year ago (even before international shipping charges was taken into account).

 

---

Quite a few items shown in the photos were gifts and freebies. The two pen cases “came with” the two pens I bought from Maruzen (in Marunouchi and Nihombashi, respectively). The very generous folk representing Endless at the Tokyo International Pen Show gave us a lot of arbitrary deal inclusions and freebies (and not all at once!), even though we only paid the asking price for one of the Explorer cover-and-notebook retail packs; and my wife went from grumbling at my purchasing more of what we don't need, to being absolutely delighted that I jumped on the opportunity. Merci beaucoup! 

 

The three items leaning against the chair in the top right quadrant of the third photo were unexpected gifts from a new friend we met for the first time at TIPS. Thank you so very much for your generosity!