Hello, hello! I hope everyone has been having a lovely summer. It had been suspiciously cool here in San Jose, but the heat's been getting cranked up recently; we've gotten three "small" heat waves in July. I say small because they've only lasted about two days each, but still. I'm mourning the weeks and weeks of 75 degree weather, but as they say: don't cry because it's over, smile because you didn't sweat in your non-air conditioned home once from April through June.
I've had a few new additions (or a lot...) to my stationery collection, so I thought I might go ahead and cover them today.
First up, new inks! My parents spent a lot of January driving around Japan, and they were nice enough to stop by a Bungukan Kobayashi (also known as Kobabun) to take a look around. I, with a truly impressive amount of self-restraint, asked them to get me a bottle of Bechorism 1 and nothing more, but my mom thought this bottle of Melon from the Faucet was very cute, and I'm inclined to agree.
They also bought me a glass dip pen from Otaru... which now means I have two glass dip pens from Otaru, because my neighbor also bought me a glass dip pen as a souvenir when they were in Hokkaido about five years ago. Perhaps my interests are a bit too obvious?
Anyway, I thought I would take a moment to do a quick review of these two inks.
Bechorism 1 is blue green with hints of brown-ish dual shading. It's very light, so it should find a home in the nearest broad-nibbed fountain pen. I have it in my Pelikan M205 right now and it's doing the job well!
I haven't inked it up yet, but Kobabun's Melon from the Faucet has silver shimmer, while the Hase version has gold shimmer. How cute! Collaborative "friendship" inks. More shops in the U.S. should do things like that. I was really surprised when I popped open the bottle to find that it's melon scented... it reminds me a lot of the Marukawa melon-flavored gum I would get as a kid from Marina Foods. It's not an especially strong smell, but it's definitely noticeable.
Oh, and my trip to Taiwan was absolutely lovely. It was surprisingly cool for the first week or so. We took a short trip down the east coast to Yilan and Hualien, two places I'd actually never been before. I bought far too much stationery, which I am a little embarrassed by, but you'll never know how much because I didn't take a photo of all of it before I shared with my coworkers. Just know that I should probably never buy a sticker again for the next 5 years (I say as I'm waiting for a package from Furukawashiko...). But it was definitely worth it to hear the oohing and ahhing while we sat on the floor of the office and distributed a shocking amount of stickers—half the joy of stationery is sharing it, right? Okay, maybe like 20%.
It's the perfect size to fit my A5 journal. It even has some pen slots! If I was the type of person who left my house, I think this would be so handy to bring with me to a cafe for a journaling session.
I'm off to Toronto this week, which I'm very excited about; the last time I went I think was just before my sophomore year of college. I'm planning on seeing some friends and going to the Danforth Food Festival, and maybe hitting up Wonder Pens if I can swing it. I expect to be much less prepared this time, in the sense that I will have more than $200 and that I'll have a sim card, so I won't be traveling from Tim Hortons to Tim Hortons trying to get a little wifi.
As summer leads into fall I hope all of you have been spending your days well and hopefully not sweating too much. My next blog post won't be too long away (exciting, I know). See you then!
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