Two amazing things happened today. A wife didn’t kill her husband and I didn’t buy anything.

Well, I didn’t buy much.

As I have become an unofficial tour guide for pen and stationery related locations in Japan, I met a couple today to show them around some good spots in Ginza and then lead them to Shinjuku where the real damage could occur.

I led them to the usual haunts: First we went to the way-too-trendy-looking Ito-Ya G and it’s more interesting cousin Ito-Ya K. After that I led them to Euro Box and its collection of vintage pens. This was where I was in the most danger as the husband was knowledgeable about which pens were worth the money and I started doing the math: don’t feed kids two weeks = one pen. (Something like that.)

At Euro Box, the husband spotted a pen he thought a friend might be interested in. This prompted several texts but then we moved to the Pilot Pen Station (which is apparently in its last days) and found a place for lunch.

Responses to texts arrived and I led them back to Euro Box where the pen was purchased and then back to Ito-Ya K where a converter was purchased. This interested me because the converters for older pens are hard to come by in the USA and the clerk was handing them out like candy. (I’ll have to go back and get more, I guess…)

Then it was off to Shinjuku and Kingdom Note. Since I am the unofficial distributor of Kingdom Note inks in Europe and the USA I was disappointed to see there were no flavors available I didn’t already have. My guest managed to acquire the last bottle of an OMAS ink the store had and we’ve declared that “The last bottle in Japan, if not the world”.

In fact, that may become one of my advertising points: Join Lively Pen Tours, find rare inks (disclaimer: rare ink finds are not guaranteed; in event of rash discontinue use immediately).

I also encouraged him to buy some brands of notebooks I like.

The gentleman’s wife was underwhelmed by all this, but had the patience of Job. This is good because the kind of advertising I don’t need is “See famous pen sites, buy an expensive pen, die at the hands of your spouse.”