Monde des Stylos

While I have not been updating this blog much recently due to a heavier than expected workload in my day job, much has been happening in my journaling activities as well as in the wider community. For a start, Pelikan Hub 2025 was on 24th October 2025, a little over two weeks ago. In the South East Asia region where I live, we had the inaugural Malaysia International Pen Show (MIPS) held on 27th and 28th September in Petaling Jaya , just next to Kuala Lumpur . The first ever Singapore Pen Show will be happening on the last weekend of November, but I will have to skip this event in my home city because I will be overseas during that weekend. In addition, the Tokyo International Pen Show (TIPS) is currently happening this weekend, 1st to 3rd November 2025. I attended last year's edition of TIPS and it was my first time attending a pen show. What an eye opener! On a personal note, despite a promise to myself to buy less and instead spend more time enjoying the writing instruments t...

My fountain pen journey has taken me from a few entry-level pens to pens that cost a lot more money to buy. Cost is of course relative and when I mention the term "cost a lot more money", I am referring to myself and my pens and stationery budget. Thus, while I may consider a certain pen to be very expensive, it may be considered just an entry-level pen to others. Similarly, a pen whose cost I consider to be entry-level may instead be a grail pen for others. Thus, depending on our personal budgets, cost is rather relative. Every year, I set aside a small amount of money to fund my pens and stationery hobby. This is my so-called pens and stationery budget. Of course, I must admit that I have consistently broken this budget by spending more than the amount of funds I had initially allocated for the year. That being said, being over budget had often resulted in me pulling back on more purchases for the year and that I think, at least indicated that the pre-set budget had done it...

To celebrate Christmas of 2024, I finally bought myself this Pilot Custom Urushi in Vermilion. I chose a Medium Nib for my Custom Urushi. A local pen store was having  Christmas promotion and when I visited the store and saw this pen, I just could not resist plonking down the cash for it. An awesome Christmas gift for myself. I have yet to ink up the pen although I had dip-tested the nib at the store. Now I need to find the time to ink it up and do a proper pen test review. My first Pilot Custom Urushi! 🖋 Pilot Custom Urushi in Vermilion, Singapore (2024)

And so I attended my second Pelikan Hub event in my home city of Singapore on 27th September 2024. My first Hub attendance was last year, also in my home city. As usual with Pelikan Hubs, I got to make new friends in the community, tried out lots of fountain pens that I had never seen or held in my hands before and of course, I allowed my new pen friends to try out my pens as well. This year, I brought along 12 fountain pens for the Hub; mostly Pelikan.  M1000 Black & Green Stripes, M800 Green Demonstrator (Original 1992 version), M805 Black & Blue Stripes, M600 Vibrant Orange, M600 Glauco Cambon, M600 Green-White, M605 Stresemann Anthracite, M200 Smokey Quartz and M205 Aquamarine.  I also brought along a few pens from other make and models including a Pilot Custom 823 "Smoke", a Delta Gallery and a Sailor Shikiori "Manyou". And there were the usual Hub souvenirs courtesy of Pelikan; an event commemorative Notepad and a bottle of Pelikan's 2024 Ink of th...