Cafè mocha and cheesecake (Photo: Tomoko Kamishima)

Pen Station Museum & Café

High-class fountain pens decorated with maki-e

Tomoko Kamishima Mar 19, 2014 - 1 min read

Pen Station Museum is a museum of various writing materials and their histories, managed by Pilot Fountain Pen Company. The first floor is a cozy café serving pastries and coffee. The second floor has exhibition rooms showing various types of pens, and parts of pens. Admission is free.

I was impressed with the high-class fountain pens elaborated with maki-e. Maki-e is a kind of special technique for lacquered wares. This example of Korin Ogata’s maki-e writing box is a masterpiece of the art.

The museum is on the east end of Ginza Chuo-dori, just a 7-minute-walk from the Ginza 4-chome intersection or JR Tokyo Station's Yaesu South exit.

Tomoko Kamishima @tomoko.kamishima

Japan is a small island nation, but we have a huge number of surprising things to discover here. Many of these delights can be found when you step off the main street onto small side paths. I really enjoy studying about and researching various aspects of traditional Japanese culture, and then sha...