Well, I managed to crack another screen protector for my phone. Time for a new screen protector.
I love how the hardness is described as 9H. I assume this is because the measure of hardness most people are most familiar with is the B – HB – H system used for pencils.
I image how the manufacturer imagines the customers to be very impressed: “9H… that’s as tough as it gets‽”
Another Shanghai post and a quick look at another bookstore. This one is in Shanghai’s Pudong district, very close to the Oriental Pearl Tower. The official English name seems to be ‘Pearl Life Aesthetics Museum’.
It’s one of the most unusual bookstores I have seen. It is directly outside some of the busiest streets of buzzing Shanghai, the most populous city in the world (more inhabitants than Australia or more than Ireland, Austria and Switzerland together).
Inside, it is an unexpected oasis of calmness, though. When you enter the bookstore you are in the Café area.
Coffee and cakes aren’t cheap here, but then again they aren’t that much more expensive than in nearby chains like Starbucks.
The bookstore consists of several small building, all encased in the garden that surrounds them.
People can sit there and read a book, while enjoying their hot drinks.
Most tables also have buttons you can press to summon a helpful employee.
The whole place was extremely clean, but despite outside being very busy (nearly chaotically busy) there was only one other customer (except us) in all the small buildings..
I hope this kind of bookstore can survive. I assume it is somehow subsidised, but I am not sure how long that will last in a fast changing place like Shanghai.
The Bookstore at Oriental Pearl TV Tower’s Gate 8 Read More »
‘Quiet’ said the employee to a customer. Wherever I look, I see books in the shelves. You’d think this is a library, especially because of what the employee just said, but funnily enough, the employee doesn’t mind talking to another customer ..talking even louder than the customer she just shushed.
We are in a bookstore in Shanghai’s Hongkou Dragon Dream Shopping Centre [1]Unfortunately the Carl’s Jr. (a fast food chain from Los Angeles), which used to be on the same floor as this bookstore has disappeared from the shopping mall..
I wonder whether this shushing is some sort of marketing gag – like when you see employees at makeup counters dressed in lab coats – to make you think they are kind of like scientists or pharmacists.
‘Quiet’ is so that people can read their books in the library, but as a store, they want to earn money, so you wouldn’t want to visitors to read the books in the bookstore, you want them to buy the books, at least that’s how I thought it works. The shushing might be intended to make you feel as if you are in a less mundane place. Shushing = library, library = the equivalent of a spiritual 1UP.
Like in virtually all bookstores in Shanghai, there’s a nice selection of ‘lifestyle stationery’, i.e. stationery that looks nice and is ‘trendy’. In the photo above you can see some of the cheaper fountain pens they sell: Monami Olikas and fake Hero Safaris (they look like Safaris, but instead of Lamy the brand name Hero is embossed on the barrel).
They also sell more formal looking, more expensive fountain pens (on the right in the photo above and in the photo below). These days glass dip pens also seem to be popular in Shanghai (on the left in the photo above ).
I like bookstores in Shanghai. Many have a very similar choice of stationery to each other, but you can often find new and different stationery – and the stationery always tends to be presented in a nice way.
Coming soon: More blog posts about stationery in Shanghai.
References
| ↑1 | Unfortunately the Carl’s Jr. (a fast food chain from Los Angeles), which used to be on the same floor as this bookstore has disappeared from the shopping mall. |
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Quiet! It’s a bookstore Read More »
Like last year I found new special editions from Lamy in Shanghai, not available in the West.. This time it’s another Line Friends edition: LAMY BROWN The Black Edition.
The one comes in an amazing packaging: a thick-walled aluminium tube (with screw lid). I haven’t seen any packaging like this for a Pen before.
The Lamy Safari itself is the Matte type with the Line character’s name BROWN embossed in the cap.
It also comes with a leather strap and metal buttons with browns face. The leather strap can be used to attach it to your belt, etc. The Lamy employee wore it around his neck.
Here’s a link to the official web page for this pen.
In previous year’s people contacted me to ask whether I can get them the special edition, but I already left Shanghai at that time. To avoid this happening again I bought two of these special edition pens for interested readers. I hope I won’t regret this decision. If you are interested let me know as soon as possible by leaving a comment here or by emailing me (if you know my email address).
The price is £65 plus postage. The item is in the UK.
Here’s a video showing the aluminium tube.
Watch the aluminium tube on YouTube for HD video.
I will add this Special Edition to the list of Lamy Special Editions on stationery.wiki in a few days (if no one else has done it by then). That list contains (so far) 26 Special Editions of the Lamy Safari.
A New Special Edition Lamy Safari: LAMY BROWN The Black Edition Read More »
Today: a closer look at Staetdler’s handsome 925 15 mechanical pencil. You might remember it from a previous blog post from 2017.
It’s quite affordable and surprisingly light, maybe even too light for some users’ liking. In this video we’ll have a closer look at the 925 15.
Open in YouTube to watch in high resolution.
I bought the 0.3 mm version, so the video is about only covering this version, but this pencil is also available in 0.5mm, 0.7mm and 0.9mm.
The official price is ¥500 (~$4.40; £3.30; €3.75), but by the time you add shipping from Japan (when you buy from eBay) the price is a bit higher – still not expensive though.
Price and exchange rates: December 2017
More about Staedtler’s 925 15 Read More »