Arrived today: my Hoboichi Techo for 2024.
I used to order my Techos from the Hobonichi store in Japan, but now that I live in Germany and only need the notebook itself, it turned out much cheaper to order it from PenStore.nl. Of course you don’t get the gimmicks that come with the Techo: a 3-colour uni Jetstream pen and this year also a little bag, but postage from Japan would have been about as much as the Techo itself.
It’s nice to be able to easily order from continental Europe again. Since Brexit I missed out on a few nice stationery items that were either too expensive to get into the UK or were not available in the UK.
I wonder what other stores I’ll discover that I missed out on so far. Unfortunately it’s now more expensive to order from nice UK shops like The Pen Company, Pen Heaven, Write Here and CultPens. Some of them pay duties and taxes for you, for others you have to pay via the delivery company, so you don’t know in advance how much it will cost…
Sad that Brexit happened in the first place. Sad that so many Europeans have left us. I find the Dutch are very keen too keep selling to the U.K. I’ve bought from them before. The German shops … not so much.
Ah well. There we go. Us little people don’t get much choice. I regret that we never got to meet. You’re only “up the road” from where I live!
I like the new plastic-free package they use for the Techos. I nearly didn’t put it in the recycling because I liked it so much!
The cost of shipping them over from Japan to the UK is quite prohibitive, so I usually use it as an excuse to justify buying more than I actually need. I’ve got quite a backlog of Techo-related supplies as a result.