Lighter Side ...

Mr. Kiasee lost a lot of money in the foreign currency market. He is really 'ng gam wan', so he planned to visit PointWC to buy lot of euro and US$ (toilet) papers to make him feel rich again.

While he was at PointWC, he met Mr. Kiasu who bought rolls of Sudoku (toilet) paper planning to start doing his 'big business' after paying 1 euro at the reception.

While they were chatting, Mr. Cockeye King walk out from the luxury toilet after completing his shooting practice using the luminous bowl. They chatted and agreed that PointWC is a low cost formula for destressing.

Rumours, Rumours ... New Namiki Book ... Updates

It has been a long while since the last Namiki book published by Julia and Stephen, titled "Namiki - Art of Japanese Lacquer Pens". Christophe Larquemin, a Frenchman, has given us a new book on Namiki. If you are a Namiki collector, you might want to consider getting one for your bookshelf. The price of the book is 350 euro/USD475, excluding tax and shipping.

The book comes in French and English version. Both are limited to 500 copy and English 1000 copy respectively.

Currently, the English version of the books is available at Hope(e)Marketplace and Fook Hing Trading at a user friendly price.

Hanging Gardens of Babylon

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were considered one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. It was build by King Nebuchadnezzar who ruled the city state of Babylon on the Euphrates River, near present day Al Hillah, Bail in Iraq, from 605 to 562 BC. He built it in around 580 BC to please his wife Amytis, daughter of the Median King Astyages, who was home sick for the mountains and vegetation of her native land, in what is now northern Iran. The terraced gardens were created at his royal palace in the Mesopotamian desert.


The Hanging Gardens was actually not hanging or suspend in mid air with cables or ropes but was actually built on a mountain slop with rooftop gardens. They were multi-level terraces which reached about 25 meters in the air, and were planted with different exotic species of plants, flowers, trees and even animals to fill the Gardens. They were kept alive by an irrigation system using water pumped up from the Euphrates. The plants hanging down from upper level down which gave the effect of a lush mountain landscape handing in mid-air. How big is the Garden? According to Diodorus Siculus, a Geek Historian, it was 400 feet wide, by 400 feet long ,and 80 feet high.

The Gardens must be very beautiful and it sight must have to be inspiring for Herodotus (Greek Historian) to consider it as one of his 7 Wonders of the Ancient World. But the Gardens doesn’t exist today and it existence is under debate. Firstly, it is due to the lack of documentation of them in the chronicles of Babylonian history. The Babylonian sources make no reference to the Hanging Gardens whatsoever. Secondly, nobody actually witnessed the gardens in person – not even Antipater of Sidon, who complied the list of Great Wonders.

Pelikan Hanging Gardens of Babylong has a golden caps with 4 levels terraces with garden geenery which is in line with what archaeologist described. The cap was in gold to represent the Golden Age of Babyon and the deep green gloss barrel to symobolizm the lush and verdant foliage of the desert oasis. The pen come with the 2 tones 18K gold nib, and individually numbered. It is intentionally limited to 410 pieces, because it represents the work of Bablylon priest and scholar Berossos from the 4th century BCE – the first scribe that acknowledge the magnificence of the gardens in writing.

For You Eyes Only ... Beautiful Maki-e Pen

Here are some beautiful picture of some very nice maki-e pens taken from the book titled Fountian Pens by Jonathan Steinberg. If you or you know of someone who have any of the following pens for sales, please let us know. Note: Click on picture to enlarge.

Please take note that we are not authorize dealer for any of the pens. We are just helping friends. If you wish to buy any of the pens mentioned, please visit any of the authorized dealer.

Uniqueness in it own style

Remember the White Tortoise Pelikan that collectors and pen lovers loved when it was first introduced. Pelikan is somehow able to perform the rabbit out of the hat trick and re-introduce the mind blowing Pelikan Souveran M400 brown tortoise. It has the same look as those released in 1994. What make Pelikan Tortoise such a HOT pen? Is it the look? Is it because of Souveran 400 model used? ...

As all of us are aware that no two maki-e pens will be the same, and ... wait wait ... did we hear someone asking why? The reason is simple. They are hand painted. Let us show you two pens from the previous version of Namiki Zodiac collection. The artisan, the design and it layout are all the same. If you take a closer look at the monkey facial expression, you will notice they are different. You will also notice other differences like the color of the face, the clouds, etc.

Need to kill the Martian ... ACME has the solution

While waiting for my children to finish their classes, I was attracted to ACME rollerball pens at Singapore Isetan Scott level 3 where they setup a Father's Day 2009 promotion island for ACME; particularly to a 'Ray Gun' display. From far, I thought it was a toy or gadget for my kids, but it turns out to be a really useful 'toy' – a writing instrument for all ages.

The ACME ray gun pen was designed by Ben Hall, who is one of the many designers engaged by ACME. Ben was born in 1963 in Leicester, UK and graduated in 1986 with an Honors degree for fine art painting and animation at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK. Back in 1997, he was commissioned by Sieger Design in Germany to produce a limited edition milk glass for Ritzenoff Glassware. I did a search on the internet, but failed to find the picture of this milk glass designed by Ben. However, we discover that Ritzenoff does has a few interesting products, which synonymous with pop culture and contemporary design and complement ACME collection.

Here is a couple who we believed to have understood the power of marketing. Adrain labuenaga and his wife, Lesley Bailey founded the company in 1985 in Los Angeles. The launched their first product collection with the help of Peter Shire, who is a member of the Memphis Group. Soon after, they engaged designers of different backgrounds, mediums and specializations for their next collection and started a road show. With the success of the road show, they continues to use the same formula for their future design. Today, they are have other products like wrist watches, personal accessories like card holder, leather goods, etc. If you like Swatch® and collected them, this is the 'Swatch' pen for you – cool, unusual design.

How good is the pen? When we first tested the rollerball, it is smooth. It performance is no different from the other brands. Does it come with fountain pen? Yes and No. The pen only come in rollerball but you can purchase a fountain pen convertor. The user just need to unscrew the rollerball out of the barrel and screw in the fountain pen convertor, very easy and straight forward. It is a steel nib, therefore, it is recommended that you don't choose the fine nib. The entire pen is make from steel. The design is printed onto it, not hand painted. With printing, there is endless possiblities for design – the only limited is the designer creativity. The down side is the material used – steel. If you scratch it, the damage area might become rusty.

I am disapponted with the packing. The Ray Gun come in a pretty color box, but the other models doesn't. It is packed in a steel box that look like a pencil case.

Beside the usual big stores like Istan Scott and CK Tang departmental stores, where the sales executive seems to be always busy doing 'something'. The pens is also available at Fook Hing Trading, where the friendly sales executives are likely to help you find the perfect pen for that signigicant moment as a gift.

See Through ...

While watching the Sunday night Channel U 财经追击 Money Week ( Singapore Local Chinese Current Affairs ) television program, a few local who was interviewed feedback that the econmic seems to be getting better, therefore, they decided to change their car. Are we really out of the finance tsunami? After watching so many of this program about multi-national company go bankrupt, restructure and analyst talking about the 'why', the 'when', and 'what' to come ... it just make us wonder why are we in this situation... didn't we learn from the dot com crash ... about the current ('greed') economic system... Shouldn't we be helping each other to make our life easier and create a better world... Are we there yet? (the children ask their parent on a long journey)

Our “demostrator” is not the Thailand red shirt or the Taiwan blue/green shirt, but a writing instrument that allow us to expose their inards so that we can see the mechics of their constuction and operation – especially their their filling and feeding system. The 'transparency' provided us with a clear view of how the ink flow beyond the paper, which is very different from our 'private car control system'. We, Singaporean, need to acknowledge that we are willing to feel the ERP(ain) by bidding for a COE, which in our option is constructed very differently from our “demostrator”.

We would like to introduce the Visconti “Millenium Arc” to the our pen and calligraphy lover. We feel now is a very good moment to turn back the clock to the time this pen was first introduce. The year was 2000, the year of the chinese dragon, Visconti introduce the “Millennium Arc” collection to the world.

It come in 3 colors (red, amber, and blue), with a limited edition of 1000 set. Each pen represent a different millennium. The clip and filling mechanism are both in arc shap, which are suppose to represent the merger of the arc of tiem with arc history – time in motion for 2000 years. The arc iteself represent the continuity of time, from the past to the future. Without history, there can be no future, because nothing can be created, nothing can be destoryed. History has also teach us, what goes around comes around. Before you retire to bed tonight, give youself a 5 minutes quiet moment to reflect the life journey you took the last 24 hours ... Are we there yet?

We only manage to get the red color version. If you are keen in getting the set, we suggest you visit Aesthetic Bay Pte Ltd. The good people there might be able to help you.

Pen Details
The Millennium Arc
Materials: Clear plastic
Nib: M 18K Gold
Limited Edition: 100o piece (each color)
Length of pen (with cap closed): 142 mm (5.6”)
Barrel diameter: 13mm (0.5”)

Rumours, Rumours ... Great Singapore Sale

The Great Singapore Sale is back for another exciting month. We managed to lay out hand on a good bargain at BHG Singapore. A pair of Parker Citrine going for only S$1,000 (International and Demi size, Yellow color only) as shown in the picture. The other regular price pen are going at 20% discount. Father Day is around the corner, rush on down to BHG today before it is sold out. The GSS event at BHG end June 28, 2009. The same offer is also available at Takashimaya and CK Tang department store Singapore.

Do you know of a good bargain or "rumour" lately? Write to us and tell us about it and share with other readers.

Sailor Dragonfly 蒔絵万年筆（蜻蛉）

In ancient mythology, Japan was known as Akitsushima, which means “Land of the Dragonfilies”. The Japanese love for the insect is reflected by fact that there are traditional names for almost all of the 200 species of dragonflies found in and around Japan. The japanese pronounciation of the word "dragonfly" and "victory" is similar, which symbolize “martial success”, but in general, they represent courage strength, and happiness, and they often appear in art and literature, especially Japanese portry (also known as haiku).


The Tonbogiri, which translation mean “The Dragon Fly Cutter”, is one of the three great spears of Japan.