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| - To be specific, this is not a bad store. It was recommended to me by a fellow letter-writer as a good "paperia" in which to find stationery. I'd say it's more of a direct competitor to Hallmark.
There are a lot of very basic design stationery sets with paper and envelope. Things with basic solid color borders and some multicolor patterns. One neat set even had that "international post" look with blue and red stripes. My biggest setback was that they had no stationery at all that was lined. On another display there were a lot of artistic blank (inside) notecards with matching envelopes. Pantone theme, Buddhist wisdom theme, photos of Paris theme, etc. in that way.
It being close to the holiday season, there's a huge display right in the middle with some neat wooden carved holiday display sets and a whole lot of cards. Holiday stuff aside, there's a lot of gift wrapping bags and paper that you can buy by the sheet. There are, naturally, also cards for all other occasions imaginable. There are some pens but nowhere near as many as I'd have liked to see. Really these kinds of stores in the US are far inferior to those in Japan where the writing utensil section alone is as big as this store.
I bought four boxes of Christmas cards here as buy one box, get one free. It turned out I didn't need the 4th box so I just brought it back. (I'm not the type to hold onto these things until next year.) The return process felt a little invasive. They require you to fill out a list of personal information including your name, address, email, and phone number. It's a bit ridiculous and I could tell even the shopkeeper at the time felt like it was when she asked for it. On the note of the staff, I didn't feel particularly engaged with on my first visit. I wandered the store for 15 minutes all alone and the shopkeeper there at the time never once approached me. I finally asked her the question about lined stationery.
In short, not a bad store but it won't be my first choice on the hunt for unique and interesting stationery (that is lined) in the future. I also recommend shopping local and checking out Paper Skyscraper.
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