Mineral Mondays #47 - Michinoku Gem & Mineral Show In Sendai, Japan

rt395 (65)in #travel • 5 years ago

After a long hiatus, Mineral Mondays is back!

A few weeks ago my wife, our youngest daughter and I drove up to Sendai for a big, 3 day gem and mineral show. It was our first show with Mineral Marche, who do shows all year, all over Japan. A few months ago I had written about meeting the organizer, Mr. Koide and being invited to join the group here: https://steemit.com/japan/@rt395/date-night-in-tokyo-japanese-gems-and-spaghetti

We didn't know what to expect since the show was so far away from Tokyo and this was a new group we were joining, but we knew it was going to be an adventure and my wife was looking forward to eating as much gyutan as she could! So we picked up the rental car on a Thursday morning and were on our way by noon.

The drive up was uneventful until we decided to get off the expressway and drive along the coast for the last 20 miles. As we dropped out of the hills and down to the coast we immediately knew this area had been devastated by the tsunami. There were almost no older structures anywhere. Tons of new houses and roads were visible everywhere with very few old growth trees too. We both talked about how we were driving through hollowed ground. It was surreal even 8 years after the tsunami.

Around 6pm we drove by the venue on the way to our hotel. It was bigger than we thought and just across the street was a huge outlet mall with a large ferris wheel. I thought it was an odd location for all of this because it was bordering the port with a lot of industrial buildings around. Everything looked new though so maybe they were revitalizing the area.

We stayed at a newer hotel called "Route Inn" in Tagajo. It was a very nice, new hotel chain. They had an onsen, a good breakfast buffet and were only about 2 miles from the venue.

After checking in we hit the town looking for gyutan, thinly sliced beef tongue, for my wife. We settled on a local yaki niku place called "Sarushina". It was an excellent choice as the meat was fantastic and the cabbage was all you can eat lol.

Bellies full and looking forward to the mineral show the following day, we finished up and headed back to the hotel.

We arrived at the venue early the next morning at 9am to start setting up. The show would start at 3pm, but we had a lot of work to do setting up the booth and we knew we would be meeting the other dealers and chatting so we arrived early, or so we thought. It seemed almost all the other dealers were there too!

Mr. Koide greeted us and asked if everything was ok. He is an interesting guy, very personable and thoughtful. He always makes sure you have everything you need and that you are satisfied. While a businessman, his heart is definitely there for the minerals and the show. Case in point, as soon as we started unpacking we showed him a pink Spencer Opal he bought it on the spot. Our first sale and it was a big one! We hoped it was a sign of the weekend ahead.

Between chatting and getting the display set up the 6 hours flew by.When the opening announcement came and the doors opened, there was already a large line of gem & mineral lovers waiting to get in. People rushed though the doors and fanned out across the show. We knew these would be the hard core mineral lovers and there was a good chance this would be our most profitable day.

The sales came fast. Some people had mentioned to us they had seen our tweets and were there to see what American Minerals we had to offer. This was great news as we could confirm that our Twitter marketing was working.

Time flew by and then we heard "Auld Lang Syne" playing over the loudspeaker and it was time to close up for the evening. We told our neighbors "Otsukare sama deshita" "Job well done" and bolted out the door for dinner!

In the car we calculated how much we had made, a lot! We made enough to cover all of our expenses, car, gas, tolls, hotel, the mineral specimens and we had a lot profit on top of that! We were pretty excited because we still had 2 full days left. Those two days would be just as memorable if not more so than the 1st day. I'll blog about the rest of the show next Monday for Mineral Mondays #48.

Thanks for reading!