Tokyo Vegan Meetup: Natural Vegan Marche

It’s been a while since I blogged about the Tokyo Vegan Meetup, one of the longest running Tokyo-based groups on meetup.com. This time they met at the Natural Vegan Marche.

The aims of the National Vegan Marche are to promote genuine goods and things, make vegan and natural products more accessible and help people lead a healthy live. Food stands are a large part of the Vegan Marche, but there are other booths as well.

Vegan Meetup

The Tokyo Vegan Meetup met at this event, a large part was reserved for the group. November 23 was a rather chilly day during a November that mostly felt like spring in Tokyo. The meetup attracts a diverse group of people: Vegan restaurants in Tokyo sometimes can feel like you’ve left Japan with the number of English speakers going there.

At the meetup, there were Japanese, short-term visitors and veterans who’ve been staying in the country for over ten years. You don’t have to be vegan to join the meetup (I’m not).

I haven’t been to that meetup in a long time and those people I remember probably have long left the country. Even the current organiser who easily falls into the veteran category doesn’t remember her predecessor. But that’s fine, as long as the meetup is alive and well 🙂

There’s currently no regular monthly event, like there was with the one at Pink Cow back then. While the group wants to move more into activism, they’d like to have a regular event in the future.

Natural Vegan Marche

The place to be was the Chiyoda Platform Square. Two food trucks parked outside, the remainder was inside. Japan being Japan, a stamp rally was initiated as well: Eat/shop at five different places and you get a prize. Some people from the group managed to do that. The prize was nothing special.

The first food truck sold vegan burgers. I don’t know how popular vegan burgers in Japan are, but in Germany vegan burgers have become quite common, at least in the bigger cities. I was more interested in the second one, Yachego. This is a Korean restaurant based in Setagaya that serves fully vegan Korean food. This gave me Seoul vibes, because during my time in Korea, I often ate at the vegan Loving Hut that was halfway between my place and the university.

Inside the Vegan Marche

Going inside, there were over twenty vendors and their products. I bought a vegan bento box, which was really nice. The products were locally produced and some people came all the way from Tokyo to sell what they’ve grown on their farm.

The Vegan Marche and the Tokyo Vegan Meetup are a great way to find what’s out there in the vegan Japan community. I’ll definitely check out that Korean restaurant and attend future meetups.