My First EPM

The other day, on November 2nd, my husband exhibited his beloved GT3 at an event called the Exciting Porsche Meeting (EPM) 2019 held at the GLION Museum in Osaka. Until last year, this EPM event was held at the Red Brick Warehouse in Yokohama, but this year it was hosted in Osaka, and many Porsche owners my husband knows were also exhibiting.

Beforehand, my husband told me the event would run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and I asked, “What do you do for such a long time? Do they vote on which Porsche is the best or something?” He replied, “I don’t know, there’s no timetable or anything, probably just exhibiting is the main thing.”

I couldn’t help but ask, “But isn’t there nowhere nearby to kill time? Are you really going to be there for seven hours straight?” He said, “I don’t know, but I’ll just go and see.”

I thought if it were the Red Brick Warehouse in Yokohama, there would be plenty of sightseeing spots nearby and lots of tourists, but I wondered what the atmosphere would be like in Osaka’s Chikko area… Since I was feeling a bit under the weather the day before, I decided not to go to EPM.

Husband Comes Back for a Bit

On the day, my husband left around 6 a.m. to deliver the car, but around 9 a.m., I got a message saying, “I met some people from the Royu group, but there’s really nothing to do, so I’m heading back for a bit—” and he came home around 10:30 a.m., leaving the GT3 at the venue.

No way! He actually came back for a while… lol

He said, “There’s basically only the Aquarium nearby… Also, everyone was like, ‘Hey, isn’t your wife with you today?’”

Hearing that made me want to go, so after lunch, we decided to check it out ourselves.

The weather was perfect all day (maybe it cleared up because I decided to go lol), and when we arrived, about 150 Porsches were lined up. There were many air-cooled Porsches, but I heard that when held in Yokohama, there are more water-cooled Porsches.

My husband exhibited his GT3 Touring, and including him, there were three GT3 Tourings exhibited that day.

What surprised me was that, judging by the license plates, there were many participants from Kyushu, Nagoya, and the Kanto area. They all drove there themselves—amazing. As we looked at each Porsche on display, my husband said, “This one’s super rare!” and explained various details.

Some models I had never seen before. Thinking about it, it’s quite rare to have such a gathering of Porsches, including these rare models. While walking around the venue, we also ran into people we usually meet at Royu after a long time. One person said, “Since there was nothing to do, I went to the Aquarium to see the whale shark.”

Well, that makes sense—what else would you do? lol

Among the roughly 150 Porsches on display, the kids’ favorite was a green toy Porsche (laughs).

So cute (laughs).

Going to this event was fun because I got to meet in person some people I’d only exchanged comments with before, and also met Yamakensan, who came all the way from Tokyo by Shinkansen.

If the next event is also held in Osaka (or around Kobe), exhibiting is a full day’s work and quite tough, so I might just go as a visitor next time.