Christmas Tree seller at the hall entrance

Our annual event of Japanese Christmas Market has just finished! Unlike the last year’s snowy day it was a great sunny day this year! As we expected the great turn out of people I’d say this year’s market was a great success.

We arrived a little earlier on the site even before the doors to the venue opened for the vendors and started preparing our table to be well ready for the arrival of customers … but then I realised that I forgot to bring some of my Japanese sweets products! I had to go home and brings them as quickly as I could since they were quite a big part of my products. Last year I had to go and fetch some stuff on the snowy road on foot. It was so horrible and I had tried to be sure that would not happen this year, however, it did happen again! I was so stupid. Anyway, so I went back home and when I was walking back hurriedly towards the venue I saw a man holding a container that looked like my sweets inside! I thought ‘Wow! Already?!’ It was just a few minutes after the market opened to public and my products were already sold without me. It was a great sign ahead for the day.

This year my stall was divided into two sections, one part was my Japanese sweets ‘Wagashi’ and the other was ‘Gyoza’ dumplings cooked hot on site. When I returned to my stall after fetching some extra products, the venue was already filled with people and I could see there was a small que for the Gyoza grill. I had prepared two types of Gyoza for the day, Turkey with Christmas seasoning for meat eaters and the other with vegetable option. To my surprise the vegetarian version of my Dumplings were gone very quickly! The Christmas Turkey version was popular as well and it was wonderful that many people gave me great compliments after they finished eating it.

The other section of my stall was ‘Wagashi’ Japanese Sweets. I prepared several sweets from my selections that I had created this year as well as the new one with Christmassy design.

Many people stopped by and I noticed quite a huge number of people knew about Japanese sweets including what ‘Matcha’ or ‘Mochi’ were. I was happy that even the people who had no idea about Japanese sweets would like to try some. A girl who had lived in Japan for four years stopped by to buy some of my sweets and we had a chat in Japanese. Someone came all the way from Wimbledon in order to get my sweets. I also met some woman who was interested in attending my Wagashi Making Workshop.

The sweets on the day were mainly two types but all of them were Vegan and Gluten free.

So, my Japanese sweets had great reaction from the visitors and all the Gyoza Dumplings I prepared were sold out!

The Great thing was that all the other stalls seemed very busy too.

When the market was very close to ending I managed to talk a little to some other stall holders. This market was my 7th that I had a stall as Sakura Junction but it was actually the first time I did that. I have to say that I found several fellow vendors have been doing interesting activity in London. I am pleased to know them this time and will keep contacting them to learn something new to me.

So the market was successful. I would like to say ‘Thank you!’ to all the people who came to this Japanese Christmas Market. The great reaction and compliments from all of the people give me an energy and motivation to carry on doing and creating something new. Hope to see you all again next year!!