Japan Pop-Up Tour! - Part 1
April 7–20 - Two full weeks in Japan!
HIGHLIGHTS: Getting to know our distributor partners better - Facetime with our Japanese customers - midnight silk-screening sesh in a tiny hotel room - meeting with some OG Japan gear founders & hikers - plus, some of the tastiest food we've eaten in a while.
Since last year, we've been finding a lot of success as a small brand doing in-person pop-up events, mostly up and down the west coast of the US. We'd been hearing about an ultralight gear event called Off the Grid in Japan for a couple of years now and it was always on our Parapack bucket list to attend (yes, we have a bucket list for Parapack..) The gear nerds in us had always wanted to go, but we never quite had the budget lined up for it, however, this year the stars aligned and we were able to make it happen!
Off the Grid is one of Japan's largest UL gear gatherings and is held just west of Tokyo at a park in Machida. It’s hosted by well-known brands like Yamatomichi & Paago Works, and was started as a B2B trade event where brands could connect with retailers to do wholesale business. But over the years it's evolved into more of a consumer show where individual customers line up early and come ready to buy the year's new gear innovations and get a chance to interact with all the small brands & their team.
Our goal for this trip was to bring our California pop-up experience to Japan, as well as, demonstrate to our distributor our intense dedication and enthusiasm for growing Parapack. Also, we’ve picked up a few sales tips we’ve learned along the way and wanted to pass them along to their team.
We'd be in Japan for two full weeks and be up to a wide variety of activities! Off the Grid was the main event, but we'd also hike & camp near Mt. Fuji, have time to explore Tokyo, eat lots of food, visit other UL gear shops, and then close the trip with a pop-up at the Bamboo Shoots shop.
*There’s a lot of fun stuff to cover, so we ended up splitting the blog post into 2 posts.
Part 1:
April 7–9 - Adjusting to Japan time
Narita Airport, Cold Noodles, and our first night in Shinjuku.
We landed at Narita on a Tuesday in the late evening and crashed at the Nikko Narita airport hotel nearby. The following morning we took a 2 hour Tokyo rail ride to Shinjuku, where we'd splurged on a night at Onsen Ryokan Yuen — it’s a nice hotel with a top-floor onsen. We figured it’d be nice treat to ourselves as we adjusted to our jet lag.
We dropped off our luggage and walked around Shinjuku all afternoon, visiting some of our favorite Japanese shops like Muji & Montbell. Spur of the moment, we got a massage , and afterwards found ourselves waiting nearly an hour outside an udon spot we'd found online. The young people in their work outfits meeting up with friends to eat here made us feel like we’d stumbled onto something local & special. We ordered with big smiles and by pointing at photos we took of the menu. The host accepted us and gave an even bigger smile when we'd cleaned our bowls, clearly enjoying their dish.
The following morning we were up early enough to sneak in a jog & and onsen dip before heading off to work to meet with Arata, our main point of contact at our distributor Sunriver inc. He met us at the rail station exit and walked us back to their office in Ebisu where we unloaded the sewing machine, pop-up graphics, and camping gear we’d been lugging around Tokyo in our heavy checked luggage the past couple days. We caught up with them while listening to some mellow music and prepping some of our display boards.
After getting things squared away for the Pop-Up, we went to a soba spot down the street for lunch with Arata, Kuroda, and a new acquaintance — Kai. The rest of the afternoon we meandered around Tokyo getting a proper tour of some of the city's best UL and vintage outdoor gear shops.
We first went to Moonlight gear in Chiyoda city. Then went to Blue Lug bike shop in Hatagaya city because Ian had always wanted to go. Lastly, Nerdy Dogs in Setagaya city which we discover in a blog post from Sanpo Studios.
Kai has been in the outdoor retail scene in Japan for over 20 years. Walking around the city with him, we'd randomly run into someone he knew or someone who recognized him. We joked that he must have staged it all to impress us - ha ha!
Nerdy Dogs was a particular highlight because of the cool vintage outdoor gear, but also because the owner is a good friend of Kai's (of course he is). The place is packed floor to ceiling with vintage US outdoor gear and it’s almost hard to navigate with more than 5 people inside. Dana Designs backpacks, old Patagonia clothing, retro Kelty bags, and they even kept the Home Depot boxes from when they lugged all this vintage gear back from the US.
Being surrounded by all this funky gear made me feel like we were in a little time capsule from when gear brands were more fearless and unafraid with their design decisions. Or maybe it’s just remnants from a pre-internet world when they could just kept their heads down and focus on making gear that complimented their personality?
The silhouettes of the bags, the curvy zipper paths, the strange placement of the pockets, the logos, the colors! It feels like it was this golden age of unapologetic experimentation from brands focused on serving a landscape customers that were simply excited about “the outdoors” and they weren’t afraid to try something funky either.
We need more of that spirit in 2026! And the products on display at Nerdy Dogs offered a refreshing reminder that, even though some people don’t like what we’re doing at Parapack, we’re staying true to ourselves and making gear that’s very much intentionally not like everything else. Hopefully time (and our customers) will be on our side too.
We ended the day with dinner at a nearby yakitori spot and Imaharu san (another staff we met in 2023) joined us, making a party of 6. We slurped down drinks and enjoyed small savory dishes while we talked about the current state of the outdoor industry in Japan & the US.
With a solid buzz & a full belly, Jai-Yu and I hopped on the last train to Machida to check in to our hotel and get some rest before the real work began!
April 10 — the day before Off the Grid
Tiny Hotel Room Silk-Screening Session.
The Japan team had a full prep day ahead of the event, so we were on our own for our first day in Machida. Jai-Yu had her heart set on silk-screening some custom Parapack x Off the Grid t-shirts to give to the Japan team and potentially a handful of dedicated Parapack customers.
So, we spent the day walking around Machida & snacking while we gathered our silk screening supplies from Uniqlo, Sekaido, and Tokyu Hands. On our way back to the hotel, we stocked up on some tasty looking pre-made dishes from the grocery store. By the time we got back it was already 7PM — we ate quickly and then got to work.
For only ever silk-screening 1 or 2 times before, we think we did a pretty good job. Indeed, they weren't perfect, but they were special and we were having fun. I was very relieved that we made it through the entire process without getting any paint on the hotel furniture. We finished around 2am and went to bed with shirts were draped over every surface to dry.
April 11 — Off the Grid Day 1
Strolling to the Venue & a Very Busy Day
Off the Grid is one of Japan's largest ultralight gear exhibitions, held at Machida Shibahiro in Tokyo. The 2026 edition ran April 11–12, with doors open 10:00–17:00 on Saturday and 10:00–16:00 on Sunday. Admission was ¥800 per day (free for middle school and younger). Over 5,000 people attended in 2025 — and this year felt just as big.
Arata met us at the hotel around 8 AM and we walked to the venue together, stopping at a Lawson's convenience store for water and snacks on the way. As we approached the park, a long line of attendees had already started to form outside the venue and we felt a little like VIP’s being escorted backstage past an eagerly awaiting crowd.
Once inside, we started unpacking our pop-up gear and started setting up our portion of the booth. By 9:45 AM we were ready to go and as soon as the doors opened at 10am, things were non-stop busy!
I spent most of the day sewing custom cords into customers' hats using his homemade, battery operated singer heavy duty. While Jai-Yu was mostly running around to the front side of the booth interacting with customers, using gestures, detailed demonstrations, and her infectious enthusiasm to get people excited about Parapack. I think thanks to her dad’s genes, she's a natural sales person and has no problem bridging the language gap.
To our surprise, some customers even turned up with their first-production P-CAP’s from our 2022 launch! It was good to see that they were still holding up and in good shape. Ian swapped their cords to a new color for free and shook their hands, followed by many thank yous and little head bows. Throughout the day we were laughing & chatting with everyone around, taking photos with them, handing out stickers and Parabiners that we’d brought with us. The show favorite was the custom sakura shaped pink stickers Jai-Yu designed specifically for this trip. Before the end of day 2, they were completely gone.
After the day wrapped, we circled up with the Bamboo Shoots crew, shared a beer, and cheersed to fun but exhausting day. The post event hang slowly moved towards the food truck area and before we realized what was going on, the “hang” turned into a full on industry party with all the other Japanese UL brands exhibiting.
We got to meet Tomo from Hiker's Depot, who owns & runs the shop, but we also discovered he wrote a hiking book called "Ultralight Hiking" that was inspired by Ray Jardine and his US hiking adventures. We briefly reconnected with Yamatomichi’s founder , Akira, who we'd met at PCT Days the year before. Then spotted Hecter, our buyer from Taipei who owns and runs Cow Records & Samplus who was rocking a Mewdowphisics backapck. My first time seeing one in the wild!
April 12 — Off the Grid Day 2
More Time to Look Around
Day two ran about ten to twenty percent slower than day one and the cooler weather helped make everything more comfortable. We still sold a lot of hats and I spent a lot of my time at the sewing machine with custom cord installs, but the slightly easier pace meant we could actually sneak away for a short time to explore other booths.
Before the show opened on day 2, Jaiyu struck up a conversation with Atsuko from Paago Works while she was trying on our B-CAP. We came to find out she used to live in Auburn, CA (somewhere we know well!) and is also half Taiwanese! She’s very into sewing bags (I’m sure a prerequisite for working at a bag brand)and when she saw Ian’s portable sewing machine she got so excited and felt the need to try it herself. I obliged and enjoyed a little break! Later that day, Atsuko and Saito-san (Paago's founder) invited us to visit their office later in the week. More on that in Part 2.
We bought some excellent dehydrated meals from Mountain Gourmet Lab, Ian picked up a sick knife from Fedeca (a beautiful made-in-Japan knife brand), and we watched Atsuko and Saito-san demo their packs in front of a small crowd at the Paago Works booth — Atsuko wearing her custom B-CAP the entire time.!
By the end of the day, we were running on fumes but feeling so fulfilled and happy. We helped the Bamboo Shoots team box everything up neatly as we all relished in the excitement of a successful event.
We were stoked that the Japan team had seen how we sell, how we connect with customers, and what a Parapack pop-up feels like in person. We ended the day feeling like we'd already achieved everything we set out to achieve for this trip.
We said our goodbyes for the night and Jai-Yu & I found a restaurant near the hotel and had a very satisfying dinner & chill evening.
There are so many great brands that we didn’t mention that are worth checking out! We recommend checking out the full exhibitor list at offthegrid.jp.
Next up: Part 2 — For the second leg of our trip - April 13-20, check out part 2 where we meet up with the Paago Works team in their office, camp near Mt. Fuji, hike the three peaks of Mitsu-Toge, and finalize our trip with a store pop-up at Bamboo Shoots.