Takamatsu mini meet 2017

The first leg of the Wandering Leopard pilgrimage was Takamatsu. This was to meet Noguchi san.

Last year (Oct 2016), I went to the 30th Annual leopard meeting and we were suppose to meet there. I had asked him to get me A Tomytec vintage Neo F31 Nissan Leopard. When I arrived, he couldn’t make the meeting, but gave the gift to Osamu san. To my surprise, I was given 6 of them and all different. Additionally, he also gave me a few more items.

I was surprised to get many leopards and ChoroQ, but when I found out the price of each Tomytec Vintage ($15-20), I couldn’t believe it. Once I got back to the US, I told him I would get the items he wanted (Greenlight cars). We then started to discuss more M30 and Leopard related stuff and ideas. He’s given me tons of valuable insight.

When I got stuck in a bind with the Leopard fenders dilemma, Noguchi san took those in for me and took off the parts I needed.

Even before that, Noguchi san was on F31club posting as S-T-S and asked Jacy for the font we use for F31club.

When I was planning this trip, Takamatsu was one of the locations that was further away from where the Hakone meeting would be. I had a week, so I decided to make Takamatsu my first stop. My planning got messed up because my wife had booked the flight thinking I would only stay in East Japan. So that was one issue. The 2nd issue was that I made a mistake in timing. I forgot that Japan is a day ahead and I forgot to take that into account. This shortened my schedule by a day.

With that said, it was almost a no go, but Noguchi san said he would still like to meet up, even though it would be late on a Sunday night.

So the long flight from San Francisco to Vancouver BC to Narita airport to Itami airport and then Shinkansen from Osaka to Okayama and marine liner to Takamatsu station, I arrived at 2300 (11:00 pm). Again, I can’t thank him enough for hanging out with me when it is so late.

To finally meet Noguchi san was awesome. I brought a few M30 parts for him as he currently owns an M30. His M30 was extremely clean (as have all the M30s I’ve see in Japan).

He also gave me tons of cool leopard parts, including the bumper light housing and rear tali lamp lens.

We drove around and he took me to my hotel near Takamatsu Airport. We got food and drove to his parent’s place and I got to see his 2 leopards. (XS and Ultima). We hung out til 0100 am and I know he had to work the next day.

Again, that small bit of time, while short, was very valuable to me. Thank again Brother!!!