05/02/2012 - Sunday - Excelled my self today !!

Today we started out at our old friend Maruhiro koi farm . As usual he had many differant variets at many differant levels of quality . After a coffee and quick chat , we started of with 4 larger nisai consisting of two gin rin soragoi , nessu mukashi ogon , normal soragoi and a sansai gin rin ochiba . After this we then went through another pond  selecting 30 nisai of many varietys all    around 30-35 cm , varietys include , benigoi ,  gin rin benigoi , ochiba , gin rin ochiba , ki utsuri , hi utsuri gin rin shiro , yamabuki ogon and many many more . After this Tom wanted to look at a sansan kohaku , and an intereasting male one , so the nets were then into another pond of go sanke , i also took advantage and started slippoing some showa of my own with toms to helP with shipping costs .When the breeder gave us the price WE were so impressed , we thought it would be rude to leave , so back into another pond where more showa and kohaku and a stunning male maruten sanke was purchased . It was then i realised that Maruhiro was really looking after us today , so why on earth should we leave to go somewhere else to buy koi , when we where still seeing things we liked here .After a while , Maruhiro San put the net down and said enough , i really tried to understand with my slightly improving Japanese but couldnt get my head round what i had done to upset him .Then the agent started laughing and reassured me i hadnt upset him , apperantly it was 2.30 pm , we had been catching fish since 9am and the poor chap was knackered and needed lunch !! I said had we really bought that much , 78 nisai and sansai he replied . I shrugged my soldiers and said that ll do for me then and off to the noodle bar we went . Lunch was then spent with Maruhiro trying to get me to slurp noodles like they do , was never gonna happen , when i tried i laughed , and when i wasnt laughing , every one else did , so it just got messy and i did it my utmost to try and eat quietly while every one else did an impression of a bacon farm !! On leaving the resteraunt Tom smiled as the breeder paid for the dinner and said he thought it was a nice gesture , i said near on 80 nisai and sansai i thought i had made a nice gesture , we all laughed till the agent worked out what we had spent in one day , i diddnt smile much on the way back to the farm ! Stopping for a quick look at some intereasting tosai mixes , and a deal to be done later in the week it was off to try and see one other breeder before it got dark . ( yes !! we did only visit two breeders in a whole day ! ) Arriving at Masaki i was pleased to find that he still had some sansai asagi , and even more pleased to see he was up for the usual sighing , laughing ,  grunting and sucking air through his teeth when it came to the prices ( could he have been a plumber in a previous life ????? ) Four sansai asagi were bowled up , i picked three which i was very happy , did a deal , went to put the other one back when the breeder made and even better deal for all four , so again leaving with Asagi from Masaki , great way to end the day !!! All in all , a great day visiting two great breeders , spending way too much money , and buying way too many koi , good thing  we are going into the whole sale buisness !!!!!  UK koi dealers , please contact us for any prices of koi you see here by email .Tonight we are joined by Kevin Ellis and his production crew , this should lead to an even funnier day tomorrow . Nearly forgot to say , the title of today , excelled myself , had nothing to do with the amount of koi , just the photography of the koi , i know i am bad at the best of times , but today with a stinking cold i really did make a mess of nerly every picture , very sorry , will retake when the koi arrive in the UK  ! Forgot to say , sizes on the individual pics vary from 35cm -55cm , and are mainly females . Sorry , just realised i am missing pics of another ten koi purchased today , please see these at this video link .   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsW25M2F_ow&feature=plcp&context=C396fdd7UDOEgsToPDskIXk8OKdBW0tiW3Bj2I74jr

04/02/2012 - Friday and Saturday

As usual we left Heathrow on our Virgin flight bound for Narita , after a two hour delay waiting for a new pilot we arrived around 11am local time and off on trains and monorails to the All Japan show ! This show is amazing and never fails to deliver the goods ! This year the Dianichi Showa that so impressed me last year returned and was crowned Grand Champion . ( first pic below ) Ive put as many pics as i can , please dont ask me who one what as its an impossible task !!! After a long delay at Heathrow , we wernt expecting any problems getting across Japan on one of the worlds most effiecent railways , WRONG ! For some reason every bullet train was running nearly 30 minutes late , this may not be anything for a westener to be surprised at , but believe me in Japan this is shocking and never happens , in fact on over 24 visits , ive never known a train to be late ! Still once in the hotel with a beef curry and rice from the local 7-11 and looking through todays pics knowing koi buying starts tomorrow everything suddenly seems fine again .Tomorrow we start of at Maruhiro , which as most of you know is one of my favourite breeders , so couldnt ask for a better start to the day , this guy really is crazy and we get on so well ( is there a message in there somwhere ?? ) and we always come away with some great koi .