Today was great day from the moment my alarm went off, despite it being so early as I had some computer work today before breakfast.

As I woke up the sun was already shining acorss the mountains and it continued to do so all day, giving a rare opportunity to get some great snow shots with a clear blue sky in between visitng breeders.

First stop this morning was Shintaro koi farm as I mentioned yesterday we would be returning to select from one of his high class tosai ponds.  We arrived bright and early and soon had the pond netted up, which was good as Gene was clearly eager to get stuck in to selecting the koi.  It had been agreed that one box could be selected however Gene got a little carried away and ended up with a few more in the bowl.  Whilst he was relectantly looking in the bowl to decide which ones he must return I had a quiet chat with Saito san and tried to twist his arm to let Gene have a few more as I was aware of the interest he had in these koi.

As I said yesterday these koi have not been through their next selection by Saito san yet where he will decide what is for sale and what he will keep and so he was bound to be reluctant to allow us any more, however he understood the situation and agreed to let Gene have another box.  The day was etting better by the minute.  Pushing our luck just that bit further Gene invited Saito san to select himself the last few koi.  This is not something I would trust of all breeders as some would dimply select koi they know to be ones they would be discarding, however Saito san is a very genuine person and this really put the pressure on him to select some good koi for Gene, which he cerainly did.  Unfortunately I cant show any pictures of the koi selected as Gene already has customer for many of them.

We had also agreed to select some of the higher grade tosai in the "for sale" koi house and with this completed Gene received his induction to the infamous Shintaro Curry and Rice cooked by Hirome san, which we both enjoyed.

After lunch it was off to a few more breeders to try and find other select koi which Gene requires.  I can't list them all yet as some we need to go back to but they included Aoki (Saito san's cousin), Kano, Marachu, and finally a stop at Matsuda where we spent a bit of time taking pictures of his new greenhouse and the tosai within.

With the days work completed we managed to retrun to the hotel slightly earlier than usual as we both had a lot of paperwork to deal with, and so when I arrived back at the Grand Hotel the construction work on the new city office was still underway so I took a few pictures.  As I have mentioned on previous trips it is such a shame that the park that used to be here has gone, and the area will soon become another immense building.  The view from my window just isn't the same as it was, especially at this time of year with the impending cherry blosoms ;o(