First stop this morning was the camera shop in Nagaoka where Gene wanted to get a large A3 print of a picture taken by Martin to give as a present to Toshiyuke Sakai.  We selected a frame and agreed to pic the finished print up this evening and then headed off for our first appointment at Yamazaki.

Manabu san had very little for sale but agreed to let us have some of his tosai, after which we had a look at the nisai although most of this has also been sold.

Next stop was Miyatora, we first went to the old house to see if anything was being kept there but it would seem this is no longer being used so we went off to the new complex, where there was a good selection to choose from including a lot of Kin Ki Utsuri.  After this we headed over to Kase calling in on the way to the souvenier shop opposite the Koi Village as Gene was looking for a particular present to take back with him.  Kase san was busy packing fish but took some time out to show us what little was still available.  We were looking for a couple of particular varieties which had already sold out but we discussed an option to pre order for next year as the spawning season will soon commence.

From Kase we travelled back across to route 17 via Aoki who was also pretty much sold out, before eventually ending up at Nishikigoi Niigata Direct for an appointment we had made with Oomo san.  This proved to be a longer visit than expected as a lot had changed at the facility since Gene, Martin and Marjike had last visited.  After showing them the 200 ton growing pond we then went to look at the tosai including the tategoi which are kept away from general view.  These had put on significant growth since I last saw them in February and the Sanke were an average of 48cm with the largest being 50cm !!!  The showa were only a couple of centimetres smaller and Oomo san explained that the temperature was now being reduced in preparation for the koi being moved to the mud ponds.

We then went to look at some more of the koi available at Oomo sans own facility before returning to the main office.  This was supposed to be a brief stop for refreshments before visiting Kaneko and Marusho but we got talking to Oomo about various topics and by the time we were finished it was a little late to be viewing koi.  However we obtained some really useful information, much of which I will be using in a couple of future magazine articles so I cant reveal too much on the blog, and as we left we arranged to return tomorrow to visit Kaneko and Marusho.

As there was too little light left for anything else we made our way back to Nagaoka to collect the picture from the camera shop which had turned out really nice.  I'm sure Toshiyuke san will be really pleased to receive it in the next day or two.