Today I was up bright and early full of excitement for judging day at the All Japan Show.  I had agreed to meet Mark Gardner at 07:30 and we went to join the queue for a taxi.  At 08:50 we finally managed to get one as the significant amount of snow which has fallen has really brought the city to a slowdown.  We invited the Nichrin photographer (I can never remember his name) to share out taxi as he was waiting a little further back, and about 5 minutes later we were at the show and getting our press passes.

This morning we were spending a few hours in Yamakoshi before making our way to Niigata ready for the All Japan Show.  We visited a few breeders in the Yamakoshi area, finally arriving at Shintaro.  In addition to looking in the main koi houses Saito san took as around the back to where he keeps his tategoi tosai. 

Well it was snowing when I left Nomoles last night and it was still doing so when we left the hotel this morning.  A great deal had laid and as we travelled down route 17 this had caused a major accident with a car on its side blocking the outside lane.  Luckily the driver was ok and so we carried on to our first stop, which was Marudo Koi Farm. 

Yesterday whilst I was driving around a significant amount of snow had disappeared, however late afternoon as I left Yamakoshi the snow began to fall once again.  I had taken a picture yesterday morning of the current state of the work taking place in what was the garden of the Grand Hotel.  I took another today to show the difference, and although the snowfall does not look much it could signify much more would have laid in the mountains.

I was once told that I would never see any "bubbling beads" ( a reference to K1 media) in Japan and therefore I would consider today quite significant in that the first Nexus 310 filter was deilvered and installed in Yamakoshi.