Having completed the harvest this morning with Nishikigoi Niigata Direct, I went to get some lunch before spending the afternoon travelling down through "Koi Ginza" (the main road from Ojiya to Yamakoshi) visiting a few more breeders.  I had stopped to visit Torazo and as I left I received a telephone tip off from Mark Gardner that the jumbo Kazuto harvest was about to be unloaded at the koi house.  Having witnessed this several times before it was something I didn't want to miss and so a quick u turn and I was off up there.

This morning I had been invited to a very special Harvest at Nishikigoi Niigata Direct.  This was their top harvest in a pond a short drive above Marusho in Yomogihira.  We got the the NND facility in Takiya at about 8am and after a quick chat with Oomo san headed off to have a look at Marusho's koi that had already been harvested while we waited about 30 minuted for some other guests to arrive. 

Well my battle with jet lag was a losing one and I was up by 5am working on the laptop, before heading across to Starbucks for when it opened at 7am.  This caused a bit of disappointment when I found they no longer sell cheese and bacon croissants  (my usual choice) and I also noted that the car park outside was boarded up and it seems it is being developed into a building.  Looks like its going to be a walk over there each morning from now on rather than stopping on route to the mountains. 

Well overall it was a good journey.  As usual, assisted by several glasses of plonk in the business lounge at Paris, I slept most of the way on the plane and didnt even manage to watch a whole film during the flight. My flight arrived a few minutes early and for once actually landed near to the terminal avoiding the usual frustrating 15 minute taxi along numerous runways before the plane finally comes to a stop. 

Well yet again its time to head off to the land of dreams.  As always I'm really excited about the trip.  I'm having to fly at a different time due to the change of airport for flights from Southampton to France, which means I wont be arriving in Narita until about 6pm tomorrow.  I'm not sure how that's going to affect my jet lag but we'll soon find out. If all goes well I should be in Nagaoka by about 10pm, ready to get up into the mountains the following morning.  I'll be in Japan until 16th November and have a lot of things planned.  Obviously there will be many harvests, plus the Ojiya and Nagaoka local shows, the Niigata Nogyosai, and at the end of the trip the ZNA All Japan Show in Shimane prefecture.  Hopefully I'll be updating the blog everyday throughout the trip, time permitting, so watch this space !