I decided quite late on that I would look at going to Japan on my own. The internet makes life quite easy to book everything and after checking that there were rooms at the hotels and I could sort out flights and car hire easily enough I made the decision to go...

 Follow Dave's Feb 2008 journey around the Koi producing capital of the world.

After Rich (Richdon Koi) cancelled the trip to Japan, I found myself at a loose end as I had the time booked off from work and nowhere to go. I couldn’t reschedule my leave as everyone else had theirs booked for the rest of the year, so I needed to find something to do.

After a lot of looking around at other options, I decided quite late on that I would look at going to Japan on my own. The internet makes life quite easy to book everything and after checking that there were rooms at the hotels and I could sort out flights and car hire easily enough I made the decision to go. I spoke with Rich and contacted Toru (Richards contact in Japan) to see if there were any other parties visiting that I could join up with. Unfortunately not he told me, but he also offered to help me however he could. What the hell I thought, I think I know the area well enough now and could find my way round to the breeders; it’s just a case of communicating then to see the koi. That would be the tricky part!

In the end though Toru e-mailed me last week to let me know that a couple of South African dealers would now be visiting and I could join them if I wished. So a quick check that everything was still available and I booked it all and headed down to Heathrow on Thursday morning to catch a flight to Narita. I had booked a Virgin direct flight through the Japan Travel Centre, which was the cheapest I had found anywhere, and it was without doubt the best flight and service I have had on any of my trips to Japan and would strongly recommend using them. Despite the strong winds in the UK, the flight was very comfortable and landed 45 minutes early. Sutoh, was waiting for me and took me to the hotel in Narita where I was too early to get into the room as they were still cleaning it, so I started typing this up in the lobby whilst waiting.

A walk round Narita on Friday afternoon brought me into contact with the usual drunken businessmen, this time it was three of them with one on the floor in his suit giggling away and another totally unable to operate his legs and being supported by another colleague.

Dinner was taken in the Royal Host and I somehow managed to get the same meal and large beer that I wanted despite the language problem. I slept through until 5.00 am which is when my alarm goes off in the UK, so hopefully I will not suffer too much jetlag, though if I sleep through a second night it will be new experience.

In the morning Toru and Sutoh came to collect me from the hotel and then it was off to Tokyo to see the show. For the first time on my travels, we drove into Tokyo instead of taking the Narita Express. As usual Toru fell asleep, but fortunately Sutoh was driving at the time. We went via Haneda airport where we picked up the two South African dealers from their hotel. We parked outside and Toru and I waited in the van whilst Sutoh went inside to collect them. He re-appeared a couple of minutes later to inform us that there was a problem as the luggage belonging to one of them had not made it to Japan and had got lost during the transfers from Cape Town to Johannesburg to Dubai to Tokyo. I’m sure I can remember the same thing happening a few years back when Rich‘s suitcase didn’t get to Japan until a few days after him.

Then it was off to the show for a few hours when we saw some stunning koi as always. There were a number of koi that took my eye, and I’ve posted a few pictures on another thread.

The Grand Champion was a worthy winner, but to my eye did not match up to last years winner.

The show just didn’t have the first impact though as on my first visit and I was happy enough to leave early to travel up to Nagaoka, to see some koi within my meagre budget.

After checking in at the hotel it was out shopping for some clothes for the South African with no luggage, followed by dinner at a Japanese restaurant and back early to the hotel.