Day Three

After a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, peas and cabbage it was out on the highways again.

First stop was Oofuchi. Toru had spoken to him the night before to arrange that we had first selection this morning, which was just as well as a party of Dutch/Belgians arrived 2 minutes after us. There was a good selection of varieties available with the Kumonryu and Shiro Utsuri being particularly popular and the South African dealers Christie and Lee-Ann both made purchases.

As we left there and headed to our next breeder, Toru was already sounding us out about lunch. It seemed as if we had only just finished breakfast, but he was keen to structure the day around his meal breaks. After persuading him that we would eat whatever whenever, he headed for Hosokai.

A good selection of koi were available here, though my main concern was the number of Darrens (Benigoi - Nick named Darrens after another member of the Richdon forum) in evidence. There seemed to be a huge number and Mushio would be in heaven here. The worst part was looking at three parent Benigoi in the large pond, I have never seen such enormous goldfish. A selection of Nissai were purchased before moving into the Tosai house. They looked really good until they took us upstairs and showed us their Tategoi which were a class apart, though not for sale. I chatted to the younger brother, who had spent 5 months in England and whose wife taught English, about the All Japan Show and koi in general, and it was very interesting. They had entered 9 koi and taken 3 First Prizes and were rightly very happy with that. They very generously gave each of us a gift of the award that the exhibitors are given for entering the All Japan Show, so there was definitely a bonus to being their first visitors since the show. OK, it is Japanese Green Tea and noodles, but it was a very kind gesture, and one I’ll not forget.

Lunch was taken at the legendary Mos Burger before visiting Torazo. The man himself was laid up in bed with a cold after the Show, but he was happy for his wife to deal with us. She was waiting for us when we arrived and both the dealers were quickly into the 50cm plus Nissai and bought a couple each. The prices had been suggested to us as very good, but they turned out to be even better than expected, so we will probably be going back before the end of the week.

We then went off to Seki, one of the nicest men you could ever wish to meet. He lost his house in the earthquake in 2004, and it was good to see that a new one had now been built and he moved in last month. As always, he was very helpful and gave us a good look at all his koi. This is the first season he had produced Nissai since the earthquake, so it was good to see them again. Due to a lack of space he requested that we selected towards the end of our visit, so that is somewhere else we must visit again in what will be a hectic finale. As always, Seki was extremely hospitable and we took a leisurely coffee in his new home before moving on.

Last stop for the day was Hiroi where we already knew that there were plenty of koi available. After looking in all the ponds, one or two were selected that contained the sort of koi that the dealers wanted and the nets when in. Whilst they were busy there, I spent my time looking in the pond containing the best Nissai that were available, and there were still some extremely nice Goshiki available. Toru let me know the price tags I could expect, and whilst they were fairly priced, they were not what I came for but carried on looking anyway.

We managed to grab every minute of daylight and by the time the last koi had been photographed and taken away to the sold ponds, it was getting dark and we headed back to town.

Dinner was taken in a Japanese restaurant before heading back to the hotel. The body clock is still shot I’m afraid, so I must catch up with these diaries when I have the energy to do so, and unfortunately that is often around 3.00am when I am wide awake!