This morning I awoke and laying in bed contenplating the day a head, and suddenly aware of a feeling that somthing was wrong, a quick look at the alarm clock confirmed my worst fears, it was 8.00, and had 5 mins to get ready, breakfast was already a lost cause! Running out of the hotel camera in one hand boots in the other I nearly knocked down the agent coming the other way, lucky he was running late too! Off to sekiguchi again where there wasnt a lot of koi as he had been very busy since we left, some of our group had some yonsai that had been growing there that they had to photograph and it was on then to tanaka who had 3 sansai and yonsai including a 70cm chagoi and a yonsai shiro utsuri which was an off spring of white tiger (I believe a fanmous omosaku koi), and a sansai gin rin showa, I purchased all 3 and then we left. Back on the motorway towards ojiya we stopped for lunch at moes burgers and more of that great corn soup. The afternoon really was a wind down visiting mushigame for the last time, I felt I just couldnt resist a last box from yagenji koi farm and again wasnt disapointed, a box of what I would call doitsu karashigoi, around 50cm, nisai and all female. The trip was supposed to last untill tuesday with low funds and some pressing news from home I managed to get a flight home earlier so this will probably be my last entry, so to answer what a lot of people are asking, was it a good trip and did I achieve all that I wanted? Yes it was, and hopefully we have raised the level of quality again this year, we have left more koi out here than ever and although not where we want to be, we are certainly heading in the right direction although I know we still have a long way to go. I hope you have enjoyed my ramblings through niigata, if you have and feel that you are mad enough to join me, ill be returning to Japn at the begining of feb 2010 to go to the all japan show and then on to our buying trip, we visit most breeders and have access to all levels of quality and sizes of koi so please feel free to contact us in the shop, once again thanks for reading ...................Gary