As the Nagaoka showa was on today , we decieded not to rush as most of the breeders will be at the show helping or judging . So i decieded to sleep in , waste of time that turned out to be as i was awake at 6.30am . Used the extra time to catch up on the blog and put more koi on the website .So many many coffees later we set off up the mountain for the show , on the way we visited Sakazume to look for some goromos , the farm had some loveley koi , stunning yamabuki ogons , sansai koromo to die for , but no goromos in the nisai pond for us .A five minute drive up the mountains found us at the Nagaoka koi show , the quality was great and i spent a good hour looking round and nattering away to breeders and hobbiests . It was intereasting to see that british judges were judging at the show along side the breeders , great to see trade and hobbiests working together to make a great show , wonder if that could work in the uk , food for thought as i know many on both sides of the fence have though and even talked about it . After a while its started to rain so back to the car and off to Satoshi to see his koi which he had newly harvested especially for us .The amount of varietys he had was incredable and some of the best Kin showa i have ever seen , and plenty of them !! As you will have heard the sansai gin rin showa which i had left last year came out of the mud pond looking fantastic , so its off to the nogyosai koi show next weekend for that one . Next we started bowling some very good quality koi , a stunning male hariwake ( there were some females but not as good as this ! ) four attractive kujakus which were all female , a metallic matsukawabake female and a wagoi hajiro female again .Discussions then took place about buying the best nisai gin rin showa whcih we have done for the last two years to leave in Japan , as he had just harvested them he wasnt yet sure which one that would be . On our visit last week he offered me the number one sansai at a price that was nice , but a little off what i wanted to spend , i think that the breeder senced i was disapointed about not being able to buy the number one nisai as usual and before i knew it the sansai gin rin showa was in a bowl , new price he said , i diddnt hesitate and hands were shook and it will stay in Japan untill next Autumn . We started trying to find a nisai to also stay and found a cracking gin rin showa that was also female and that will be staying as well .Four more female gin rin showa were also bowled , another strange looking kujaku ( female ) , and two male clean kujakus finished the box off . Leaving here onece again buying his best gin rin showa ( although sansai ) gave me a good feeling and also knowing that the other one will be going to the show next week its was a great visit to one of my favourite breeders .On the way home we stopped at another breeder , and although we couldnt bowl as it was getting dark , i found a very unusual fish , wont say what and where untill i can go back and buy it , nothing show stopping just a variety that you dont see too often especially at that size . Photos are as follows , male hariwake , female kujaku ,metalic female matsukawabake , female wagoi hajiro , three female kujakus , High grade nisai gin rin showa to stay in Japan , sansai number one gin rin showa to stay in Japan , two female showa , female kujaku , two female showa , two male kujakus , last picture is off the two high grade kujaku which we are still thinking about.