After the most unpopuler lunch ever , we went round the corner to talk about tosai with our old friend Tanaka ,he offered as a pond to hand select through , but at this time i was more intereasted in the pond of tategoi near by and the hundreds of tanchos he was growing on . A long discussion then took place involving the words , not yet , may be , can i get back to you , mmmm , expensive and im not sure . I like this breeder and he always trys to work with us as he really wants to get more of his fish into the uk as his father  did many years ago . So he said he will work out somthing for me over the next few weeks as and when he sorts out his tategoi , nice result , and one that im sure will work out fine for us .  After nearly crashing the car we finally managed to get to Sakai Yamamatsu koi farm without killing any of our  party . Once here we were given the news that we had feared , two of our koi had maybe not come out of the mud pond , koi are normally left in Japan at your own risk with the understanding that the breeder may / will sort somthing out for you . Within minutes Sakai had offered us three koi of oustanding quality as replacements . I cannot offer any of these koi yet for a sale as they affect a third party and need to discuss this with the person involved . But i can confirm that all three belong to us and one will be for sale and can be left in Japan . So feeling elated that we had good replacements for our loss we started to look for more koi to purchase . We were first offered some nice quality nisai , mainly ginrin  , very nice quality but was astonished when given the price , may be he was feeling bad about what had happened , Mark Chetter diddnt feel too bad about taking advantage of the situation and had first grabs out of the pond lol ! I found a few more to make up the box and a nice collection of nisai around 45-50cm . As time was getting on we decieded that it was too late to go anywhere else so carried on looking around the farm . So many koi here of very high quality it was unbelievable ! I went to a pond where a few koi were grabbing my attention , i asked the prices and was given the hand signal of up and down , yep the international sign of expensive was being given by Sakai . Not to be put off i asked for two sankes to be bowled , both female and stunning alog with a tancho sanke that was whiter than white . I loved all three and was getting ready for the bad news , while Sakai was busy with some Japanese clients i found i was unhappy with the beni on one , so i saw a sanke that really looked stunning , try as they might no one could catch the dam thimg ! I kept describing the koi and every one said i was making it up , and then someone said its not this is it ?? It was and i wasnt going mad with the slighly green water i had seen it and it did exist ! It went into the bowl , now i was even more concerned about the price as it was clearly even better ! While waiting for Sakai to come back i decieded that both sanke would be too expensive , and i would buy one to leave in Japan in a hope to improve its quality ( and its retail value if im honest !! ) The breeder returned and smiled , and gave us the price , i was gutted ,i knew they would be expensive , but the price was way way over what i expected , he looked as  disapointed as i felt , untill he pointed to the bowl and gestured a circle with his hand , after a brief discusion i had misunderstood , the price was not per koi but for all three , still not cheap by any means but certainly fair so all three were purchased and ive decieded that they will all be shipped as we have many koi at this farm growing on again and its time to have some of his better quality nisai for sale in the shop. We had a great day today with many laughs and certianly one of the best days i can remember , Sakai even called me a dumbo in Japanese , at one point when sorting out the replacement for the lost fish a sanke was bowled , it was no where near the qualityof the other koi so voiced my opinion , he laughed very hard and said this is not the offer , this is your tosai you left this summer for fun , but he diddnt laugh as much as i did when i said you keep it , present from me lol !  Nisai purchased from Yamamatsu today.