This morning we were really looking forward to getting back to Shinoda today as we hear he had harvested more doitsu showa , but before that we had two appointments with other doitsu breeders , which in reflection turned out better than expected ! First of all we headed though the moutains to Ikarashi , here he had some amazing varietys , incuding a tancho yamabuki ogon , yes a yellow koi with an orange circle , if it wasnt the 1st of April i wouldnt have believed my own eyes ! We started looking round all the ponds and were blown away by the massive varietys of rare and wonderfull varietys ,but keeping to the plan of better quality koi in the harvest , we found a pond of better quality ochiba , after bowling around half a dozen i had a good look and the patterns were amazing , but alot had black marks on which is probably net rubs from the harvest , but at that price i diddnt want to take a chance . After leaving here through another set of mountains through to the master of doitsu and the wierd , Kase . This guy must be the nicest bloke in Niigata , so helpful and the guy who works for him is just as good ! First we went to look at the bigger koi , i bough some sansai doitsu and metalics , then onto the nisai house and there was so many he must have just harvested ! So we looked and looked and realised there were many doitsu showas , and a whole pond of hi showas .I have a rule in Japan , if you see something buy it ! dont worry if Shinoda has more , especially doitsu showas , you can buy even more as they are one variety you just cant get enough of ! After getting a great box , a little discount was offered on another , so off we went with the assistant of Kase helping us , my god this young fella has a quick eye , get finsihed in a pond and ask him to find one more , and he always comes back with somthing you missed ! So many doistsu and metalics i cant remember , metalic ochibas , doitsu showa , hi doitsu showa , doistu sanke , gingas etc etc . left there for ....................gues what ??? Egg sandwich , you got it ! Realising time was getting close for our Shinoda appointment we raced though the villages to get up the other side of Ojiya and into our reguler haunts . On arrival we were greated by the father as the son was at the koi show , he gave us some very good prices , but ufortunatley the doitsu showa had all been gone through , lucky i filled my booots at Kase ! Even looking through the higher grade ponds we just couldnt make the numbers up for a box . Today was going to be a day of a lot of driving around , as the breeders we visited were quite away from each other , the next stop wasnt going to change that . Back on to the highway we drove to koide , here we saw some very nice quality koi , once again many varietys , gin rin showa , showa , kujaku and too many others to mention . I soon had two stunning Kujakus in a bowl , along with two super rare doitsu kin ki utsuri , ( please note when viewing the pics remember they were in a light bowl for a long time , so the colour wont look as good ) a nice kindai showa , there was also a koi we were allowed to bowl but could not buy untill Monday , a stunning doitsu kin showa , real show quality , in fact so much that we were only allowed to reserve it and couldnt buy it untill after the koi show this weekend , as it was being exhibited by the breeder , i can tell you now , wether it wins are not , this koi will be ours by sunday night ! With some very high quality koi purchased i was feeling very happy with the days buying . On the way home we dropped into Koda koi farm , here there where many ponds with what looked like stunning fish and we all set about bowling up koi , after a few minutes we realsied we were wasting our time , we had lost the light and it was time to return to the hotel , we hope to return this weekend to see these koi in the day light .pics in order ...Seven of the 20 doistu and metalics nisai from Kase , three of the sansai from Kase , two high grade kujaku form Satoshi ,two nisai from Satoshi , beni ginger from kase . The rest are now on the website .