Awoke today to a massive hangover , and a new found respect for saki . It’s a nice drink and goes down well , but never mix it with beer said the guy at the hotel when he saw I was suffering , horses and barn doors come to mind ! Any way I was up and ready to go to Hosakai for an early appointment as we had to be back to the show for the presentation ceremony . Once at the farm we started bowling koi from a few different ponds and soon had 12 nisai 40-50cm and all female except a doitsu goshiki and a showa . Four kohakus were bought first and the skin on a few of them was amazing , a few nice showa one of which the breeder mentioned would get to 90cm , and one very nice showa that ticked all the right boxes . A sanke with stunning skin quality , and a nice smaller shiro utsuri . Hosakai had come good again and certainly become a big part of our plans in the future. His showa and shiro utsuri and very good , also does kujaku amoung other things , so all my favourites in one place , and that he just comes over as a fair and nice guy ! We had to rusg the pics and skip the videos as time was moving on and we had to be at the show very soon . The show was very good , and for koi below 36cm , ive heard many arguments for and against shows like this , for me im all for it and wish we had a show like it in the UK . Just think of all the people that would show a koi as they are more affordable at this size and many people buy them , great way to promote koi and get people into the show scene ! The whole show was very professionally run and is being taken every serious by the people involved and is growing every year , cant wait for the next one . We decieded to have a drive up the mountains and take some pics , on the way through we passed Maruhiro so we stopped for a quick coffee , we were all staring in the pond of koi that were sold , and suddenly a very familier tancho sanke swam past , dawned on me we had forgotten to do the shipping papar work for it , and needed a few koi to go with it to help shipping costs .Hinori diddnt need asking twice , I wasked for some small higher quality nisai and soon had some tanchos of all varietys , a stunning kohaku , and some gin rin kohakus all around 35cm . A sansai gin rin kohkau was bowled as well around 50cm and I purchased them all . We were talking about bigger koi , Hinori then showed us a yonsai sanke at 71cm , impressive body shape on it ,and the breeder hopes it will be high 70 s or eeven nearly 80 if we put her back in the mudond , so back she will go ! We then spent an hour driving around the mountains and taking some scenary shots , as I promised some people back home that I would . As usual , pics to follow in a short while