Monday morning and we had a lot to get round and do today , appointments were made the day before and the first one scheduled was Shintaro koi farm . We had to visit here as i had a Showa that we knew had been harvested , i wasnt diaspointed , great result and skin quality was good and it had grown well . With this in mind i started to look round for another koi to buy , within minutes we had two koi in a bowl , both kohakus , one a six step ( i think ) and the other had skin quality that was way beyond anything ive bought in a long while . Rod showed an intereast in one , i wasnt worried which one , as i had made the descicion to buy what ever he diddnt ! He went for the million step and i took the one with outstanding skin quality , both happy ! We looked at two more sanke with a view to leave in Japan , but couldnt make my mind up so moved on up the road to Yagenji . Here we found they had just harvested some sansai and couldnt believe the prices . I had a massive framed ni dan kohaku in the bowl within seconds and duly purchsed her straight away ! They had obviously been hard at work again harevesting as there were more fish than on our last visit as well as the new sansai . W e then had an appointment at Sakai where i have some very high quality koi due to come out of themudponds . We arrived on time and found the farm was in mid visit from some Japanese hobbiests , they were bowling up some extremely high class koi , and although a pleasure to watch , i have to admit to champing at the bit after a while , Sakai came over and apologised to us and said he was still busy could we come back at 3 , i was concerned new customers may turn up we shuld wait , he said no ,if they are ill chuck them out , we all laughed and wondered if he would have time for us today . So off we went for lucnch , on the way we recieved a call from Maruhiro about stopping into see him , well why not its on the way was the considered opinion . After arriving at the farm we needed to sort out shipping for two koi that Mark and Sue had bought , with an hour or so , we had seven very nice fish in a bowl ready for pctures . Kin showa , gin shiro , Kohaku nice quality for Mark , a 30cm approx four step kohaku thats perfect for showing in size 2 , i said perfect for showing size 2 ( winter show coming up??? ) A great kujaku and a male gin rin kohaku with great skin quality . Hinori sansa wife then went and got us all curried rice and we sat out on the mountain eating lunch , that sealed the deal perfectly . I was so pleased when we arrived at Sakai to find that no one was there so great we coud get on with finding out when he had scheduled in harvesting my koi ! When i showed him the pics he said in here and here pointing to two differant ponds . He had harvested two of the koi already so again i was very happy . That feeling soon overflowed when i saw the first of the sanke , her skin quality was absolutly out standing and Sakai said it should stay another year , so staying it is . The next to be bowled was the favourite for me , the four step sanke , she looked great but the first one was way better , Sakai said ship or leave choice is your s , so ill make that call towards end of the week .Rod and Diane then bought a very nice sanke to leave in Japan and feeling left out i bowled a larger sanke and i was stunned at how resonable the price was ,so she was purchsed and we then added another 3 smaller nisai around 50-55cm , a stunning maruten muti step sanke , great gin rin kohaku and a 3 step sanke . The day was just perfect and Sakai has a way of making us feel so welcome , if the week carries on like this i won t ned to come out in the spring lol ! Thats me off to the 7-11 for dinner , curried rice or egg sandwich i guess . First two are of Shintaro kohaku , then Yagenji kohaku , 7 nisai at Maruhiro , three female nisai around 50cm ,three female nisai high quality go sanke at sakai ,one sandan sanke to go back to the mud pond , one four step sandan ive yet to decide on ,and a newly purchased sansai sanke to leave out there . Time for bed !