After having may be a few drinks too many the night before , i awoke this morning in a panic , i had overslept ! Laying down on the bed for a quick rest and saying to yourself ill set the alarm in a minute , just diddnt cut it ! So shamefully i got ready and flew downstairs where i was greeted by smiling staff and a few selective koi people laughing , apparantly i was in very good form the night before , and thats all we are going to say about that ! On the good side it was the best sleep ive ever had , and hopefully have now kicked the jet lag in one night . We managed to leave only a few minutes late , and thats not bad as its the first time ive ever been late in nearly 30 trips to Japan ! As ever , first stop Maruhiro koi farm , a quick coffee and chat and we were bowling koi from a couple of the nisai ponds . Some go sanke , and many other varietys were purchased , along with a very good quality gin rin kohaku , although the breeder thought it was male , i just couldnt leave it behind , many people are now buying higher quality males , your money definately goes further when looking for quaity ! All through the morning we purchased many nisai of differant varietys and qualitys , until loads of hot curried rice arrived and finished off the visit nicely ! After dinner we went to Marusei koi farm , this place never fails to impress , so many koi of all sizes , varietys and qualitys ! We had a good look round as the breeder said he would be a little while , and found many koi that we were intereasted in , including many kujaku . When the breeder arrived we set about bowling some bigger and better quality nisai , and found some nice sanke , an unusual doitsu orenji ogon , and a great gin rin shiro utsuri which as usual my photograph doesnt do justice . We then found another pond were i saw some very nice kujaku , and again was soon catching these and some slighly smaller sankes and a matsukawabake that had amazing white skin ! After a discussion about even better quality koi , we had a look at some much better quaity koi . Mark found a very nice quality kohaku in a pond , the breeder said they were very expensive , so i pushed the subject further and he then started giving us prices , although way more expnsive than we would normally pay for koi on this farm , i thought the price was very fair as the quality was good , and ended up buying four Kohaku . All around the 50 -55cm mark and female . A discussion was then held on some other koi we needed as this breeder has so many facilities we sometimes have to ask for what we cant see , answers as i like all came back positive , including may be a bigger high quality sanke , and also more of the 75cm koi we purchased last trip . The light was fading so we agreed to meet the breeder again to conclude buisness . First four pics Maruhiro smaller nisai 25cm-30cm . Next 18 pics are maruhiro nisai 30-40cm .Male gin rin Kohaku nice quality around 45cm . Four nisai / sansai around 50cm from Marusei including two sanke g/r shiro and doitsu ogon .Seven nisai from marusei , Four good quality female kohkau from Marusei