No start of the week would be complete with out a visit to Maruhiro koi farm , by know most of you know that this is one of my favourite farmsand somewhere , where the borders of buisness and pleasure come very close  , a visit always leaves us happy . laughing and mostly wih a few nice koi to boot !  Today we were in no rush to get around so we chatted and drank coffee for a while  . Maruhiros new  premises are now all covered and very professional looking , and some of his fish are now looking very high quality indeed ! Today  we were looking for small nisai around 30-40cm especislly go sanke , Haruhiro  understands the demand of his customers and still grows on smaller nisai as well as his stuff that is over 50cm . With about twenty nice go sanke and a few other  varietys  selected it was agood few hours spent in good company . I then selected a whole box of ki utsuri as i keep getting told how rare they are !! After a quick trip to the noodle bar we went to his other facilty to see some of the koi i had bought  from photos after i had left japan , and also to talk about the new ones i had agreed to leave , and two others i missed coming out of the mudponds .First off the big yonsai sanke looked every bit a good koi along with the two sansai showa , the more expensive looked amazing . The gin rin shiro and showa i missed coming out last october also looked very good .We then wanted to discuss the five nisai we had left to return to the mud ponds , i was worried that i had got carried away with the moment and left too many koi , but hionori san showed us each koi in turn and assured us we had chosen well and they should all stay except the ochiba which we will now ship in a few weeks . No pics could be taken as there were no bowls at this facility , so we will return during the week for some pics and videos .All photos are Maruhiro nisai 30-40cm and one larger showa nearly 50cm . The pic is the crazy guy wearing THAT hat ! Then ten ki utsuri picked as so many people are asking about them!