Due to a good flight offer , i found myself flying out a day or two earlier than i had intended .This wouldnt have normally been a problem , but this time all the hotels in Ojiya were fully booked , so i stayed in Nagaoka for one night , a decsion that my head will later come to regret , but moreoftha later ! At Tokyo bumped into BKKS judge Gary Pritchard , had a bit of chat andit turned out he was drivng around on his own , not being one to miss an operutnity , i scrounged a lift round Mushigame with him for the rest of the afternoon . We had a look in Yagenji , and have to say very impressed with what i saw there , the guys are harvesting every day so when we start buying on Saturday , we will make haste to get there ! Aot of differant varietys , but many kindai and gin rin kindai showa really caught my eye . From here we looked into Kaneko , who wasout havesting , so the father showed us around , not too much in there yet , but some very nice nisa so again wll return there late on . A coffee stop at Shintaros , and then a quick visit to the fish house. Not a lot harvested yet , but some vey nice male sanke i am thinking about .Also some nice sansai showanthat we bowled , very good body shapes , but decided to hold on untll more koi have been harvested . So not a bad afternoon , spent in the company of Gary , also joined by Gibo and Mark Gardner . We decieded to all go out for a meal that night along with Mark Chetter my customer . It was a great night , and one drink turned into another , which then turned int botles of wine , which then tuned into a visit to the Irish bar , which is where my memory starts to fail , how ever i do remember discussing koi all night , getting so many differant opinions was quite intereasing , even if we diddnt put the koi world to right ! Also remembered making plans to meet up again with Gary Pritchard the next day , however , when i got back to thehotel room at gone 4am , i relasied it was ging to be a no go meeting him at nine am , so messaged a couple of people to pass this message on to him . If your reading this Gary , i hope you got the messages and thanks foran enjoyable day ! Picture is one of the Showas that we bowled at Shintaro koi farm . Just going for dinner , and then ill do fridays blog .