Today had all the hall marks of a great day , appointments made and fish available and off first thing feeling pretty positive ! Arriving at Yamazaki koi farm we soon had some nisai bowled up , mainly platinum ogons and gin matsubas.After this i struggled a little bit and decieded to move onto our next appointment at one of our favourite dealers Sakai . Once again things diddnt go to plan and it looks like he has sold all his nisai and older koi . We were then offered a chance to select from some of his tategoi tosai ponds , there were some stunning sankes and amazing shiro utsuris , but they were very high vaue and the decsion was made to pass . From there to Marudo to view jumbo tosai and arrived to find he was sold out , starting to get the feeling the bad day i hadnt had in a few trips was returning with a vengance ! We then joined Tanaka for lunch which is always an amusing time as his English is very good , along with his sence of humour , he had arranged for us to be part of a television programe that was being made . So we spent an hour being filmed by NHK for the news and a follow up programme later . After my attempts of trying to be a movie star we went over to see Hosakai koi farm . I know ive said it before , but one of the reasons i love Niigata so much is that you never know what may or not come along with the breeders you visit . Trying to keep a positive head on when youve visited some of your faourite breeders and not buying much at all doesnt bode well for your next visit. After arriving at Hosaki and looking around and thinking there was a few koi that intereasted me , we were offered a chance to look at some higher grade nisai , after following the breeder to another set of ponds i havnt seen before we were soon bowling up some nice showa , shiro utsuri and goshiki including a nice Maruten one , all koi were niasi and 40-50cm . After this we looked at a nice kohaku and a very strange doitsu goshiki , very unusual ! Few more koi were then bowled , mainly showas , a nice kin matsuba and a very clean kin showa , and last but not least a nisai female kujaku around 50cm! So around 15 nisai purchased at the end of the day . So not too bad a day in the end . once again we have appts for selecting tosai tomorrow , go sanke and may be some very high grade jumbo tosai so watch this space .Pics to follow