Reguler readers of my blog , and people who have visited Niigata will probably know there is always what i call " the bad day " . This can result in headaches , dizzyness , lack of koi and general grumpy Garyness , today i realised by 10 am was to be the "bad day " I will try to explain .............The day started off with our appointment at Suzuki , this guy i really like , friendly as could be and breeds , doitsu sanke , doistu showa , kindai showa and superb goromo . After looking in three ponds and not being able to find any of the above to the standard that we normally get here , we had to except the obvious and take our leave . Driving away from the breeder i checked my order book , 9 people for budo goromo and aiigormo which he also does . Feeling a bit miffed our agent suggested that we should pop into Yamaju as it was ony a three minute drive away .On arrival we found ochiba , shusui and doitsu ochiba in abundance , sadly for us i have three people looking for doitsu ochiba but the price made then totally unaffordable so left knowing that i had missed out on a dozen sales and realised that this wasnt going to be the best day in Niigata for me . From Yamaju down to Izumiya to look for an aigoromo for one of our party , a goshiki was seen in the sansai pond and bowled immeditaley after the price was given , another one of our party bowled a quite imposing showa and things were looking great .The breeder then asked if we realised the aigormo was male , what a blow , but the customers are still thinking about the koi and we will return again tomorrow after a night to rethink . I really like Izumiya sanke , he breeds from Jimbei bloodline , and when asked if he still did , he replied , "yes big sumi " so i loooked through the nisai , but wasnt really surprised when i couldnt find enough to make a box up ! The day continues ................Down the mountain for a quick visit to Marudo found me and Phil looking in at what seemed to be an outragiously cheap pond of go sanke , but after 40 minutes in the pond i realised again i had jumped in with both feet and couldnt make up a box , some of the showas i had bought were very nice , but i still struggled and ended up putting in a massive 50 cm kohaku that is just a nice pretty fish . Quick stop for lunch and it was off to Torazo .This guys koi never cease to amaze me , the skin quality is excellant , and the size of his nisai varied from 40cm to very high end 50cm . After looking around the main koi house we ventured over to the higher quality nisai house , this really is dream fish house and the quality of koi is astounding .With so many maruten kohaku , 3 step kohaku and even two 4 step kohaku the choice was amazing . After bowling two or three up i realised that it was going to be hard for me to buy at this level this year , so i may just buy one to leave in Japan . Masaki was our next stop and he has some very nice koi , after buying some nisai asagi he offered me some much higher level nisai including one asagi and one shiro utsuri . After some haggling , and i have to say that i think Masaki san enjoys it as much as we do , a deal was struck and luck was changing . We then went up to the higher grade pond where he keeps his best sansai and yonsai , Steve had been asking about Yagenjis number one Yonsai shiro , so we thought it would be nice to compare , a fish in the same quality was seen by Steve and the price alot keener , but as it was bowled it was noted a little damadge on the tail tube , the breeder assured as it would be ok to ship as the damadge was from harvesting two days before where it had rubbed the net .I could see Steve was impressed with the quality but worried about the rub on the skin .So it was decieded to return to Yagenji to compare the shiro once more .On the way round the mountain we visited hiroi and found some excellant Goshiki and gin rin goshiki , soon we had found 4 in a bowl mainly picked by Angie , during this time i found i had become a but light headed and was really struggling to concentate and couldnt even take a photo ( i know i know , new excuse every day !! ) but i couldnt shake it off , so trying not to think about it i purchased the remaining goshiki after Angie had picked out the best one for herself and we left to go to Yagenji .Here we looked at the shiro , it was stunning and a fair price , but still a hell of alot of money so it was decieded to go and have one more look at Masaki shiro again tomorrow .I then spent an hour trying to find somthing to buy for myself but just couldnt get my act together , the breeder laughed and said " genki denai " , which means ill and i realised that although i had been carrying around a bottle of water all day , i had only sipped at it and eaten nothing virtually for 9 hours as i am really trying to shift some weight . So after a couiple of coffees , some serious amounts of rice crackers , chocolate nuts and Mummy watson telling me to drink all my water , within ten minutes i was feeling way better .On the trip back to the hotel i said i really diddnt remember much after thtre o clock , hope i wasnt grumpy , the agent laughed and said you went quiet and i know what your like so i left you alone , and the customers sheeply remarked , you were a little grumpy , and i looked round and said really ? six heads all noded back at me ,and all suggetsed i eat a little more and drunk alot more water , point taken , lesson learnt it seems i had virtually dehydrated and wasnt far from being quite ill . Wont do that again .Oh by the way , i nearly forgot to add , the two koi we left at Yagenji last year had been harvested , the shiro was very nice and the sumi had come through a little and the koi had grown to 53cm and looked good ,so the customer will be very pleased .How ever , the showa we nick named vegas ( after the breeder saying it was a gamble ) was way better than i had expected , the skin was excellant , the koi had grown 6 cm more than the shiro and was now 59cm , very very pleased with the development of the koi .Sean you will be very happy when these return to the uk ! Just goes to show a bad day still has its good points ! photos in order , male aigormo at Izumiya , showa at Izumiya , next two pics go sanke from Marudo , three step kohaku one of the koi we are thinking of leaving in the mud ponds .Masaki nisai female shiro , better quality asagi , more masaki asagi , Masaki yonsai shiro , four goshiki/gin rin goshiki from hiroi , shiro and showa from Yagenji. Other kohaku from Torazo .