Far beyond the bustling cities and bedroom towns of Western Japan, lies very rural Southern Shimane prefecture. A quick look around confirms in the mind that this must be one of the areas of which the Japanese government is often lamenting about depopulation.

Beyond that though, residing in this area is one of my favorite breeders of gosanke "Yamatoya."

In spite of being located so far away from the real action centers of koi, his place is always full with...

Brian

I spent some time in Hiroshima last week taking survey of what was left at some of the breeder's places. Sales seemed to be somewhat down this year, but not quite as bad as I had expected.

Heavy rains came down from Miyoshi all the way to Shimane which made for a long journey, but I got to stay the night in a hot springs hotel so it kind of made up for all the dreary weather.

Any of you that are following the Japanese weather or the yen exchange rate can find that information...

Brian

Looks like Winter has come early this year, with weather forecasts predicting snow already for Niigata and other places near the sea of Japan.

Shimane prefecture and Northwestern Hiroshima may get hit with some very blustery winter snowstorms that pose the possibility of mountain portions of the expressways being shutdown due to localized freezing, especially in tunnels. Hope it doesn't affect any shipments due to go out this week.

Brian

Have had a few people after me telling me that I should take advantage of my own blog by posting to it more often and keeping you all up to date of my movements within Japan.

That is indeed a superb idea and I should have started sooner, so be on the lookout for the odd post now and again.

Brian

Although this is quite a belated post. I couldn't help but feel that I needed to comment a bit on this year's Wakagoi show in Ojiya.

Overall, I'd have to say that quality is up over past years and that most of the breeders that were going to make it back after the earthquake have staged their comeback.

There was quite a sizable foreign contingent in attendance and it was good to see people such as Mike Hernandez and Mark Gardner.

Adam from Momotaro Koi...

Brian