What was your first Japan experience like?

[Fishbreeder]

I moved to Japan in 1967, I was nine years old.

First koi I saw were in a moat around a temple, I was fascinated.

More koi seen on the rooftops of department stores, sometimes for sale, sometimes to fish for in a small tank with a small pole and tiny hook. You take your catch home to your pond alive. Our pond was concrete, about 16" deep and had no filtration system.

My with our parents, my younger sister and I attended the First All Japan Koi Show that year or the next, at the Hotel New Otani in Tokyo.

We lived in a Japanese house in the city of Tachikawa, not far from the Air Force Base that used to be located there.

We returned to Texas in 1972.

I went back to Japan with Bob Spindola in 1992 to buy breeding stock. Traveled around Niigata with a sack full of cash for two weeks buying brood koi, never had so much fun.

I intend to return in the next few years, not to buy koi, I don;t have to go to Japan to do that, Dainichi does that for me and hand delivers. I want to tour koi producers as well as try and find my old home site, burned into my memory by my folks...

San ju ichi no san ju san, Ichi Chome, Tachikawa, Tokyo, Japan.