Isawa/Niigata Bound PSKol!

[Erns]

Thanks for shearing your trip Russ. Much appreciated. I've also just bought two jumbo tosai. A female kohako from Nagoshi and a female shiro form Omosako, both over 12". Will post some pics when they arrive at my pond in May. Jumbo tosai are a very expensive and risky venture!

[Russell Peters]

Today I spent the first part of the day at the Hosokai Koi Farm. Tadaschi and I went through their jumbo Tosai and I was able to acquire 5 boxes. They have some very nice Tosai and a nice variety. After we had lunch at the house Tadaschi asked me if I wanted to visit Yagenji. his is another farm that I have not been to yet so my response was.............OK!

[Russell Peters]

Since Tadaschi was driving, I decided to take some pictures of the trip up to Yamakoshi village. I have never been here this time of year and it is quite different. Without the normal snow levels they have it was quite stark and without the normal quantities of Koi available it felt quite lonley.

On the road to Yamakoshi there is a Koi auction house that they have Koi auctions in every year. After the earthquake the new road was damage so we all had to take the old road around the back side of the auction house.
This is a picture of the auction house under repair from the new road in front of it. It was nice to see how far the repairs have come along.

[Russell Peters]

Here are a few pictures that came out from along the way. I say this because sometimes it is hard to focus a camera in a moving vehicle. The last picture was our final destination Yagenji. We did pass Yamamatsu, Shintaro, Ikarashi Kazuto and Marusada as well. It was very quiet in Yamakoshi.

[Russell Peters]

Yagenji is up on a hill and has a view that overlooks the valley. Here are a few photographs of the view.
The first shot overlooks Ikarashi Kazuto and you can see his green house sign.
The second shot is a closeup of Kazuto Koi farm
The third picture is to the right of Ikarashi Kazuto.
The fourth picture is of Marusada Koi far.
What a great group of neighbors.

[Russell Peters]

Today, I did not take many pictures of Koi. I took a couple at Yagenji of their Tosai.

[Russell Peters]

The first picture is a house that was destroyed during the earthquake. It may still be there because the owners or occupants can not afford the repairs.

The second picture is of the Dianichi house and green houses. They suffered severe damage and the house has been empty since the earthquake. They keep some Tosai in the greenhouses but not much else. There was a crew working there so I asked Tadaschi if the house wa being fixed so that it can be occupied. He did not think so.

The third picture is of some hillside repairs that have been completed. There are many, many areas that have been repaired like this.

[Russell Peters]

These next two pictures I find very interesting because they are in an area just down river from Torazo. The damage here was very severe and all the homes and ground in this area was lost. It was simply washed away. For the last two years crews have been working to realign the river to its original location and they have actually put the land back where it was as well. In both pictures the area in the foreground is the new land in its origional position. Talk about land fill.

[Russell Peters]

This last picture picture is a house about two blocks from Isa Hajime. They were starting work on it last year and actually poured new concrete steps, but, as you can see there is not much of the house left.

We went by Isa Hajime as well and they are doing many upgrades to their ponds.

[dick benbow]

so Russ, when are you scheduled to depart the mother country and when are your boxes of your recent shopping gonna arrive home? ( inquiring minds want to know! )