The All Japan Koi Show – February 2017. The Breakdown

Koitrips.com trip to Japan, February 2017.

We wanted to give you a report on the trip this year, something with a little bit more detail of the trip itself and the schedule we keep.
We met at Manchester Airport on Thursday morning at 8am. We checked in for the flight and had a couple of coffees until we boarded the flight to Amsterdam. This is only a 55minute flight, there are no direct flights out of Manchester to Japan so we would have to go to London anyway, so Amsterdam is a similar flight as it would be to London.

Arriving in Amsterdam we just needed to wait a couple of hours for the flight to Japan. The airport has everything you would expect so after a look around and a drink, it was time for the main flight. The flight to Japan from Amsterdam is around 10 hours 30 minutes, it’s a long haul but there are loads of movies and plenty of food and drink. It is not as bad as it sounds.

On arrival in Japan on the Friday morning at 9am, It is a matter of passport control and luggage collection. Japan is a very streamline place and this is normally no longer than 30minutes total.
While Narita is known as Tokyo airports but by train it is 55minutes from Tokyo station. We get the express train into Shinagawa, which is the next station to Tokyo, this is where we and our clients stay on the All Japan Koi trip. Shinagawa is a beautiful City with quite a few places to explore. It is a short taxi ride to the show site, or even a quick train journey.

On the morning of the Saturday we left the Hotel at 9.45am and took 2 taxi’s to the Koi Show.
The entry into the show is 1000Yen, around £7.00. They give you a ticket which gives you access to the show for the remainder of the time, you are free to come and go.

We spent the full day at the show, it takes a long time to walk around the show vats, there are so many of them. I believe there was close to 2000 Koi entered this year, and the standard was excellent, it really was. The show site has coffee shops and lots of places to grab a bite to eat. Our clients had a wonderful time looking at the Koi, meeting people they had met online etc. It has now really turned into a very social place to meet.

We left the show and headed back to the Hotel. A quick wash and change and headed for dinner with Kensuke and Masaru from Shintaro Koi Farm.

On the Sunday we decided not to go back to the Show, the Saturday was enough time to see everything and take everything in. The mountains were calling so after breakfast we headed straight to Tokyo Station where we got tickets for the bullet train to Nagaoka.

We arrived in Nagaoka at 11am and walked 5 minutes to the Hotel which is just through the station. We have a car waiting for us when we arrive so within 10minutes of getting off the train we were driving up to the mountains heading for the Koi Breeders!
We spend the remainder of the day visiting breeders in Mushigame village and viewed around 5 breeders in that time frame, plus we had some lunch and took in the beautiful snowy views.
We headed back to the hotel around 4.30pm and had a relaxing meal in the evening before the next day in the mountains.

The breakfast is included at the Hotel and it is a good breakfast, it sets you up for the day no problem.
We leave at the 9am and headed out for busy Koi day. We visited in excess of 10 breeders including Dainichi, Marudo, Shintaro, Igarashi, Marusho (Mushigame) Kaneko, Yagenji, Hiroi Seiji, Torazo, Kawakami, Yozaimon and more!
The day usually ends around 4/5pm and we headed back for the last evening at the Hotel. This was made even better by being taken for a beautiful BBQ dinner by Shintaro Koi Farm, always a highlight, and the food is superb.
The following day we checked out of the hotel but left our luggage at the hotel. We had the morning and a little of the afternoon to take in a few more breeders. Some of the clients wanted to finalise a few Koi they had seen the previous day and then headed back up to Mushigame to say a few goodbyes. However the snow was starting to really come down so we thought it best to get out of there as soon as possible. We really had a fantastic time in the mountains, it could not have been better.

We returned to the Hotel and then headed to the train station, where we needed to catch another bullet train back to Tokyo. We then travelled from Tokyo on an express train to Isawa – Onsen which is in the Yamanashi prefecture and home to Isawa Nishikigoi Centre, Matsunosuke.

We left Nagaoka at 2.30pm and arrived in Isawa at 6pm. A 5 minute taxi ride to the Hotel which are all pre booked where we had an evening meal and a couple of drinks then to bed ready to view Koi the following day.

Isawa Nishikigoi Centre is a huge facility, with around 6 facilities close together in a small town.
It’s a little different to many Koi places in Niigata, you really have to know what you are looking for so they know where to look, ponds are far from labelled here. It’s easier for dealers because they do have some Koi which are on a price list of kinds so you can view what you would get if you ordered boxes of those particular Koi. Then there are some absolutely world class Koi.

We did everything we needed to do and as we fly the following day in the morning, we need to leave Isawa and head for the Airport Hotel in Narita.

Now there are a 2 ways of doing this, either take a train which takes around 3 hours to the Airport but also means dragging cases etc which is not that much of an issue, or the coach from Isawa direct which also takes 3 hours. We picked the coach and left at 3pm, arriving at 5.45pm at the Airport terminal. Then its a short hotel bus ride to the Hotel which is a mile out of the hotel.

We checked in around 6.20pm and changed and showered and headed out into the local town of Narita. It’s a very old town with some excellent sites to see. However after the busy week we had, we chose a nice meal and a few drinks before an early night before a long flight the following morning.

This last hotel was out 4th Hotel in 7 days! it was all very smooth though, and very straight forward.
The following morning it was the free bus from the Hotel back to the airport where we checked in for the return flight, this time it was Tokyo Narita to Paris, then onto Manchester.
Narita airport is a cool place to have a walk around, plenty of shops etc to browse, even a MacDonald’s for the people who have missed fast food!

The return flight is slightly longer with the head wind. We flew out at 11am on Thursday, and arrived back in Manchester at 6.45pm the same day!
This trip was a very busy trip but it was not chaotic. It was a great week and we managed to fit in so much ‘Koi’ over the week, it’s quite remarkable when I write about it how much we did!

Any further information, please email us info@qualitynishikigoi.com