The latest trip comes to an end…

Koitrips have just finished the latest trip to Japan.
Another amazing trip for us and our guests.

We all left Manchester Airport on an early Sunday morning. 6 of us in total and one more American client to meet once we get to Nagaoka City.

On arriving in Japan we got the NArita Express train into Tokyo, then we got the famous Bullet train from Tokyo to Nagaoka Station. The entire trip takes around 3 hours if we meet all our connections.

Koitrips really don’t plan day to day schedule. Its impossible at this time of year because there is so much going on in the mountains. We can stop at a certain breeder and get further information about another breeder, so we shoot down to see that breeder. As we do not have a guide or a translator, we do everything ourselves, so do not pay any agent fees at all. So we have NO restrictions at all.

On an average day we can hit around 10 breeders easy! Sometimes more depending on what our clients are looking for. We have a very good idea, from 20 years of experience who will have what Koi, so we can pinpoint client orders fast.
Which we did.

At this time of year we are lucky enough to have contacts, which means we get to go to the very best Harvests. This year our clients were lucky enough to visit, and help Harvest the Shintaro number 1 mudpond, this is the home to Shintaro Koi Farms biggest and best Koi. Some of the Koi are over 90cms. It was an amazing experience and one that our clients absolutely loved. Some of the guys actually pulled on the waders and got in the mudpond to harvest the Koi, this is exactly what Koitrips are all about. Some of our other clients had Koi growing in this pond too.

Another Harvest we had the opportunity to go to was the Matsunosuke main pond harvest. Isawa Nishikigoi Centre is the home of the Matsunosule Bloodline, this is one of the top 3 Harvests in the world. Some of our clients actually had Koi growing in this pond! Another amazing day. The clients with us took hundreds of pictures and got involved with everything, it was a great day.

Another highlight of the trip for our clients was the Nagaoka Koi Show. Tim who was leading the group was invited for the second year to Judge the Koi show, so the guests got a little insight into how that all works. We also got invites to the banquet in the evening. This was a show party which included all the breeders from the Nagaoka area. We all had a fantastic evening. Some of Koitrips other clients won major awards and one of the new clients also won a top prize with a Koi he had bought on this trip!

Our clients also had 2 dinners out with different Koi breeders in the evening. They went for BBQ with Shintaro, where we had Kobe beef which you cook yourself. We also did the same with Toshi and Toshio Sakai of Matsunosuke.

There is only one way to experience these kind of things. That’s with a a trip to Japan with Koitrips.

Check out the pictures.