A day with Van Keulen - 2nd stop Masaki

Having concluded business at Marudo we headed to the village of Aikawa in order to visit Yamazaki.  On route it wasn't possible to get an answer on his phone but we continued on anyway in the hope that he'd be around when we arrived, alas not.

A quick reschuduling of other appointments saw us heading down through the Utogi Tunnel on onto Koguriyama, home of Shinoda, Hiroi, Yagozen as well as our destination, Hiroki Yorijo, better known as 'Masaki' as it's run by Masaki Hiroi.   

I've visited Masaki on several occasions over the last couple of years with various people and I think he's just starting to understand who I am.  Jereon on the other hand has an excellent relationship with him, he assists with his harvests during October and Masaki san has visited Van Kuelen in the Netherlands.  I was interested to learn over coffee that Masaki san's daughter is presently studying English in Bournemouth in the UK.

Masaki san has several Koi houses which are situated 'above' his home which can be seen here in the breeders guide - http://www.niigata-nishikigoi.com/node/177.  The first on the left has nisai and older stocks, the other 2 tosai.

The older stocks are housed in this one pond, a pond which always contains something of interest when I've visited previously, perhaps most notably excellent Shiro Utsuri.

Some shots of the Koi in the pond above.

Jeroen was after an Asagi and Masaki san set about bowling some examples from the pond.

This is the one that Jeroen decided on in the end citing it's head and body as major criteria in his decision, for me it also had the best scalation of the 3 examples.

From the first house we headed up the slope to have a look at the tosai.  As mentioned yesterday it's currently not practical or possible to offer people the option to hand pick from these Koi - http://www.niigata-nishikigoi.com/node/682.  However, they are of course always happy to show a sample of what they consider to be the grade/price the customer is looking for.

The picture below is some of the 'tosai mix' that's available, they were certainly very lively, swarming around as Masaki san offered some food.

The 2 shots below show some of this year's tosai Asagi.

As I mentioned there has always been something of interest here when I've visited in the past, today was no exception.  Certainly someone I'd like to get to know better and see more of their Koi.