I finally found the opportunity to update the TOMiGAi Blog!! 🙂 This year Devin was honored with an invitation to judge the All-Japan Young Koi Show (also known as the Wakagoi show) and I am incredibly proud of him. By now, many of you may have already seen the Grand Champion Koi. If not, check out this…
The best nisai harvest at Marudo Koi Farm is a stark contrast to the Jumbo Koi harvest at Isa Koi Farm. Inviting few to no people to come watch them harvest Koi, they would rather have all their customers wait for them to return from the mud ponds at the greenhouses where they they release the Koi for…
The days following my last post were pretty much a blur as we were on a buying frenzy picking up some of the best quality nisai Koi that Koi Acres’ has ever had! We are so excited to share our purchases with everybody to enjoy. Check out these amazing Isa Showa that we picked up: …
Exciting and rather busy day today! We were invited to be at the Isa Jumbo Koi Harvest and it’s always an exciting feeling to see big Koi come out of the mud. The pond that we were harvesting that day had been draining for the past week or so and it finally came down to…
I’ve written about this every single trip at least once and I will do so again and again: I love the Japanese convenience store! It is my favorite place EVER!!!! There’s nothing like it anywhere else in the world and if I could shrink one and put it in my pocket to take home with me,…
I don’t believe it is possible to overrate the power of adrenaline and anticipation. Despite still being plagued by the shadow of jet lag (and maybe the residual effects of having just a little too much fun the night before), we were all up bright and early ready to get our Fall buying trip to…
Japan is like a different world where work and play collide into this perfect painting where everything just flows into each other seamlessly. This year we are joined by John Ames from Dallas who is, incidentally, half-Japanese (his mother is full Japanese from Yokohama). The last time he was in Japan was in 1977…
While Devin and I were shopping around Niigata, my parents were on a shopping trip on their own, searching for the perfect Koi for the upcoming Grow Out Contest at Kois & Ponds, Philippines. First stop was Isa Koi Farm where they had their pick of some very special Jumbo Tosai Showa. Each of these…
Koi is such an unpredictable industry to be in and it is usually quite difficult to plan out what you would like to buy and from which farm. What is available from a certain farm in abundance one year can be nowhere to be found in the next. Rough drafts of what we would ideally…
Just a quick edit on my previous post about the winners of the Grow Out Contest at Tani Fish Farm: the owner of the Grand Champion Koi is a hobbyist for Malaysia, Second Place winning Koi is owned by a Japanese hobbyist and third place winning Koi is owned by a hobbyist from Singapore. I…