Big trouble in little Japan!

Devin's Kohaku

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 13:03:00 +0000

I culled my kohaku down to open up space to grow out. I left only the fish I felt had potential for the future, from the 55 I culled out 33 fish that just didn't make the cut. Leaving only 22 fish, with lots of room to grow.

I'll be doing some traveling this winter, so in order to make life easier for the rest of the staff here I set up an auto-feeder on my tank. I had to modify the auto-feeder a little in order to make it work, but its up and running now and working like a charm. For now I have it set to feed my koi twice a day cause I don't want to overload the filter when I'm not there , but once I'm done traveling I'll probably bump it up to 3 or 4 feedings a day.

There has been some noticeable growth since I thinned the herd and set up the auto-feeder. When I am able to clean the filter more often and bump the feedings up to 3 or 4 times per day I'll really be able to get some growth on them. My plan for next is to release these kohaku out into my fry pond instead of growing out fry. I'm scheduled to be heading home for good mid July next year, so if I were to grow out fry I would be heading home after the first cull. It makes more sense to use the pond to grow out these kohaku, instead of relying on others to finish up the culls cause I'll be leaving in the middle of the culling season.

My goal is to try and grow my kohaku out to around 12 inches by next spring, I'm a little over half way there.

I'm heading to Manila tomorrow, I'll be spending Christmas with my girlfriend and her family, and also translating for The Art of Koi put on be Kois & Ponds and Tomigai koi food.

Life as of Lately

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 09:25:00 +0000

Hectic...
Nisai and up harvests started on the 10th of October and its been busy since then. For a while I was balancing two jobs, working at Marudo harvesting and helping customers. Then whenever I could get free time it was spent going around buying koi with my dad & customers, whom I met up with down in Tokyo. We caught the last train up to Nagaoka out of Tokyo after seeing ZED, the Cirque Du Soleil show at Tokyo Disneyland. It was an amazing show and I recommend it to anyone, a lot for your eyes to take in.

Dad stayed for about 2 weeks but once he headed home I had to schedule a ship date, and coordinate the shipment for all the koi we purchased. That was all done at night though cause the days were spent harvesting ponds at Marudo. Everyday many customers were coming to Marudo too, so a lot of the days were spent helping pull up koi for them to view and purchase. Most of the customers came between the 15th of October to around the first week of November. Some are still trickling in here and there, but nothing like the October rush when people were having to wait turns to pick out koi.

Towards the beginning of November the shipments started going out in full force, sometimes we were packing morning and night. A few days we had 3 to 4 separate shipments going out. Whilst this was all going on we've been preparing for winter, and finishing up the last of the ponds to be harvested. The oyagoi were the last koi to be harvested, with all the koi indoor for the winter we drained all the mud ponds completely. After letting them dry for a couple days we spread lime to condition the mud for next year and plugged all the drains and set the stand pipes. From now until spring the ponds will collect rain water and snow melt so they will be full and ready come next spring when we release koi out into them once again. Among other work in preparation for winter we put up poly insulation around the tosai tanks to help cut down on heating costs in the winter. Cleaned all the auto-feeders and put away the ones we won't use during the winter. Along with consolidating koi as tanks open up with koi being shipped out.

I'll be heading to the Philippines for Christmas and to take part in The Art of Koi, being put on by Kois & Ponds and Tomigai koi food.

Devin's Pond

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:02:00 +0000

Harvest

The days are getting shorter and the nights cooler as we are entering fall, so it was time to harvest my pond. Without warm water the outdoor growing season is coming to a close, so there is no point in leaving the fish out while they could be growing at a faster rate in an indoor controlled environment. I set up a 500 liter tank with built in trickle filter to house my kohaku for the winter in preparation for the harvest. With everything ready and in place I pulled my pond on the 4th of October, four weeks since the last (3rd) cull on the 6th of September.

While I was in Minnesota for the koi show my pond had a bloom of hair algae, so instead of dragging a seine net to catch the fish; I decided to drain the pond down. Also, because there was under 100 fish left over from the last cull, it would be less work just to drain the water out. Once it was down to about 10 cm of water depth I plugged the drain and caught as many of the koi that could be easily netted. Then I proceeded to drain the pond completely, catching the left over fish as the water ran out.

In total there was 81 koi, so somewhere in the four weeks since the last cull one of the fish disappeared. In the final pond side cull I threw out 26 fish that didn't turn out so well, or look like they had any potential to get better. Bringing the total down to 55 fish, with 12 of them being somewhat good and 3 of them fairly good. They ranged in size from 10 to 15 cm in length, had the water not gone bad with hair algae bloom; I would have expected them to have reached 15 to 20 cm in length.

My pond was the last of all the tosai ponds to be harvested this year. I thought I would have pulled it much earlier, but we have just been so busy that I never had any free time to do it. 55 fish is quite a bit for a 500 liter tank, but as the year goes on I'll continue to cull down the kohaku. By next spring I hope to grow them out to around 30+ cm, so the ones the aren't turning out will have to go to make room for the others.

Mark Gardener has been following the development of my kohaku, his blog and eMagazine Niigata Nishikigoi Digest, it can be viewed at www.niigata-nishikigoi.com

Life (aka work) as of Lately

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:18:00 +0000

My body can't really decide on what time zone it wants to operate on. I've been getting tired and waking up at weird hours. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that I really only got about one nights rest spread out over 5 days while I was in Minnesota for the UMKC's Third annual koi show. Which by the way was quite a fun show, for various reasons...

Back in Japan however, we have started the harvesting of tosai. So everyday consists of going to the ponds we are pulling that day to seine them 3 times to catch as many of the koi we can. Then a final cull and sorting of tategoi and fish we'll sell will take place. Lastly we completely drain the pond(s) to catch any of the koi that avoided being caught by the seine net. We're averaging about 4 ponds a day.

Once all the ponds we are harvesting for that day are culled and sorted or we run out of box nets to put the koi in after we seine, we'll load them into a transport tank on one of the trucks. Sanbusho is the designated tosai house, so we'll unload all of the tosai there. Sanbusho is made up of 5 seperate houses in one area. There is a vinyl house with 6 tanks, and then there is houses A through D clustered together. House A has 7 tanks, B has 5, C has 4, and D also has 4 tanks. At the main entrance in House D there is also 2 small tanks we use to prep tosai for shipping. The vinyl house is where all the tategoi are kept throughout the winter, and the rest of the houses is where we will store the fish that are for sale. While unloading the sale able tosai we'll usually separate them by size.

With a little over 50 tosai ponds and only 12 ponds into the harvest it looks like we'll be pulling ponds up till about the end of this month. Once we are finished pulling the tosai ponds, work will start on prepping for the big fish harvest. Which usually starts around the 15th of October, we've got some busy days ahead of us.

Devin's Pond

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:31:00 +0000

Second & Third Cull

The second cull on my kohakus' was undertaken on the 30th of August. After receiving help pulling the seine net from the Boss, I set about culling. This time was nothing like the last, many of the fry didn't turn out well, so a lot of them were thrown away. I started out with the 1,800 selected in the last cull, and culled down to 105 fish With about 13 of them having any chance of turning out alright. The fry were about 4-6 cm at the time of culling, and quite of few of them had deformed heads. I'd figured there would have been around 300 koi picked out if they would have developed well, but I culled strictly, so that might be a factor.

The third cull took place just a week after the second cull, on the 6th of September. Ideally I would have wanted a wait a couple extra days to cull. Since it is starting to cool down and the growing season is coming to an end, I opted to hurry up and do a third cull to open up more room for keepers to grow out. I selected 82 fish to keep out of the previous 105, there was a lot of Aka & Shiro Muji thrown away. I believe they must have escaped the net last time I pulled the pond because it didn't look like any of the fry really lost their hi at all. This time around there was 16 koi I believe have a chance at developing well, all within the 6-10 cm range. There was a couple fish I didn't recognize, so its possible they were missed by the seine net in the previous pull too. Soon the tosai harvest will start and all them will be moved indoors for the winter. I think around the 20th or so of the month I'll be harvesting my fry. At that time I will be doing a final cull before they're moved to their own tank for the winter.

Mark Gardener has been following the development of my kohaku, the second cull is featured in the first issue of his new eMagazine Niigata Nishikigoi Digest, it can be viewed at www.niigata-nishikigoi.com

Ojiya Festival

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 09:07:00 +0000

Summer time in Japan is packed full of festivals, from small towns to big cities. Niigata prefecture is famous for its firework displays at their festivals. Nagaoka is said to have one of the best displays in all of Japan, possibly even the world. Kashiwazaki also has an impressive display. Katakai shoots off the worlds largest firework every year at their festival, its a 1 meter diameter shell; and it makes the ground shake when it goes off. Ojiya also shoots off fireworks at their festival, but nothing like the other cities. Something special that Ojiya has is the parade where groups of people from the different areas of Ojiya make their own Mando. A Mando is kind of like a float in an American parade, but usually it is some kind of character.

Around the first of August, I had been helping build the Mando for Higashi Yama along with many of the residents of the area including Marusaka's son Teruyuki & Izumiya's son Ryu. Work had already started on the Mando before I showed up to help, and many long nights were put in to get it finished up in time for the festival on the 22nd & 23rd of the month. Higashi Yama's Mando was a giant blue dog, I think it is the mascot for Niigata News. It lit up and had movable arms and a rotating head, all controllable from beneath the platform it sat on. It was affixed to a 2 ton truck fitted with speakers, a small tv (where Billy's Boot Camp was played on a loop), along with parady paintings on the side, and last but not least lots of alcohol!

Along with the Mando-sha (Mando truck) there was also a Hayashi. The Hayashi was a 4 ton truck with a roof and lanterns set up on it for the festival. On the Hayashi drums and seats were set up so we could play traditional Festival music with Japanese recorders, taiko drums and a small bell. As with the Mando-sha, it was also fitted with enough alcoholic beverages to drown a donkey.

I rode on the Hayashi and was assigned to play a drum on the first night, even though I had no idea what to do. They said to just guess and go along with the flow. This was on Saturday, so it was during the fireworks display, so the Mando parade wasn't the main attraction of the night. On Sunday night the Mando was one of the main attractions though, so a lot of us got dressed up in different costumes ranging from Dragon Ball Z characters to Japanese comedians. I donned white body tights suit painted my face yellow and wore a lemon over my head, mimicking a Japanese comedian.

It is tradition to chug bottles of sake all together, so lots of alcohol was consumed. I remember Saturday night for the most part, but I blacked out on Sunday. Monday morning I woke up with one shoe, and a newly decorated body. I did find my shoe later when I was driving home though.

As if we didn't drink enough at the festival, we just had the Otsukarasama (thanks for all the hard work) drinking party last night...

I need to go cull my pond now.

Devin's Pond

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:09:00 +0000

First Cull

I did the first cull on the 14th of the month, just 18 days after releasing my kohaku fry. I may have culled a little too early, but for the most part you could make out patterns on the fry. It worked out better to do it on the 14th because it was the first day of a 3 day break for Marudo due to the national Obon holiday. Any of the days after and an impeading hangover from the drinking to be had might have interfered with the quality of culling!

Most of the fry were between 2-3 cm in size, and there was a lot of step patterns in the lot. We recently culled another pond of kohaku fry from the same Oyagoi set and step patterns seemed to be prominent in them too. So it will be interesting too see how they turn out. I culled down to 1,800 fry from 15,000, its kind of a lot for the size of my pond; but they'll soon be culled again. Many were kept because they were too small and the pattern hadn't quite emerged on them, but now with less fish in the pond they'll have room to develop and grow.

Mark Gardener came by to help cull and shoot a video of the day, his video and blog can be viewed at www.niigata-nishikigoi.com

Devin's Pond

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 10:11:00 +0000

I'm raising Kohaku fry this year, on 7-27-09 I received 15,000 offspring of a Hoshikin female bred with a Nogami male. The Hoshikin female has a 3 step pattern with very good skin quality, and the Nogami male is around 75cm in length, with a decent body for a male. I haven't even started the first cull yet, but I am looking forward to see how these koi develop.

The pond I'm using is different from the previous years at Tatsushiro, the pond I am using is at the very top of Myoken Mountain. Myoken is where many of Marudo's best nisai & sansai are grown, the mud there produces very good hi. In regards to size, the pond is about the same size as the pond I used previously, about 30' by 30' and 3 1/2 feet deep. The only problem with the new pond at Myoken is that it is at the very top of the mountain, so the is no constant water supply. So, if it doesn't rain enough, my pond could dry up, luckily this year there has been plenty of rain this far.

Since releasing the fry on the 27th I've only been able to check my pond a couple of times because I've been assigned to work else where. As of the 4th of August (8 days) my fry have already grown to about 1.5 to 2 cm in length, compared to about 1 cm or a little under when they were released. I believe the fast growth is due to the abundance of daphnia in the pond.

At this rate I'm hoping to do the first cull around the 16th of the month, maybe sooner...

Finally got this figured out...

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:23:00 +0000

Marudo's computer has been broken, but now I have internet access. I should be posting an update soon.

A lot has changed in the year I've been gone...

Back again...

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:16:00 +0000

A couple weeks ago I received a call that my visa went though. So I headed down to Chicago for the MPKS koi show and to have my visa validated at the Japanese Embassy. Now, after a couple spur of the moment going away parties thrown by my friends, my bags are packed and I'm heading out the door.

We'll see what horrible movies will be in store for me on the plane ride over...

Home

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 14:34:00 +0000

I head out for home tomorrow, still with no news on how my visa is coming. Atleast I'll keep busy while back in Minnesota, we have the 2nd Annual Upper Midwest Koi Club's Koi Show at Bachmann's coming up. I'll be there helping out and after that Koi Acres is also very busy building ponds, so I'll be working on that too. So atleast as I wait for my visa to be processed I won' t be sitting around bored.

Devin's Pond

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:02:00 +0000

I did the first cull on my pond this past Sunday the 13th. Last year when I did showa I only release about 10,000 fry in my pond, but this year I released 20,000 sanke fry. Showa are culled once (picking out only the black fry) before being released out into the mud ponds, therefore not as many fry are released. So this year with double the amount of fish I asked my friend to help me cull. He agreed to help & I am very thankful for it!

From 20,000 fry we culled down to 775, with about 3 that really stand out. My fry have grown to about 3-4 cm, not too bad; but they could be bigger. With only 775 pieces left over though, they should have a lot more room to grow! I'm already looking forward to the second cull!

Fan Mail

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 06:27:00 +0000

There was an article written about me in Niigata pref.`s main new paper (Niigata Nippo) a couple weeks ago. I`ve been getting recognised out in public a lot lately because of it, its kinda odd. I`ve been in the new paper back in Minnesota, even on TV, but I`ve never gotten this much recognision back home.* But then the topper came a couple days ago, I got a letter in the mail, written in English & Japanese. It is from a family in a town about 30 minutes away, they said they were amazed at my interest in Japanese culture. They invited me to come stay at their home and attend a large 3 day festival held in their town. They left their phone number in the letter, but I don`t know if I`ll be in Japan during the festival; so I haven`t called them or know if I should? The kicker though, is how the letter got to me. My address wasn`t exactly written in the news paper, so they just wrote down my name, general area I live in and `Koi Farm`. The letter made its way to me though... maybe the people at the post office read the article about me too...

*Its probably cause I stick out like a sore thumb in this sea of brown eyed black haired people though.

Devin`s Pond & Problem

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 06:10:00 +0000

I don`t have a problem with my pond (yet) like the many I encountered last year. I`m having a problem getting a different visa so I can stay in Japan. My current visa ends on July 24th and Japanese Customs & Immigration thinks I`ve stayed long enough. I`d like to continue my studies of nishikigoi, but I`m having trouble changing over to a different visa. I`ve applied for another visa, so now all I have is to wait and see if it is accepted.

With all of this in the back of my mind I contemplated whether or not to raise fry this year, knowing that I might not be here to finish out the growing / culling season. I decided to go ahead and do it though, if things don`t work out then Marudo will take care of my pond and keep the koi in the fall. So about 2 weeks ago I added sanke fry to my pond, 20,000 pieces. They`ve already grown to about a 1.5 cm in length, form about 0.7 cm when they were added. If they keep up the pace they should be ready for the first cull around the first week of July!

Spawning Continues

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 02:24:00 +0000

Since the first set, we`ve spawned two more sets of 3 females recently. To accomodate for more fry we moved out tosai to open up some more tanks. We reset up the hatching nursury in the tanks we opened up, now we have lots of room to work with!

The majority of the females spawned recently were showas (5 out of 6 of them), so we have a lot of fry culling ahead of us. We only keep the black fry produced from showas, and we`ll usually start the culling process 2-3 days after they have hatched. Luckly we have a group of grandmothers come and help us because it is very time consuming work!

Spawning

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Sun, 25 May 2008 00:33:00 +0000

The breeding season is upon us, and we spent the last week preparing for it. We set up all the spawning liners in the concrete tanks & constructed a support system to hold it all up. We also modified the air system by adding spliters into the lines so that each spawning liner has an airstone in it. Next was onto the artificial spawning station, getting all the supplies ready, and tanks set up so we could start spawning.

Two days ago we spawned the first of many sets, a Kohaku, and also a new Sanke we picked up this year. The Sanke is big, and had a lot of eggs! I look forward to seeing how they turn out.

While waiting for the fry to hatch, we set up the `nursury` where we grown the newly hatched fry up to about a centimeter in length before releasing them into the mud ponds. The `nursury` consists of a box net (fine mesh), so again we had a build a support system to hold the box nets. Also, in the `nursury` we us pure oxygen, so we had to set up another air system too. Lasty we set up a brine shrimp hatching station, we use the brine shrimp as a first food for the koi fry.

G8 Summit

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:31:00 +0000

On the 11-13th of this month the G8 Labour and Employment Ministers Meeting was held in Niigata city at Toki Messe. Many displays were set up inside of the exhibitors hall featuring products produced in Niigata, along with displays of Niigata`s culture. The Shinkokai was asked to bring koi to put on display, since Nishikigoi are a large part of Niigata`s culture.

On the 10th we headed up to Niigata to set up our booth, it included 3 show tanks, a bench for laying out pamphlets & videos, and a couple display boards about Nishikigoi history & different types. Dainichi brought 2 big kohakus & 1 big showa, all over 80 cm, to put on display. Takahashi brought a dozen or so mixed 2 year olds, and Marudo brought 2 yamabuki & 2 Kujaku 4 year old koi for display. The displays were set up as an appeal of Niigata, and the Ministers & Delegates were allowed to walk around and look in between meetings.

I worked the booth with Otsuka on the 11th, it was a little slow in the morning, but we had quite a bit of people come look in the afternoon. The next day the booth was tended by Dainichi & his wife, and Suda`s daughter Yukari, they said they had quite a bit of visitors. The last day Marudo & his wife were there to answer questions, they said it was pretty slow though. Overall though, the koi were the most popular display, the other exhibitors would often come by to look too.

The afternoon on the last day we tore down, there was a couple news paper photographers taking pictures of us bagging the fish up. So we might be in the news paper! The Summit was very fun, and good exposure for Nishikigoi to the world. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I`m glad to have taken part in it.

Whats Happening in the Koi World?

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Sat, 03 May 2008 02:25:00 +0000

At the moment, not much. It`s Golden Week (Japanese Holiday) so most people are taking it easy. But a little update on whats been going on lately:

Most of the koi have all already been released out into the ponds. Pretty much all that is left to put out is the Jumbo Tosai & Tategoi.
Most of the predator netting on the big koi ponds is done too, only about 3 more ponds left to do. We have about 20 ponds or so that we string.
Progess on the new koi house is going good, the rebar for all the walls is done; and the forms for the outside walls are almost set.
We`ve also been doing a lot of moving and shifting around of koi the didn`t sell so that we can make room in preparation for breeding coming up.

After Golden Week is over it looks like we`ll start to release the Jumbo Tosai & Tategoi out into their ponds. Then after that its time to start breeding!

Also, over Golden Week, the boss is in Singapore judging the All Asia Koi Show. And Toshi, the son, is in Aichi prefecture for a koi sale.

What's Happening in the Koi World?

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 11:52:00 +0000

We've been buzzing with activity lately, many things going on.

The All Japan Young Koi Show is coming up this weekend, so the boss is busy with the show area set up.
All of our ponds down in the low lands have been prepped for releasing koi into them. The predator netting is up & the auto feeders are set. Most of the snow in the mountains has melted by now too, so we've also been working on those ponds
We've already started to release koi into the ponds, but so far only 3 ponds have had koi put in them.
Building of the new koi house is well under way, they poured the concrete base the other day. Last year we couldn't pull one of the ponds because we had no place to bring the koi in for winter. We made too many koi for the amount of space we have, so we're building a new green house.

Thats pretty much whats been going on lately, on top of orders of koi being sent out in the mornings & nights.

Fooled

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:40:00 +0000

Let me start off by saying that Japan is a country that doesn't really joke around. Sometimes it seems like jokes only have there place with comedians, and don't really fit into daily life. Yes, this is a very sad, sad, depressing country.

That being said, I kinda forgot about April Fools this year, big mistake. Its not like Japan doesn't have it either, its just not widely celebrated. Last year I tried to get somebody in Marudo's family to call my family and tell them I was badly injured in a car crash, but nobody saw the humor in it*.

*Or am I just weird?

Anyways... my family got me good this year. Here is how it played out:

March 31; 22:30 PM-
I haven't talked to my family in a while so I decide to call to see whats going on.
Nothing out of the ordinary, same old, same old. Dad tells me how the koi & hockey team are doing, and Mom goes on the usual rant about the cats or another bird flying into the window. Talked to my younger brother too, older brother wasn't up yet (like always). Nothing suspicious at all.

April 1; 06:30 AM-
Too busy making breakfast I don't even realize what day it is.

09:00 AM-
Too busy thinking about what needs to get done today to notice what day it is.

20:00 PM-
Busy packing a shipment of fish, still haven't remembered what day it is.

23:00 PM-
Return home from loading the boxes of fish on the cargo truck. Mom (Japanese one) tells me my parents called. Which I thought was kinda strange cause I had just talked to them the night before. So I call them to see whats up.

Me: Hey, you called?
Mom: Yeah, hold on, let me get dad.*
Dad: Hello.
Me: You sound tired, whats up?
Dad: I've been up since 4 AM, the alarm system in the koi house went off.
Me: What tripped it?
Dad: We got quite a bit snow last night.** The roof over the back section of the koi house collapsed under the weight, crashing down onto all the tosai. (that were shipped a little over a week before)
Me: What WHAT WHAT! Are the fish okay.
Dad: Their hanging in there, I rigged up a generator, so all the pumps are running.
Me: (In Shock) Woah... what are you going to do.
Dad: (Suddenly Sounding Much More Uppidty Mood, Breaks Out Laughing) APRIL FOOLS!
Me: (Remembering What Day It Is) Shit, you Jackass, I forgot what day it was! (Followed By Profuse Swearing & Death Threats)

I was fooled! Now I need to think of something better to get revenge with!

*I thought it was kinda strange that my Mom gave up the phone without trying to talk my ear off first.

**The only true sentence my Dad said in the entire conversation.

Foreign Taste

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 07:37:00 +0000

In the past I've made pizza for Marudo's family, including crust made from scratch. They really enjoy it & I've been wanting to make other dishes for them to try. Last week I had the perfect opportunity to do so, it was the mother's birthday. I offered to make dinner, which everybody willingly accepted.

To start out I e-mailed my mom asking her for a couple recipes the night before. The next day I went to the supermarket to pick up some ingredients, luckily they had everything I needed. Then to the kitchen, I started out making banana bread. While that was cooking I mixed up a chocolate cake because it seemed appropriate for the occasion. Then onto the main courses.

In addition to making pizza, I wanted to try something new. I decided on Lasagna. I made up 2 types, regular meat lasagna & vegetable lasagna. For the pizza's I made 2 types I hadn't before, Hawaiian (pineapple & Canadian bacon), and a cream cheese vegetable pizza.

In total I made:

2 loafs of banana bread
1 chocolate cake
2 square pans of regular lasagna
1 square pan of vegetable lasagna
1 Hawaiian style pizza
1 cream cheese vegetable pizza

It might seem like a lot of food, but considering that there are 10 mouths to feed at Marudo's house, its not really. Everybody really liked the lasagna, it turned out really good. They were a little leery about the Hawaiian style pizza at first because of putting pineapple on pizza, but after trying it they loved it. It was a lot of fun cooking for the whole family, but a lot of work!

schreeech crunch!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:49:00 +0000

The grandfather is the source of a lot destruction, especially to his own car. I think he has crashed more than Evel Knievel has in his career. Its kinda scary to think that he is still out there driving.

His main problem is that he doesn't really look around enough, he just merges or backs up without really checking to see if he is going to hit anything. He has backed into the garage & many other things, because of this his car's back end has been rebuilt countless times. He also has a problem judging distance & speed, he recently pulled out in front of a speeding car, which ended up hitting him. He lost his rights to put his car in the garage too, mainly because we're afraid he'll back into one of the support pillars. But also because he ran into the garage door while trying to get his car out without opening the door all the way.

We often contemplate taking away his driving privileges, but we're afraid that if we do he'll end up going crazy or turning into a vegetable cause he can't get out of the house. Honestly, he doesn't really leave the house that much, but when he does he usually winds up in an accident. Seriously, when he leaves there is about a 70% chance that he is going to run into something. Those aren't good odds, so remember, when in Japan watch out for the cars with the balloon shaped yellow & orange stickers on them. That is the elderly mark for cars, its kind of like a warning to other drivers. There is also a mark for new drivers too, green & yellow arrowhead shaped sticker, but thats story for a different week.

Well... at least they have markers for elderly drivers in Japan.

All Japan Koi Show part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:58:00 +0000

After spending a couple hours walking around in Tokyo, I got on a train & headed towards Marudo's older sister's house in Chiba to spend the night. Marudo's daughter Keiko & father had come down for the weekend to visit, so they were staying there too. Lucky for me Marudo's sister runs a butcher shop with her husband, so for dinner we had delicious BBQ beef, pork & chicken. Marudo's niece studies english so we spent most of the night conversing in english. I had a lot of fun & had great food at the Aunt's house, I greatful they let me stay the night.

The next morning I headed back to the Ryustu Center to catch the awards ceremony. It was pretty funny at the end when they throw the Grand Champion winner up in the air. Then the mad rush to pack up fish started. First I packed up Marudo's fish, then after throughly sanitizing, I helped a couple others pack up their fish. I got some lunch around 4 pm, then hitched a ride back up to Niigata with Nogami san. A bunch of Niigata area breeders all drove back up together, so after we all unloaded our fish we got together for dinner. We celebrated the ending of another All Japan show.

I had a great time, met a couple new people & socialized with a lot of friends. I can't wait for next year!

All Japan Koi Show part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 22:18:00 +0000

I headed down Saturday morning to go see the show, I was very impressed with it. Endless rows of tanks with many beautiful fish & and many familiar faces plus a couple new ones. A very fun experience over all.

The Grand Champion was won by an America, Andrew Filipowski with a Sakai Kohaku, runner up was a very beautiful Dainichi Showa. A Maruten Sanke bred by Marudo took Mature Champion, also a 4 step Gin Rin Kohaku from us was awarded the 55 Bu Sakura Award. Both were entries from customers.

After feeling like I couldn't possibly see anymore fish in one day & having sampled on the koi food at FD Food's booth (it tasted pretty good actually) I headed out to do some shopping in Tokyo.

All Japan

noreply@blogger.com (Devin) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:22:00 +0000

Packing my bags and heading out tomorrow morning down to Tokyo to go see the show. This will be my first time seeing the All Japan Koi Show because I missed out last year due to the flu. But, I'm healthy this year, and I can't wait!

We found out today the a sanke bred by us(sold to a customer) won the kokugyo prize in either the 70 or 75 cm class. That was exciting, but none of the 5 fish we sent down took any awards. So we are a little disappointed in that.

I'll report more after I head back on Sunday.