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Day 12, Wednesday, October 23
No pictures yesterday, since I was bagging and shipping fish all day.

I bought several fish at the auction from Tsuna (pronounced 'tuna'), and I decided to go visit him. A neighbor and friendly competitor of Chogorou, he isn't as well known for his platinums, but I found it hard to distinguish any difference.

A close up of the bowl of platinums.

Across the street lives Jinbei, home of Japan's most famous Sanke bloodline. Here's a 3-year-old example of Jinbei sanke bloodline that has made him famous. The main characteristics are the lacquer-black square sumi.

A gorgeous 2-year-old Jinbei sanke.

A few of Jinbei's bonsai collection. Many of the breeders collect bonsai.

A picture of Jinbei's son, who is soon
to take over the business.

After I left Jinbei, I had to go to the train station to meet some customers arriving from California. I discovered this striking 3-dimentional mosaic of koi on the wall of the station.

Two hard-to-find customer request fish that I found. Here are two rare ones I found at the same breeder, a ginrin tancho ochiba and a ki matsuba.