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February 13th
This is the view from our hotel as we enjoy a wonderful Japanese breakfast. That was after our morning bath in the hot spring spa.

Notice the little snow blower used to keep the parking lot clean!

We started our day at Koda Koi Farm, where we stopped to visit Lucky, Mr. Hoshino's dog.

Next we went to Ojiya City and picked up the rental car. You can tell we are in the Koi center of the world by the manhole cover outside the bank where we exhanged US currency for Yen.

Mrs. Hosokai provided us with a traditional Japanese lunch in their dining room.

We've bowled up a couple of Koi to get a closer look.

In case you're worried about what they feed their koi, they are fed very expensive, high-protein Koi food (and sometimes misbehaving small children!).

After a long day selecting Koi, we took a group photo with the Hosokai clan.

A couple of quick shots of some of the koi we purchased.