I’m currently leading my annual Essence of Autumn leaves photo tour.  As is my habit, I’m leading my group away from tourist pollution way off the beaten path.   We are currently still in Niigata, and participants, my team, and I are enjoying a beautiful golden hour, and what appears to be rice terraces are actually koi ponds.  Yes, you heard me correctly, koi ponds in the highlands.  These ponds are actually placed there for koi breeding.  Japanese have found that the koi fish naturally breed more in nature with natural lighting than in the captivity of indoor cement swimming pools.  In the winter, the koi are removed from these ponds and placed in swimming pools.  Niigata is the #1 prefecture in Japan if you are looking to purchase Koi, and the prices for these prized fish vary from $100 to tens of thousands of dollars per fish depending on the quality of the fish being sold.  Niigata is the cradle for nishikigoi, which are the multi-colored varieties of Amur carp (Cyprus rubrofuscus), and they are kept as one means of decoration in koi ponds across Japan and the entire world.  If you walk down to ponds like the ones you see in the photo attached to this newsletter, you’ll see nets covering the ponds so hawks and other birds of prey don’t poach prized nishikigoi koi.  This area is strictly off limits to outsiders or simple passersby.  You need to be a local or know these areas like the back of your hand, or you need to have a local support group team member, like Gakuhari, who is a professional licensed tour bus guide driver and JapanDreamscapes Photography team member, who lives 30 minutes from the koi ponds.  If you don’t have access to any of the resources I mentioned, you’ll spend the entire day in search of the koi ponds and rice terraces that you’ll never find.