Our experiences of the aquarium started off like everyone else: standing in line to buy tickets. Time passed relatively quickly, as there was a fair bit to see around the entrance to the aquarium. There was a crowd of people near the aquarium building being sprayed with foam, music playing, and a funny kid in front of us who played peek-a-boo with us over his mother's shoulder. Japanese kids are so cute.
The entire aquarium is an eight-floor, one-way track, starting on the first floor. From floor number one you take an escalator to the top floor, then work your way down a series of gently sloping ramps to the bottom, admiring all the wonderful aquatic creatures on your way.
We made the silly decision to visit the aquarium on a Sunday. If you can help it, try to go on a weekday. Even better- a weekday not in the school holidays. Like most major attractions in Japan, the weekends are the busiest time to be out and about.
So anyway...
The aquarium. Outside is covered in all these little mosaic-type things, dolphins and the like.
Inside is, well, watery. Let's take a guided tour...
After purchasing tickets you basically follow the crowds beneath a tunnel of stingrays and insignificant fish. At the end of the tunnel you have the opportunity to have your photo taken next to a giant model of a whale shark. Then you get to go and buy the photo for $15. I hate those things... The annoying bit is that they don't let you use your own camera (like some of the places in Disneyland did) so if you want a photo, you have to pay.
We avoided the expensive shark photos and took the escalator all the way to the eighth floor, where we were met by...
Oriental small-clawed otters! They were sleeping, but still so cute. Smelly, too.
And... bright orange rock-climbing crabs! Not as smelly as the otters, but nowhere near as cute.
And not much else, so downstairs/ramp we went...
Giant otters from somewhere up near Alaska were the next exhibit. When they say giant otters they mean it. These critters were as big as a ten-year old child! So large, but they moved so quickly... making it difficult to get a clear shot of them.
The next enclosure housed some seals. Lazy seals! They mostly slept, or lay on their back scratching themselves. Sheer laziness.
After the seals were some ugly fish from South America. Like, really ugly fish. And a sloth. Not exactly sure why there's a sloth in an aquarium, considering a sloth appears be the least aquatic creature ever, but hey, we got to see a sloth, so no complaints here!
Right next door to ugly fish and Mr. Sloth, caiman! Little South American crocodile-type reptiles. Smaller than their crocodile and alligator cousins, they still prove to make excellent handbags. Uh, I mean predators.
Moving from the tropics to the polar regions: penguins! The Japanese seem to have a weird affection for penguins, and the exhibit here reinforced that affection. Penguins are so cute. I wish the glass (or perspex or whatever) was cleaner, as the camera focused on the dirty window-pane instead of the giant king penguin on the other side, but I'll pop up the better pictures all the same.
From penguins to dolphins. Everyone loves dolphins. I've never known of someone not liking them. They're just so lithe and graceful, and so happy. These dolphins spent their time jumping out of the water to hit an orange ball, or drinking from the stream of fresh water that trickled into their tank.
Next up, the star attraction, and the aquarium's main calling card: the whale sharks. They're in this massive tank, two of them, gliding around. Such huge creatures, it's amazing how serene and graceful they are. Within the same tank, manta rays, tuna and a variety of other larger fish and rays.
Further down the ramp, a trio of sunfish hovered around their tank. Unfortunately, the low-light conditions meant my poor little camera took a very long time to take photos, so even the slowest moving fish (ie: the sunfish) contained blur. Flash photography was not allowed, so we had to make do with what we had. The photo below is one I've used from the internet. As you can see, sunfish are... odd. They live in the open ocean, yet move so slowly. They flap their two fins to swim (kind of like a turtle on it's side) rather than using their tails like other fish.
From the 3m wide sunfish we went too the other extreme in the next tank: a shoal of sardines and anchovies spiraling around their tank, swimming and turning in unison.
Some turtles further down provided further amusement, though the small size of their tank most definitely did not impress.
Turtles, then crabs that live in the deeps off the coast of Japan. Such big crabs right next to Japan... it's a wonder they haven't been fished to extinction! They look so otherworldly, like aliens from War of the Worlds.
By now we has descended to the lower levels of the aquarium to where the jellyfish were housed. The jellyfish aquariums were in a dimly-lit atrium, with the tanks themselves lit up with UV lights to show the amazing colours of some of the specimens.
Almost at the exit by now, but had to stop off to see the baby otters! They were smelly, but so cute, and so full of energy. They're being bred at the aquarium as part of a rehabilitation program to bring the species out of its endangered status in the wild.
We emerged from the depths of the aquarium sometime later and dived in the nearest hundred-yen shop. 100-yen shops are awesome. Whether you live in Japan or are just visiting, these stores are so useful. They stock everything from film to batteries, to origami paper and pencils, plants, food, household accessories, toiletries, candy, cutlery, crockery... the list goes on. Everything in the store, though marked at 100yen, will cost you 105yen per item at the registers thanks to the 5% tax that many stores do not add on until you go to pay.
Most stores display prices both before and after tax on the ticket on the shelf, and it is generally only smaller stores or stores not in cities that neglect to do so. Either way, at a hundred yen shop the difference is minimal.
We found an informative notebook (didn't buy it), and a heap of glorious stationery (bought it), and then moved to the next destination...
Which was right outside the 100yen shop. Convenient! Yes, the Tempozan Harbour Village Ferris Wheel, 112.5m tall and 17 minutes worth of... going around-- this was our next spot. Paid our $7, jumped on, went up, took photos, went down, went home.
Got home, realised we were hungry, so we jumped on our bikes and took off into the night in search of delicious nutritious ramen! Originally from China, ramen are thin noodles served in a broth (varying in flavor depending on the region it came from) with vegetables, sliced pork, and sometimes with side dishes of rice and/or gyoza (pan-friend dumplings).
They are popular both in China and Japan, and are catching on in Western countries, both in an instant (just add boiling water!) variety, and fresh from restaurants and eateries. Ramen is one of my favourite dishes.
Tonight we felt like diverging a bit and trying out a newer place, further away from the apartment than our usual ramen eatery is. This newer place was a little more expensive, and had no set meals (ie: a bowl of ramen, a bowl of rice, pickles, miso soup and gyoza, all for $10!) like our regular place does, and the broth was not as rich, but the pork... the pork melted in the mouth.
The restaurant was recommended to us by Lonely Planet, and once you found the place (I think their map-maker is perpetually drunk or something) the food was definitely worth the search. It's called Santoka for anyone in Kyoto who is interested.
