Kaiyukan: Osaka's Aquarium
Friday, May 22, 2009
Since finals were cancelled, I have had a lot of free time. Part of what I did with that time was go to Kaiyukan, Osaka's aquarium. My real camera broke recently, so I all I had with me for taking pictures was my cell phone. The pictures are very small and not of high quality, but I will share them because some of the animals are interesting and cute.
The requitsite picture of Kaiyukan from the outside.
The first thing you encounter inside is a tunnel of fish. The above is one of the walls of fish.
The fish are on all sides in the tunnel, including above! This ray swam over my head.
After the fish tunnel, there were otters. These guys were sunning themselves on some logs. A few would chase each other around and play fight. my favorite was the one on the high branch in the middle; no matter what happened, it just kept lying there using the branch as a pillow.
It's sort of hard to see through the water splashes, but above is a sea lion that was engaged in a game of king-of-the-rock with another sea lion. Judging from their size compared to the other sea lions, they must have been pretty young. They would jump onto the rock, and stay there until the other pushed them off.
I found Nemo and Bubbles! :)
I liked the Great Barrier Reef exhibit because it was very colorful.
Above are a bunch of fish that were staring at the ceiling. All of them were just floating there, looking at the same spot, not moving. I stuck my head close to the glass to find out what was so interesting. Turns out they were looking at a rainbow that was formed by the light above their tank refracting in the water! Those fish are just like Kansai Gaidai students on the day there was a rainbow ring around the sun. :D
This giant school of fish was swimming in circles to pick up food (I'm guessing plankton) that had been tossed into their tank. The little guys could open their jaws very wide, so that their mouths were twice as wide as the rest of their bodies.
These crabs were really impressive. They live off the coast of Japan, and are called Giant Spider Crabs. You can see why; they really did look like spiders. They reminded me of the legs of the guards in MirrorMask. I wonder if Dave McKean gets inspiration from sea creatures.
Jellyfish exhibit! The jellyfish tanks were lit up with colored lights so that the jellies glowed.
I wish my cell phone's camera had picked up the color on the jellies above a bit better. They had tiny specks of purple and pink. They made me think of ballroom gowns.
There was one tank with a big cluster of jellies like the ones in Boston Harbor. The lights on this tank changed color every few seconds, so the jellies went from white to purple to red, etc.
That was a big jelly!
These two were in the very final tank. Their long strands were eerie and beautiful.
After I left the aquarium, I rode on a giant ferris wheel from which I could see the whole port area of Osaka. That was the last trip I'll be taking into Osaka proper. Just two more full days in Japan before I head home!
