Nihongo-a-Go-Go :: Mandy's Journal

Port of Nagoya FISH!!!!

Another weekend, another quasi-adventure. Today was aquarium day. Aimee had heard that this was one of the biggest aquariums (aquaria?) in Japan, and for a $20 entrance fee, it had better be! The aquarium is out at Nagoyako, which means Nagoya Port, where there is also an Italian Village and RED LOBSTER! Ahem...but enough of that. Here's a picture of the port. Lots of boats, and a little customs office. It was nice, because when we walked down it sort of smelled like when you walk on the Bird Island Pier.

As I said, the entrance fee was very high, but the building is huge! Lots of interactive exhibits, all very high tech. Not as many, ya know, living things as I'm used to at an aquarium, but lots of dolphins and a huuuuuuuuge number of penguins. The areas were split up into sort of a first floor with the dolphins and lots of high tech exhibits. And beluga whales. Oh...the joy of them! The lighting wasn't the best, so I didn't get any good ones, but a few months ago one of the belugas had a baby, who's very into swirling and blowing bubbles. So cute! But here are dolphins, since the pic came out better.

The next floor was mostly about tropical fish, concentrating on animals in Australia, and indigenous fish life in Japan. The deep sea fish were really cool, and very creepy. Australia seems to be a super popular country here, especially surfer fashion and stuff. It was fun taking pictures, sort of like a "Finding Nemo" version of "Pokemon Snap." Sorta like "Oh, there's Dorie! Oh, the insane little fish obsessed with bubbles! Oh, the evil fish that tries to eat them! Oh...I don't remember what that's called, but my dad had one!" And the sea turtles were great. Their tank is huge, and includes a little beach area intended for them to use when they lay eggs. We missed the hatching, but there was a tank just filled with tiny baby turtles, all swimming around.

As for the names of these fish, it was alittle hard, because mostly the labels were in Japanese and Latin. But let me see what I can do. Left to right:1. No clue...but it was a brat while I was trying to take its picture. 2.Giant crab. We're talking like two feet tall and four and a half foot long legs. 3. Big angry lionfish. 4. The pointy things are pincushion anemones, the long fish are shrimpfish,and I couldn't get the name of the stripey fish. 5. A sea turtle...though I'm not sure what kind. 6. A yellow tang...I believe. Dad, feel free to correct me on these.

The third floor was smaller, and included a restaurant (called "The Tortoise Cafeteria." Never you mind that a tortoise is a land animal). This floor had a learning area about penguins, and then a viewing theatre sort of room. Millions of penguins!! All swimming insanely. Some fat, some small, and one whose feathers were all ruffled up which I desperately wanted to brush. The water was very deep, making them submarine penguins, and it was all raised so you could see it through the glass. The ceiling in the enclose had a little device that was making snow, hehehe. Very cute.

Unfortunately, the lighting was rather strange throughout, so even though I experimented with the underwater setting on my camera, not many pictures came out very well at all.

After that we went to Volks to pick up our programs/entrance tickets to the Nagoya Dollpa (woot! August 21!), then headed to Suikoden, our favorite izekaya. And since I finally had my camera with me, I took pictures of tebasaki, which is one of Nagoya's local foods. Basically, it's chicken wings with a garlicky, salty outside. Yum! It's just funny to me that the local food here and at home matches. :) Don't they look tasty? I'll definitely miss them when I come home. Dad, I expect you to figure out how to cook them!

So, that's all for today. Stay tuned next week...hmm...maybe Meiji Mura? Who knows! Just stay tuned!

Posted by Mandy at August 4, 2005 09:48 PM