Osaka Aquarium

Today, our main journey was to Osaka Aquarium.

We took a train and subway to get there, and we are becoming quite proficient in Japanese public transit.

Matt finding our route on a map.

The trains were particularly crowded today, probably due to Golden Week.

When we got there, we received a ticket to wait in line, which we got at ~12:00, and the ticket was for 13:30. With an hour and a half to kill, we decided to check out the local attractions.

They had public entertainers there, the one performing when we arrived was an American who spoke Japanese and rode a unicycle and juggled knives. His act seemed to be pretty classic, including stealing the watch of his assistant (a Japanese volunteer named Hiro (not sure about the spelling)). Later on, we saw a man in a mask dancing the Robot.

We had lunch at this point, me as always scrambling for something vegetarian. There were some familiar franchises, however they had a Japanese twist. On that note;

Samurai Colonel Sanders. Note the ninja dagger in his hand.

I ended up having Subway, a never-before-seen sub called Avocado-Veggie. It wasn't too bad, but unfortunately, I mixed a vinaigrette with avocado, which could have turned out better.

Note some of the unique options on the menu, notably the avocado and broccoli sub.

We also explored various shops, including a Studio Ghibli themed one.

Matt with Totoro.

There was also a One Piece themed shop, with some amazing Chopper shaped water bottles, and an arcade where we played a chapter and a half of a Castlevania motion controlled game before being eaten by the undead.

Once we got into the Aquarium, my camera died, so you'll have to rely on posts from Matt and Bramwell for pictures and more details there.

A few choice highlights though:

• Penguins - pretty awesome by themselves, but made especially good by a bunch of Japanese kids shouting "Pingi" in excitement
• No Fin Porpoise - an interesting and strange fish, it almost seems to swim sideways, and then rotate itself to change directions in another plane; slightly difficult to explain, but pretty unique and cool.
• Petting a shark - there was a section where you can reach in and pet Sharks and Stingrays. Bramwell did not pet a shark. We are sad about this.
• School of fish circling - in one tank there was a massive school of fish that just circled around; it looked kind of like a hurricane made of fish.
• Sea Otters diving at fish - there was a tank shared by sea otters and a large school of little fish, and it was very cool to see the otters dive at the schools, and the schools maneuver to avoid them.
• Giant japanese crabs - I forget the names of them, but they were enormous (~2-3 ft), most of which was legs. They caught me totally off guard, as they looked completely different from anything I could have expected.

Afterwards, I bought a badass umbrella from the shops. It is red with a black border and a curved wooden handle.

It is currently about 6:15, so we may get up to more tonight. But that is it for today's post.