Above: Jellyfish at Osaka Aquarium.
Osaka Aquarium
We woke slightly later today and was down at breakfast later too around 0730. After the hot weather yesterday, it rained on us today. With the wet weather, we decided to do indoor activities.
Osaka Aquarium was highly rated and seemed like a good choice. We got there by metro, disembarking at Osakako, where it was a short walk away. The place was full on screaming kids on school trips. I thought Japanese kids would be perfectly behaved, but they’re normal.
The place was huge, with meg tanks organised by the name of ocean or sea, and holding creatures from each. The largest tank was the Pacific Ocean tank with a 1 ft thick perspex “glass”. In there was a whaleshark, manta ray, tuna etc.
Other interesting tanks included the Tasman Sea and even the Cook Strait! The weirdest creature I saw was the sunfish, which looked like a normal fish with its rear half amputated. Most beautiful were the jellyfish; but I suspect the colour came from the lighting rather than inherent.
The place was pretty amazing. What surprised me was how we walked out without pictures of some of the amazing huge tanks; especially the one with a whaleshark and manta!
Killing the rest of the day
After, we walked to a shopping mall next door because it was cool and wet outside. We took lunch in a foodcourt.
Rodger and Liisa went up in a ferris wheel while Kim and I just looked around. Kim had a go in a driving simulator.
We had still had time to kill, so halfway back on the metro, we made a stop at the Modern Transportation Museum. It had an interesting display of old trains, bullet train, the British Royal train (Queen Victoria’s) and a little on planes. Nothing on cars, to Kim’s disappointment. There was also a huge model railway line with high speed trains wizzing around.
It was another tiring day of walking and standing. After a brief rest we ate dinner at a tiny Chiense restaurant diagonally opposite the hotel. It was very reasonable and the food was good. Steak a few doors away would have been JPY9500 (NZD120) compared to our measly JPY650 (NZD9).