Sharks!!!!

Hi All,

Once again, I've neglected this blog. . .but I'm making up for it today with some very cool pictures. For months, Chris has been dying to visit the Aqua World in Oarai, a really neat beach town/city about 75 minutes north of us on Japan's easter coast. This place is nationally famous, so we finally set the alarm a little early (it's summer break, we're allowed to sleep in!) and made a day of it.

It was a Monday, so we expected a lighter crowd - no luck! We literally had to park on the sidewalk, with the full blessings of the lot attendant. The Japanese will park their cars anywhere without a second thought, this much I have learned.

Anyway, the Aqua World is pretty huge, and we walked through many different halls and rooms of gigantic tanks containing all sizes and varieties of sharks, tropical fish, sea turtles (yay!), mondo-crabs, eels, manta rays, octupi and more. We were almost equally entertained by the hundreds of awestruck Japanese toddlers, pointing and shouting "kore, kore!" ("that, that!").

We had heard about a great dolphin show (although a little subdued after recently reading an article on Japanese amusement parks' notorious mistreatment of dolphins) and waited with a mob of families to get into the arena. We made it down to the 2nd row, nearly empty because that's where you get splashed the most, but we thought, why not? The staff were handily selling plastic tarps for 300 Yen, but we wanted to brave it. The show was pretty great, if fairly short at 23ish minutes. Still, these animals perform several times a day, maybe they should shorten it even more!

The dolphins were really neat. A cheesy host spoke in Japanese while instrumental Disney power ballads played in the background, but we were just focusing on these creatures that were kicking balls with their tails, leaping many many feet in the air, and launching their human trainers across the pool with great splashes and pizazz. Later another trainer brought out a seal to do sort of a comedy routine where he would cover his eyes with his flippers, clap, balance beach balls ("beach-ey baru") on his nose, and generally impress everyone. Let's hope these animals aren't worked too hard and actually get more space than just the arena pool to live in.

Later we got some lunch (we were glad to see that the food court didn't sell fish, that would have just been insulting) and watched the Humboldt penguins outside - they're the same species as the ones at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle.

Hope you like these pictures - what a great day!

PS: Although the food court inside the aqarium didn't sell fish, on the other side of the gift shop by the entry, you could find any seafood item your heart desired, hopefully not from the nearby exhibits. . .