Marc's Public Blog

2017/01/03 Paris Aquarium

π 2017-01-03 00:00 in Aquariums

While in Paris, just a few minutes from the Eiffel tower, there is now an aquarium. Actually it's been around for 10 years now, but honestly I had never heard of it. It's been dug into the ground where there was nothing before, so honestly I didn't expect much, and to be honest it wasn't much, but eh, it's still an aquarium, worth about 1h or so.
The highlight was actually the touch pool at the end with big carps that were happy to come brush towards your hands, I even had several that tasted my hand with their mouth. Funny how curious they were, maybe they were hoping for food.

small sharks

slipper lobster

leopard shark?

shark egg

and the carps at the end (no, they weren't magikarp, but they were friendly :)

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2016/08/25 Toronto's Ripley's Aquarium of Canada

π 2016-08-25 00:00 in Aquariums

While in Torronto, and as a torrential rain had started to fall, it was a good time to end our day after museums had closed anyway, in the Ripley Aquarium that was open extended hours.

While it's by no means a world top aquarium, it's actually fairly good, and it was nice go when it wasn't crowded:

nice shark-eu :)

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2016/07/24 Miyajima Aquarium

π 2016-07-24 00:00 in Aquariums, Japan2016

While in Miyajima, we went to visit their small aquarium there. It actually wasn't bad in content, the highlight was by far the spitting fish that could target bugs on a board up in the air and with a precise single water spit, use that small water jet to hit the bugs, make them fall in the water, and hit them:

Watch the video to see the water jets:

The very big lowlight was how small the very small tanks that many of the animals were in. That really looked wrong. Those poor mammals, part of the whale family, were in a super small tank where they could just swing around aimlessly. Sadly it's not the only such aquarium in Japan, the whale shark in Oaska also doesn't belong in a tank that small :(

Some other random pictures:

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2016/07/17 Kyoto Aquarium

π 2016-07-17 00:00 in Aquariums, Japan2016

I had a quick look at the Kyoto Aquarium because it was indoors and had AC, but to be fair (and as expected), it was nothing to write home about, including the underwhelming and loud dolphin show. Still, a few pictures:

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2016/05/09 Seoul Coex Aquarium

π 2016-05-09 00:00 in Aquariums, Southkorea2016

While going around Seoul on a Monday, as all the museums were closed, we were in Gangnam (south of river) after visiting the Google office, and I noticed that there was an aquarium nearby, so I thought we'd go visit it. By the time we found it deep inside a shopping mall, my expectations were way down. I expected a crappy little aquarium and figured we'd had just been robbed of $22 each for the entrance fee.
Turns out, I was very wrong, and happy to be so. Not only was it of a very decent size (all underground in a mall), but it had a fair amount of fish we had not seen before, making the visit actually interesting instead of "yet another aquarium". Thankfully the number of screaming kids was also very low on a monday afternoon :)

this guy has breathing gills on the outside (endangered)

marble goldfish

WTF? :)

They had a big shark that ate one of their other sharks in their tank. They probably didn't feed it enough :)

it still looks fat :)

manatee

they also had random land animals like these cute chipmunks, which they called squirrels

I really expected not much, especially after seeing the first small tanks, but it was much better than expected. Good use of 1.5h or so.

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2016/04/22 Singapore SEA Aquarium

π 2016-04-22 00:00 in Aquariums, Singapore2016

After diving in the main tank the previous day, we went to the Aquarium to go visit it the next day. It's not the best aquarium we've ever seen, but it was ok. The mix with a half maritime museum was a bit weird :)

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2016/02/06 Melbourne Sealife

π 2016-02-06 00:00 in Aquariums, Trips

While we were in Melbourne, we took a day to see museums, and started with with Sealife Aquairum. It wasn't the best we've ever seen, but it was quite decent for 2.5h or so. Their collection of emperor and gentoo penguins was very good, and I also loved the leafy and weedy seadragons. The elephant fish was also the first I had seen, it's a weird little guy :)

Here are a few pictures:

very nice freshwater prawn

leafy seadragon just awesome :)

the weedy seadragon are so pretty

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2015/08/21 Seattle

π 2015-08-21 00:00 in Aquariums

The Seattle aquarium wasn't the best, but eh, still worth a visit, so we had a look while in Seattle.

nice size octopus

The pygmy cuttlefish they had were both cute and fun to play with (I kept them interested and occupied with pictures through the glass). Have look at the video, those things are super intelligent, they chck you out, change colors, and raise their tentacles when they're ready to pounce. It got even more funny when I showed them a picture of a small crab on my phone:

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2015/06/14 Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan, take 2

π 2015-06-14 00:00 in Aquariums

While I had gone to the Osaka Aquarium the previous year with Jennifer, I was visiting with my dad, so I took him there too:

cool to see through the mouth :)

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I didn't ask how much this one costs :)

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2015/06/02 Sunshine City Tokyo

π 2015-06-02 00:00 in Aquariums

Sunshine City in Tokyo has a small aquarium on top of one of the buildings. Unfortunately it was too small for some of the animals they had in there :-