the osaka aquarium has this as their first tank, and it is really one of the best moments you are going to experience there. you realize "hey, i am at an aquarium".
maybe a stingray will swim by. anything can happen at the aquarium.
if you are really lucky, a middle-aged man will coax the japanese giant salamander out of its little hiding hole, and you will get to see how immense and weird this creature is. these really exist.
this is called the arapaima, a giant prehistoric fish found in brazil. it is one of the largest freshwater fishes in the world, thanks wikipedia. i saw an episode of river monsters devoted to these guys. basically, they are all tail, as you can see in this next picture.
they flip boats over because they are so strong. the head is all flat bone. i was very excited to see these fish.
there were some dolphins swimming around too. i took video of these and other spots, but i haven't uploaded them to youtube yet, because i have to convert them and i am too lazy for that right now. one day, you will get a link to these dolphins swimming around. until then, enjoy this photo of a japanese man capturing the moment.
these are two whale sharks. they are fish, not whales, and they aren't aggressive, they are nice. they can get much bigger though i think. the little fish swim around and clean them up. got some video of these two. basically they seem fake, too big to be real.
the osaka aquarium is famous for its whale sharks. they are kept in the second biggest tank of water in the world. it is very tall and large.
this is a poor picture of a manta ray. its called manta because of those mouth parts in front, also it is very big.
this is the mola mola, or ocean sunfish. it is one of the ugliest things in the entire aquarium. imagine being that thing. oh, thanks wikipedia. the heaviest known bony fish. nice.
yeah, you would probably just hang out in the corner all day too. these also get much bigger.
there were lots of jellyfish in different little tanks, but this picture came out the best.
outside the aquarium, i told liz to look stoic, but my hair kind of ruins it.
this pachinko place was closed, probably because of their catchphrase. It is strong in time, and it is gently to time tough at time. maybe this helps you understand why teaching english here is basically a lost cause.
this is just all kinds of wonderful. someone painted david's napoleon on a horse, but added a pocketbook, i guess because the store sells pocketbooks. i did this painting as a 5 layer stencil once. we walked around tokushima city on new year's night, when nobody at all was around, looking for this, and we found it.
we also found the only blue moon on new year's day to occur since japan started using the gregorian calender in like the mid 19th century, and it was really bright. it looks like a light fixture, but it is the moon.
then on the way to the airport, i got liz to take a picture of this boat which is actually a restaurant.
and then we were both very sad that liz had to go home. it's already been a week since she left but it feels like years. this concludes my photoblogging of our trip together. when you take 3 weeks off, japanese people expect you to visit every major urban area and every major shrine temple and place of historical significance, but we took it slow and mostly just slept til noon, played videogames, watched youtube, and ate food. it was wonderful. she is one of the main reasons why i don't want to stick around here next year.
great!
No comments:
Post a Comment