We spent about 2 hours in the aquarium. About the right amount for August. A person could stretch out a visit if you lingered over more of the big tanks, or paid more attention to the cheesier elements of the aquarium. But August generally needs a fair amount of movement to keep up his interest, and I have a low tolerance for the cheesier stuff.
First room:
August watching these tanks:
The first section of the aquarium was about the fish of Korea. An okay exhibit, but the English signage was some of the worst I’ve seen in Korea. Particularly annoying for something you’ve just paid 22000 won (about 22 bucks) to see:
So because the amount of water stays the same the temperature changes easily? And why does this allow plankton and algae to grow?
At least all the signs have an English name on them (but no scientific name). But for most that is all that is in English:
But the best thing I learned today was about the particular deliciousness of the long snouted bullhead:
But these last two were my absolute favorite signs:
Why? Because that toilet is in an enclosed plexiglass cage with squirrels running around. And it has a big lead or something in it.
And yes, I just said squirrels. There are two cages with squirrels. In an aquarium. But there is no explanation – in any language – as to why. This is about all the signage you get:
Alright, one more sign and I’ll move on. The horribleness of this sign (posted dozens of times around the aquarium) speaks for itself:
One more section of cheesy stuff and complaining, then I promise we get to the cool animals and cute videos of August.
The low point of the aquarium for me was a room full of fish stuck in all manner of arty aquariums. I wasn’t impressed, not was August. Although he was probably most annoyed by me stopping to take photos of them. This harp aquarium actually made noise as the fish swam back and forth. IANAI (I am not an ichthyologist), but might not this actually annoy the fish?
Refrigerator aquarium:
You get the idea.
But then we walk into the Amazonian room and things start to look up. August loved looking over the railing at the cage of squirrel monkeys (note: also not aquatic) and down into the big tank below:
His view:
Then we got to go into the touch pools area. August got to touch some shells and coral (he couldn’t reach the sea stars). He also enjoyed using the hand dryers. This first one wouldn’t turn on too well for him, but the one we used as we were leaving did and he had fun with it:
After this, he started flapping his hands a lot. Perhaps to further dry his hands, or just as more of his usual hand flapping excitement. Here he is looking at baby zebra fish:
The room this was in was cool as they showed you how the grow live food and breed animals in the aquarium. Here is a tub of baby jelly fish. You can hear August making funny noises in the background:
I’m actually going to finish this up in a third post as the Squarspace app is getting all crashy on me, telling me the post is too long…