Asamushi Aquarium

We made a foray out into the wilds of Japan today and drove to the Asamushi Aquarium in Aomori. We picked up directions from the family center on base and they were typical of a country with no street names. "Turn on white pole road" "Turn left at the fifth traffic light" and so on. We got there all right, there was some snow along the way and a very long tunnel through a mountain. We thought the ticket price was a little high (1000 yen for each adult) until we realized there was a dolphin show and feeding shows for the otters and dolphins.

Some of the exhibits were a little ghetto, there were small fish tanks for local frogs and such, but for the most part everything was really well-done. Some of the tanks looked kinda small, but they had a huge variety of sea life. The sea lions, seals, and otters were definitely in show-off mode and Annelise couldn't take her eyes off of the turtles. Here eyes were really wide the whole time we were there. The penguins were kind of disappointing, they were all sitting around in the habitat and none of them were in the water.

There was also a tunnel tank where you could walk through the tunnel while fish, some sharks, and a huge stingray swam over and around you. Annelise thought that was really cool, she kept looking around. We ate lunch in the little cafeteria and then went to the dolphin show. We missed watching any of the feedings, we didn't feel like waiting around and having the stroller meant we took up a lot of space.

The dolphin show was really cool, there are 5 or 6 dolphins there but only 2 did the show that we saw. They jumped through a hoop and played with soccer balls and large beach balls and did some other typical dolphin stuff. I wish we had gone to the dolphin tank to see them separately, but Annelise was getting fussy.

We will definitely go back and will probably take any visitors we have. It was worth the price of admission and the aquarium is across the street from the ocean. It was a beautiful drive up there through the mountains, and then you pop out right on the water, so pretty!

I posted some pics on our shutterfly site, check them out. Oh yeah, and Nemo is the same in any language. There were 2 tanks with clownfish in them and the Japanese kids were crowded around them saying "Nemo! Nemo!" It was pretty darn adorable.