Alvinology goes to Japan – Day 12 of 14
We are nearing the end of the two weeks vacation in Japan. On the twelfth day, we visited the Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan (海遊館). It is one of the largest public aquariums in the world and is located in the ward of Minato in Osaka, Japan, near Osaka Bay.
- Entrance to the Kaiyukun
- Rachel and I, in front of the Kaiyukan
- There’s a ferris wheel besides the Kaiyukan
- Our tickets
- Rachel and I
- Japanese dude observing the fish
- Penguin decors
Rachel and I enjoyed ourselves at the aquarium very much. We saw live whale sharks, sun fish, and other exotic marine creatures for the first time in our lives.
Mark was quite a nuisance at the aquarium, constantly pestering everyone to hurry up and leave the place as he was getting very hungy (all of us had buns for breakfast, provided by our hotel except Mark who claims buns are not for human consumption). It doesn’t help that he cannot appreciate the beauty of the marine lifeforms and regarded all of them as “live seafood”, tempting him to eat them all up.
- Indoor garden
- There’s even trees inside
- Mark is only 1.68m tall, but he is a giant among the Japanese
- Feeding time for the otters
- The otters pestering their keeper for food
- Some common freshwater fish in Japan
- How these fish looks like on the surface
- Small freshwater fish from the surface
- Coral reef fish
- Rich assortment of colours
- More coral reef fish
- Check out the beautiful reflection on the water surface
- The fish feeds on cabbage!
- Rich colours and layering
- Observing the coral fish from the water surface
- A school of orange fish
- A school of sardine
- Shiny, shimmering sardine
- Rachel and I with the sardine
- Sea octopus crawling around
- Another look at the octopus
- Freshwater Amazon fish
- Giant Amazon fish
- More giant Amazon fish
- Close-up shot of one of the giant Amazon fish
- White arowana fish
- A lady observing the fish
- Fat Amazon fish
- Top view of the same fish
- Scary-looking reptile-like fish
- The full body of this strange sea creature
- Black duck
- Brown duck
- The duck looks graceful on the surface, but have to paddle fiercely underwater
- Elegant white crane
- Giant tortoises
- Sunbasking seal
- Sea otter washing it’s face
- Scratching it’s belly
- Rachel and Meiyen with the otters in the background
- Cleaning itself
- Sea lion flipping around the water surface
- Peeking out of the water
- Swimming sea lion
- The penguin enclosure
- More penguins
- Two medium-sized fish
- Fierce-looking fish
- Mark says these are all delicious, edible fish
- Giant “luohan” fish
- More fish swimming around
- Mark went crazy when he saw this “delicious” grouper
- These fish were all “swimming seafood” to Mark
- A really fat fish
- Sea turtle
- Stingray gliding around with other fish
- Hammer head stingrays
- Gliding at the bottom
- Stingray swimming around with the other fish
- Underbelly of the hammer head stingray
- Freaky face of the stingray
- Wider view of the underbelly of the stingray
- Diver with food to feed the fish
- Feeding all the fish
- Feeding time for the stingrays
- Some of the stingrays prefer to eat on the seabed
- Finishing up the last bits of food
- Majestic giant stingray
- A very peculiar looking giant fish called Sun Fish
- Look at the silly lips
- From another angle
- Rachel and I with the strange looking tail-less sun fish
- The sun fish has a very silly-looking face
- Rachel alone with a sun fish
- Behold the whale shark!
- School kids gawking at the whale shark
- The full length of the magnificent whale shark
- The underbelly of the whale shark looks like a Chinese korou pao
- There are two whale sharks in the giant tank
- This fish likes to swim beneath the whale shark
- Lots of other giant fish in the whale shark tank
- Frontal view of the whale shark
- A dolphin
- Rachel is happy at the aquarium
- A giant catfish
- The delicious Hokkaido King Crab, live
- Close-up of the crab
- Electric blue fish
- Clown fish
- Sea cucumber
- Beautiful sea creature
- Tiny button mushroom-shaped jellyfish
- Long flowing jellyfish
- Jellyfish that looks like scallops
- This jellyfish looks like firework sparks
- Really small flower pedal-shaped jellyfish
- Close-up of a jellyfish with strange pink tentacles
- Top view of the same jellyfish
- Glowing yellow jellyfish
- Floating about
- A very beautiful jellyfish
- View of the same jellyfish from atop
- Elegant white dancing jellyfish
- Stringy jellyfish
- Another white jellyfish, propelling itself forward
- Electric bolt-like jellyfish
- Translucent ghostly looking jellyfish
- Lightbulbs jellyfish
- Glowing orange jellyfish
- Assorted mini jellyfish
- Cotton-like jellyfish
- This is not a pistachio nut – it’s a strange-looking sea creature
- Rachel collecting the Kaiyukan chop in her notebook
- We went shopping at the Kaiyukan gift shop – Rachel bought a spoon and a handphone strap
- Rachel likes otters very much
- Sea otter handphone strap
- Street performer outside the Kaiyukan
We had a quick lunch at a Japanese fast food outlet called First Kitchen, located in a shopping mall food court near the aquarium. It was surprisingly good! There were a large variety of sauces for the french fries and the burgers were a nice fusion of Japanese and western flavours.
- We bought our lunch from this fast food stall
- Our lunch from First Kitchen
- My delicious bacon egg burger
- Rachel’s burger
Thereafter, we headed to Hei Men Fish Market as Mark had a severe craving for fresh seafood after the aquarium visit. The fish market seems to specialise in selling fugu (puffer fish), with a fugu specialty store located practically every alternate store. We spotted a fish store specialising in whale meat. This upset Rachel and I who do not support whale fishing.
- Fish market entrance
- Lots of people at the fish market
- Rachel at the fish market
- Vegetable and fruits stall
- Obasan selling fried seafood
- We bought squid and sweet potato
- A pharmacy where Rachel bought some ulcer medicine
- Japanese beancurd
- Atrocious whale meat specialty store!
- We bought a cup of concentrated liquid beancurd to share – it was very thick and filling and we were glad we didn’t order a cup each
- This is what a wasabi plant looks like
- Freshly slaughtered fugu
- You need to be highly trained to prepare fugu meat, removing the poison
- Live as well as sliced up fugu
- Fugu are priced differently according to grade and size
- Fish tails for feeding cats
After leaving the fish market, we made a short stop at the “Akihabara of Osaka”, Nipponbashi (日本橋
Anyway, we did not stay long here as all of us were very irritated with Mark who is constantly hunting for Transformers toys everywhere he goes. If we were to linger there longer, we jolly well might get stuck there for the whole day waiting for him.
- An entire Taito arcade building
- Super sick porn video shop – it’s called “SLUM”
- Cute little green van
We headed to the shopping belt of Dōtonbori (道頓堀) in the evening where we spent the rest of the day shopping. Rachel and I bought quite a bit of clothing from a large Uniqlo store.
Dōtonbori is a single street, running alongside the Dōtonbori canal between the Dōtonboribashi Bridge and the Nipponbashi Bridge in the Namba ward of Osaka. A former pleasure district, Dōtonbori is famous for its historic theaters (all now gone), its shops and restaurants, and its many neon and mechanized signs, including snack/candy manufacturer Glico’s giant electronic display of a runner crossing the finish line.
We had okonomiyaki (お好み焼き) for dinner; some expensive yakitori (焼き鳥 やきとり) as well as some takoyaki (たこ焼き or 蛸焼) for supper. These are all famous local food in Osaka.
As per our previous nights, we did a quick supermarket sweep and bought some discounted food back to our hotel to eat. That concluded our twelfth day in Japan – a really jam-packed schedule. 
- Dotonburi entrance
- Rachel and I in Dotonburi
- Street view
- Agnes b. – one of Rachel’s favourite brand
- Lots of giant billboards everywhere
- Part of the famous Dontoburi canal
- A shopping mall besides the canal
- Asahi neon signboard
- Neon signboards everywhere
- The famous Glico’s running man billboard
- Running man signboard
- Rachel and I copying the running man’s pose
- Giant octopus signboard
- Kabuki theatre building
- Kabuki posters
- A Sanrio specialty shop
- Busy street
- I suppose this restaurant specialises in fugu dishes
- Rachel’s favourite place – cosmetic store
- As usual, Mark headed straight to Mandarake to hunt for Transformers toy
- Mandarake – Mark’s favourite shop in Japan
- Rows and rows of comics in Mandarake
- I like this manga title
- Rachel and I went to check out cult brands and vintage stores
- I like these, but they were too expensive at around S$400 for a pair of jeans
- Mascot of another Japanese snack brand
- We had dinner at this giant food court
- The entrance
- Me posing with the cute obasan who guided us in
- The obasan posing alone
- This fat moustache guy is all over the place
- He’s all over the walls too
- Cashcards are used to make purchases in the food court
- The cashcards issued to us
- Gold moustache man statue
- Inside the foodcourt which is decorated like olden Japan
- Rachel was delighted to spot an old Shiseido poster
- Retro tin robot
- Caricature/potrait artist’s works
- Fortune-telling posters
- Fake retro photo studio
- Painted fake old buildings
- Red lanterns
- The icon of the Osaka World Expo
- An interesting car
- Colourful flags
- Fooling around with some Japanese traditional toys
- Retro Japanese kids’ playing cards
- Retro games
- Various food stalls
- Another food stall
- Noodle stall
- A ladies’ club
- Gyoza specialty stall
- Fake retro Japanese provision shops
- A liquor bar
- We chose to eat at this stall
- Preparing our food
- The lady who prepared our okonomiyaki
- Our dinner is almost ready
- Dinner is served!
- At the cashier where we paid for everything
- We had yakitori for supper
- The ad said there were 8 sticks – they cheated by counting the stick of lemon too!
- Fierce-looking takoyaki chefs
- Yucky takoyaki balls with no sauce
- Rachel bought a Japanese red bean paste pancake to eat
- Rachel with her fish-shaped pancake
- Roadside stall selling pork innards
- Mark tried a plate of it
- Food we bought back to eat in our hotel
- Rachel’s shopping haul at Uniqlo
- My Uniqlo haul
Links to my previous blog entries on my Japan trip:
Day 1 – Kansai Airport, Hokkaido
Day 3 – Asahikawa, Asahiyama Zoo
Day 4 – Sledding, Shiroi Koibito, Crab Buffet
Day 5 – The 60th Sapporo Snow Festival
Day 6 – Staying with the Asai, Shōnan
Day 8 – Shibuya and Akihabara, Tokyo
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Themocracy
Hi Alvin & Rachel:
Happen to stumble upon your website while reading review abt Qunicy Hotel (Sg).
I enjoyed your photo albums and easy to read captions. Alvin you take generally sharp and good pics. Would like to invite you to post some at Just Share (www.pl.sg)