Churami Aquarium and Shikwasa

We spent the day at Churami Aquarium today-one of our favorite places on island!  We bought our last annual pass-it's sad to think this is the 3rd and final annual pass we will need.  (For those of you in Oki that don't know about it, the annual passes are a great deal.  They are 3600 yen per adult-which is the same as two admissions.  So, if you only go twice in the year, you've paid for it!  Plus, you get 10% off at the shops and restaurants.)

We typically try to go to the aquarium once every couple of months-if it were closer, we'd go more often.  In reality, it's not actually that far away-probably around 30ish miles-but it takes about an hour and a half to get there!  For those not in Oki, yes, that is a pretty accurate estimate.  Speeds here are very slow and traffic is heavy.  Even on the expressway, the speed is only 80/kph, which is just about 50/MPH.  The rest of the roads vary around 30-60/kph.

Kieran after he flung the sea cucumber.

Kieran and Daddy touching the starfish.

So, back to the aquarium.  Everyone in our family loves it.  The boys love the touch pool and today, Kieran was finally tall enough to reach in an touch one of the starfish.  He also picked up a sea cucumber and kind of flung it.  Oops!  Luckily, the touch pool attendants are pretty good-natured-as long as they see you are trying to keep the kids behaving properly, they mostly just smile at you.  Brendan loves to pick up the starfish and turn them upside down to examine them.  Both kids have zero fear of touching and picking up the touch pool animals.

Brendan checking out one of the smaller starfish.

After the touch pool, we ventured to the first of the aquariums.  Kieran promptly pointed out a "purple hish" and was quickly corrected by Brendan- "blue fish."  After watching for a few minutes, we headed to the next aquarium,  where the kids thoroughly enjoyed watching the bigger fish swim about.  Kieran yelled, "Hark, hark!" several times as the sharks swam by and then headed around the corner to hunt out Nemo.  We saw the shark several more times, as well as a sea turtle, gigantic eels and hundreds of other fish.

"hark Mommy, hark!"

 We continued on, looking at the smaller aquariums filled with various eels, lionfish, hermit crabs and all sorts of other water creatures, ending up at the cafe by the HUGE tank.  I believe this tank is the 2nd largest in the world.  We ate taco rice (the boys and Dad) and spaghetti (Mom) while watching the whale sharks, rays and tuna swim by.

After lunch it was time for the creatures of the deep-crabs, more fish, more fish and um, well, more fish!  By that time the boys were pretty antsy, so it was time to head outside to see the sea turtles and dolphin show!

Brendan waiting impatiently for the dolphin show!

Both boys love the dolphin show-I think it's their favorite part of the aquarium!  Kieran had a great time saying "Dolphin make a big splash!" every time one of them splashed water up.

 Brendan anxiously awaited his favorite trick-the dolphin spitting out the fish!  In this trick, the trainer throws a fish into the dolphin's mouth-and the dolphin spits it out.  This continues on until the trainer picks up the bucket of fish and shows it to the dolphin-who "nods" yes. The trainer throws all the fish into the dolphin's mouth and the dolphin eats them. Even though we see this every time and Brendan knows what's going to happen, he still gets a huge kick out of it!





After the show,we headed up to the plaza where they had some sort of Autumn Festival set up.  We enjoyed a little sea salt ice cream and some Shikwasa juice. Shikwasa is commonly known as "Okinawan lime" and is a citrus fruit (but not a lime, as I discovered on Wikipedia!) that can be used like a lemon or a lime.  It is delicious-and not sour.  In fact, I like the juice so much I wondered if you could just eat the fruit like an orange.  Lucky me, we had to stop at a market on the way home for some potatoes and I bought a small bag of shikwasa-and sure enough, mmmm!  They are fairly tart, but sweeter than either a lemon or a lime.  I will be eating them as is, but Jason thought they were a little too tart for him.  Brendan liked them and I expect Kieran will too.

After a long day of the aquarium and stopping by the market, we headed home for a steak dinner and bedtime for the kids!  Unfortunately, it's the end of the weekend....Monday looms.