We Love Fish

Don't most babies like to look at fish? One of my nephews (he knows which one) cried ALL THE TIME when he was a baby. One of the few things that would make him stop was looking at the fish tank. The poor boy is now a teenager and we still laugh about my papaw hollering, "Take him to the fish tank!"

Anyway, Brendan is no exception. He likes to look at the fish. Saturday we drove a couple hours to the Churaumi Aquarium, which is the world's second largest aquarium.

The only bigger aquarium? The Georgia Aquarium. We've been there, too. We went to the Georgia Aquarium over 4th of July weekend when I was just barely pregnant with Brendan. It was miserable. We waited outside in the Georgia July heat for hours. Once they let us in there were so many people that it was difficult to see the exhibits. Yesterday's experience was so much better.

Thomas is a great dad. I would not have gotten the baby out of his stroller for this part, but he insisted. I think his exact words were:  "If everybody else is touching them, MY son is going to."

We saw some cool stuff.

Like this giant grouper.

And these huge, ugly eels. Eww.

And these little eels. More eww.

Brendan seemed to enjoy it.

And so did we.

Some things get a little lost in translation.

And at one point I needed to use the bathroom and Brendan needed a diaper change. They have a nursing room, which is completely separate from the restroom. I was so impressed. They even had a machine in there that provides hot water for formula. Way to go, Japan! I am a strong believer that moms should not have to nurse babies in restrooms. Do you want to eat your lunch in one? Disgusting. I'll get off my soapbox now.

There's a café right next to the big tank, the tank that has whales in it. We ate lunch and watched all the fish swim by.

You know how when you go to a theme park or something like that and you have to eat, the food is usually extremely overpriced and not very good? It wasn't like that here.

And the view wasn't too shabby either.

After a while Brendan got tired of riding in the stroller.

He was much happier on Daddy's shoulders.

As in any good aquarium, there was the room where the fish swim above you.

That's always one of my favorite parts.

He liked it, too.

It was freezing outside, and the aquarium is right on the water so the wind was really whipping. We skipped the outdoor exhibits but will definitely be back on a warmer day. On our way out we had to stop to take a few pictures.

The aquarium sits at the bottom of a hill. Going back up it was killer.

Sometimes Thomas likes to focus manually when taking pictures. I find it extremely annoying because pictures that would be cute end up looking like this.

On the way to the aquarium there are fish like these all along the way.

We have heard that you can pick oranges somewhere in Nago. We have no idea where to go to do that. We just stopped to buy some.

Hope you enjoyed your weekend as much as we did!