Fish, Dust Mites and Johnny Depp

Caution: Beware the massive amount of photos.
The Friday night before my five day Silver Week break started, I could hardly sleep. I knew in just a few hours, I was going to head to the Osaka Aquarium, or Kaiyukan, which was eight floors and couldn’t be anything less than amazing. I heard they had TWO whale sharks, and although at the time I didn’t know what those were, they sounded huge and awesome.
We left on the train, arriving in the Tempozan area around 11:30 and decided we were starving. The McDonald’s across the street looked perfect. Most McDonald’s I’ve seen in Japan have been two stories, and I also found out that they are Nintendo DS network hotspots. Sometime I’ll have to take mine with me and try it out. We sat on the second floor along the bar, and not long after, some of the workers came up to eat too, but they didn’t want to sit next to us, so they got the guy a couple of seats down to move over. Hmm….

With full stomachs and a little less homesickness (McDonald’s makes us feel at home even though none of us ever eat there in America), we journeyed on to the aquarium. Before reaching the aquarium though, we came to the Tempozan marketplace, which boasts the world’s largest ferris wheel (112 meters!).

Next to the aquarium is the Suntory Museum. Suntory is a company that produces drinks, like the very popular and slightly scary Boss Coffee. We had heard the museum was running a Studio Ghibli exhibit for the next few days, so we decided to check that out first.


The exhibit was better than we expected. There were hundreds of original storyboard prints from every movie Ghibli has put out. Walking through the areas for Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle were especially touching – those are two of my most favorite movies. I couldn’t believe I was standing that close to their first form. They also had an adorable photo spot for their newest movie, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. I couldn’t resist, of course.

Unfortunately, we were a little rushed through the Ghibli exhibit because we also bought tickets to an IMAX show, so we wanted to arrive plenty ahead of time to get good seats. We were really excited about this show because not only was it an IMAX movie, but it was in 3-D. And, not only was it in 3-D, it was narrated by Johnny Depp. That’s right. A 3-D Under the Sea IMAX movie in Japan, narrated by Johnny Depp. In the same building as the original storyboard Studio Ghibli exhibit. I love Japan~

When we entered the theater, we drew tickets to see if we could win something. We weren’t sure what we were trying to win, but Cailyn won! We found out after the movie that she had won two free passes for the huge ferris wheel we walked by earlier.
Before that, we stopped back by the Ghibli exhibit entrance to add to the dust mite covered wall. They had little round stickers and black markers available to draw your own, or Doraemon, Godzilla, Pikachu or whatever else you fancied. I went with the dust mite because I thought they were adorable in Spirited Away.


To get to the ferris wheel, you have to walk through the Tempozan Marketplace, which is like a mall. We stopped in the food court for some Udon, and were pleasantly surprised that the food court was designed to imitate an Edo period village. There was even a little shrine-looking area in the back. Touristy, but cute.
The ferris wheel ride took about 20 minutes, giving us plenty of time to snap hundreds of pictures of the Osakan skyline and the pirate ship that left from the port next to the Kaiyukan. The cheerful announcer notified us that we were on security camera in the car and there was also a sign alerting us not to lean against the door. Because I was definitely going to try that.


After we got off the ferris wheel, it was a little after 5 p.m. Our feet were getting tired and we were about ready to go hom– Wait! We still hadn’t gone to the aquarium! We ended up doing what we had gone all the way there for very last. But that was OK – we got a 200 yen discount for going so late.
The Kaiyukan was simply huge. I saw so many fish and other animals that I hadn’t seen before. The walkway first opens into the “Japan Forest,” where a group of otters were curled up together sleeping on a log. Adorable!

After this, it changed into the normal aquarium scene of exhibits behind glass. My favorites were the creepy alligator, the penguins hanging out below the ice dispenser and some weird fish that I couldn’t identify.


Next was the multi-floor ocean tank, which just happens to be the world’s largest aquarium tank, complete with manta rays and the two whale sharks.


They also had several Mola mola, a kind of sunfish, which were one of the strangest fish I’d ever seen.


Looking at the tank completely full of a swirling school of Japanese sardines, Cailyn quickly decided that is what had been tempura –fried on top of her udon. Thanks to the flash from my camera, their eyes glow and make them look like some kind of aliens.

Speaking of aliens, check out these guys:


(By the way, I’m still pretty terrified of jellyfish.)