COEX Aquarium

For our trip of the week, David and I went to the COEX Mall, Asia's largest underground shopping structure on Tuesday. There were lots of fun stores--including a Zara, TGIFriday's, Coldstones, and more--and even, oddly enough, an Aquarium. Being the lover all creatures great and small, I wanted to go through the Aquarium and David obliged me in my request. [We realized, in the course of our visit, that of all the attractions that we have attended together, zoos and aquariums ranks the highest, just behind museums. What can I say? Before deciding to be a historian/curator, my two other dream jobs were to be a marine biologist or a zoologist. I feel at home among the animals.]

Unfortunately for every other aquarium that I visit, however, I volunteered at the Monterey Bay Aquarium for a year and every other aquarium simply pales in comparison. The COEX Aquarium was actually pretty decent given its size, location and hokey decor but I always leave an aquarium like that wishing the animals could have bigger enclosures and that the effort to educate rather than entertain the public was greater.

But enough of that, here's the animals!

We watched the penguin feeding though it was all in Korean. The woman kept saying penguin as "pengy" which just sounded odd. Also, why are penguins so darn cute?

Leafy seahorses tangled up with one another.

Some igaunas hanging out on the turtles backs. I loved the turtles' reflection in the water.

A glowing piranha.

Jellyfish.

Such simple, yet fascinating creatures.

They did have a large tank with one of those undersea tunnels that are always so popular at aquariums.

Crazy fish!

And some colorful fish.

And a two-headed turtle! Ah, those freaks of nature.

Though I got a bigger kick out of the horrid English translation of the sign. Go ahead, enlarge it and try not to laugh.

You remember this building? From our trip to Gyeongbokgung Palace?

Well there was a replica inside the aquarium with a pond full of koi.

I'll finish off the post with a photograph of a king crab (there's just one....the other is a reflection). These dudes just creeped the heck out of me. Ugh. Same with the eels, but I refused to take a picture of those. I hear the zoo here in Seoul is pretty good. I'll have to go check it out soon too.