Kaiyukan! (海遊館)

On Saturday I went to Osaka and visited the aquarium and the Suntory museum.
The Kaiyukan (aquarium) was amazing. They had two whale sharks and some giant rays, too. I loved the sunfish, but felt sorry that their tank was so narrow because they can't turn very easily. They kept getting stuck in corners. The aquarium keepers put plastic curtains up so they don't hit the hard glass all the time and hurt themselves. The top floor has a forest exhibit with asian otters, and all of them were sleeping together on a piece of driftwood. It was incredibly cute.

I went to the gift shop and bought some omiyage for my host mother. It was some kind of bread with sweet white bean paste inside. There were turtles stamped on the top of them too, and the box said something about a turtle diary. I also bought a handtowel with a manbou (sunfish) design on it.

after the Kaiyukan I went to the Suntory museum, which just happened to be having an exhibit of studio Ghibli art. I think they were called story board drawings, they showed camera movement and such and had writing all over them. There were, I think, at least a thousand on display.

On the way to the Kaiyukan I saw posters for the imax theater in suntory museum for two shows on sealife. One is narrated by Jim Carrey and the other by Jhonny Depp. Ridiculous.
I also saw a hugenormous farris wheel, but since the weather was nasty and the view would have been bad I didn't go on it.

I showed my Okasan the fliers for the imax movies and she said she wanted to go see them with me, which is awesome.

Unfortunately I still can't connect to the internets at my house because okasan is afraid to turn off the modem to reboot it. I told her to call a computer store, and hopefully they will tell her the same. Otherwise I will have to convince her myself. Anyways, that's why no pictures have been uploaded yet. I refuse to carry my laptop along with my books on the 30 minute uphill (I'm not joking) walk to school.

Sunday Okasan took me to a small museum that had a life-size recreation Jomon era pit dwelling--it was sweet. I even went inside it. I have pictures of this as well, but alas, I cannot yet post them.

By the way, I'm in spoken japanese level 4 for sure now.