As part of my experience at Lotte World with my wife and daughter, I was also able to visit the aquarium. Unlike the tower, it was not 1800 feet in the sky, but that would have been scary awesome (forgive the California slang).
The aquarium was on the basement level attached to the high end mall. This experience was strictly for my 3 year old as I've been to the huge Monterey Bay Aquarium in California numerous times, so I didn't think I could be entertained from an inland one. I was wrong again and was also delighted that they had most of the decor geared towards children.
The beginning of the aquarium had the visitors travel through a glass tube straight through the water of one of the fish tanks. It's a common theme in most aquariums and it reminds me of one of the jaws movies every single time.
After you travel through the tunnel you reach just a small individual area with a bunch of fish tanks to break up the crowd a little bit. If you haven't been to South Korea, you must know that the population density is really high. It's about the size of Indiana, but has 50 million people, so anywhere you visit, whether a tourist spot or a grocery store, it has a lot of people.
I took this picture because I was trying to find what looked like the saddest fish.
My daughter posing in front of a medium sized fish tank. She was facing the other camera.
One of my favorite random tanks had this little guy. They're basically a snake that keeps half its body in the sand and just waits around for food. It's called the husband snake, no, the placard said they were sea garden worms, but they're just basically mini sea snakes.
Eels, a school of sardines and some piranha. These are not the same tank!
The aquarium had a lot of little areas that you could take a picture. It even had signs on the ground that said to stand there for the best picture. It was accurate too. It had the best lighting and a bubble fountain. I remember before smartphones that photography was prohibited in aquariums. I'm not sure why. I'm guessing that most of the reasoning was from the constant camera flash to the animals and scenery. I also remember that they didn't want the show spoiled online or the scenery was copyrighted from reproduction.
Venturing forth were the giant tanks. They had otters, which I hadn't realized before, but they move and look like the equivalent of a sea rat. They may be a smaller variety that is native to Asia. They didn't look like the more furry regular sized otters and I must have just thought they were younger. (Most of the info is in a language I don't understand, in case you're upset I didn't bother reading anything).
The crown jewel of the exhibit was the Beluga whale. I've never seen a whale in captivity, besides the orcas at SeaWorld I guess. It had its own tank to itself and even had a chew toy in its mouth. I was giddy. I've been singing the baby Beluga song to my daughter her whole three years of life. I was excitedly trying to convey that it is indeed a real animal that was now in front of us. I just wish the tank was clearer.
The penguins were just not entertaining. The world may be over the penguin obsession, but they were the smaller Humboldt penguin, not the famous Emperor penguin.
They had mini jellyfish tanks with a bunch of different species. The one sea creature that I would have grabbed and tried to squish to death as a child. There was also an octopus tank that didn't have an octopus! For some reason I never see the octopus in the assigned tanks at any aquarium. Have you had the same experience?
They also had some Hawk Sea Turtles, a Spotted Hawk Ray, Clownfish, Puffer Fish, and the rest of the Finding Nemo cast. I discovered after that the Hawk Turtle is endangered.
I had a great time and plan to visit the other aquariums in Korea during my indefinite stay in the country.
Part 1 of this day trip can be read below
@steveparma/seoul-lotte-world-tower-the-5th-tallest-tower-in-the-world
