Swimming With the Fish

One of my Busan bucket list items was the Busan Sea Life Aquarium, so Tom and I decided to head to Haeundae and have a look. Having just been to an impressive aquarium in Japan, I had high expectations. Afterall, the aquarium is located right on Haeundae Beach.

Walking into the aquarium, you actually head downstairs to the first basement level. The entire structure is built underground, which is smart considering how little space there is available in Busan, especially for a large building like an aquarium. The opening exhibit was similar to a rainforest with lots of green plants strategically placed and cave-like rock walls. There were some impressive river monsters; whoops, I meant river fish. Although any fish that is longer than me, or even an average adult male, should be considered a monster. I continued down the path towards the otters who were running around their enclosure. It had just been feeding time, so they were hopped up on fish. I think we can all agree that otters are some of the cutest animals to exist (except those horrifying river otters; those can stay far away from me).

Beware the piranhas!

Once past the adorable sea creatures (including the penguins), I stumbled upon the creatures I have the most complex relationship with. On the one hand, I find them absolutely fascinating. I do pride myself on the sheer amount of movies I have seen pertaining to them. On the other, I am deeply terrified of them, and they are the main reason I have a fear of open water. Sharks if you had not yet guessed. Being an aquarium, they only had smaller species, such as nurse and reef. I still perused their information kiosks, but I already knew all the information they provided. There were multiple photo opportunities, and I took every one. I even swam with a few of the creatures.

My favorite part of the aquarium had to be the bottom level. The whole floor was lit with UV lights and glow-in-the-dark plants. It was supposed to be representative of the deep sea, and I believe it did a great job. My white shirt was glowing like a beacon, and my shoes were shining. Of course, I had to stop and see the jellyfish. While there were not as many subspecies as in Japan, I really enjoyed the ones that were on display. Some were small and round while others had tentacles that were like Angel hair pasta while others, still, had clover patterns on their heads. I spent a solid 5 minutes simply watching them move around so gracefully within their tanks.

The rest of the aquarium was a mix of interactive exhibits and interesting sea creatures. I saw smiling stingrays, elegant sea turtles, and feisty sea horses. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the aquarium in its entirety. Although it was on the smaller side, it more than made up for it in its kid oriented environment and beautiful exhibits.

I finished up the day with some bowling and darts with Tom. I scored one of my lowest, but not the lowest, games of my existence. I believe I was somewhere in the 40s. I did manage to score 2 strikes and a couple of spares. I never did claim bowling was my strong suit. Darts was a little more my speed. While I am terrible at aiming for accuracy, I throw the darts with the speed of a javelin (I only broke 3 darts) and pretty much always score a bullseye at least once in a game.