Kaiyukan Aquarium Osaka

[deutsch]Visiting an aquarium was must for me. Here at the Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan you can escape the city and look at a collection of huge wale sharks, sting rays and penguins, jelly fish and more.
They even have penguins and it is quite astonishing how they managed to use cooling devices to simulate artic temperatures in reality- how much power do you have to use for that?


There is a huge tank with big fish and small tanks with jelly fish or sea horse or corals. Looking at these corals just swaying with the current made me feel as if gravity didn't exist. They were just floating along and I probably had one of those Zen moments there.
I saw a whale shark there for the first time in my life and I was really torn between thinking that I really like this place and between thinking, this tank is definitely too small for these sharks. Nevertheless I was really fascinated.

I guess you will never fully recreate the space for an animal it used to live in, neither in the aquarium nor at any zoo. Some people think aquariums are horrible. But if we didn't do this we'd probably miss out on people who wouldn't be interested in ocean life any other way, wouldn't we?
If I think of an aquarium I don't neccesarily think of torture. Going to the aquarium motivated me to get a diving license, engage in environmental projects and sensibilised me for wildlife because I was continuiously being encountered with it. Not everyone is physically nor mentally fit to be a diver, so watching a documentary about the ocean or going to the aquarium to educate visitors would be the only way to showcase ocean wildlife - if animals are held in a species-appropriate way.
Seeing an animal in real life and seeing it in a documentary makes a big difference for me. If I watch documentaries I think: Yeah, great animal, I will never be able to see them because they're wild, shy and dangerous. But seeing them just makes sense, it makes me feel that this animal is so precious and vulnerable. That we should be responsible towards our planet- it's a whole different story.
Kaiyukan is a great place to literally dive into another world if you wish to escape Osaka city for a day.

Getting to Osaka Kaiyukan Aquarium: Get off at Osakako Eki using Chuo Line, Midosuji Line or JR Line and walk 5 minutes following the signs to Osaka Kaiyukan.

Food Stall at Naniwa Kuishinbo Yokocho, Osaka

Next stop was Naniwa Kuishinbo Yokocho which is a a so called food theme park next to the Osaka Kaiyukan. Here you can get Udon soup, chinese custard buns, cream puffs, tonkatsu fried pork cutlets or desserts like Matcha ice-cream for a reasonable price. They have restaurants where you can eat inside or just food stalls. We had Udon noodles that day (my favourite) and my friend tried to explain the difference between karaage and kurage to me, whereas the first just means fried chicken and the latter means jellyfish. Kinda a tongue twister for me but I was eager to learn a few words while I was here. I noticed that Japanese have a mascot for everything, so of course there had to be a mascot made of copper. Kushinbo Ebisu will sing for you if you press it's soles. Probably singing about how good the food is here at Naniwa Kuishinbo Yokocho.