Osaka Aquarium

Our second day in Osaka was spent at the Osaka Aquarium,.  We initially had reservations about visiting an aquarium in Japan.  I mean, you can see fish in Seattle, right?  Wrong.  The aquarium was easily the best aquarium we've ever been to.  Along with the prerequisite fish (and there were many, from all over the globe), we saw seals, sea lions, otters (the Japanese river otter looks like the progeny of our North American otter and a ferret), dolphins, penguins, turtles, and the giant Japanese spider crab.  But the major draw is the 5,400 cubic meter tank in the center of the aquarium whose star attractions are two manta rays(!) and a whale shark (!!).  We spent over an hour just watching the whale shark do laps around the tank and the manta rays doing loop-dee-loops while hammerheads and sting rays swam along with them.  Our pictures won't do the place justice, but we tried!