Ye Olde Aquarium

Happy Valentines Day. It's not too big of an event here. I didn't really see any themed chocolates in the store, only a few restaurants that advertised making reservations. Instead the grocery stores have skipped right to Easter. 

Here's a little update on my embroidery. It's really speeding along now and I've started figuring out my next project already.

Friday night was amazing pizza night. My new love of sour cream has begun to invade all meals. Yum!

On Saturday Tom and I went to the aquarium, partly because I had a mission to get some specific pictures of some funny fish faces and partly because I love the aquarium. It also happened to be one of the celebration days of the Chinese New Year, which is a HUGE event here. Tom and I arrived at Darling Harbour just in time for some dragon boat racing.

  A lantern for the year of the Mousie! I think the rabbit was on the other side of the harbour.

At the aquarium there was a lego exhibit going on so each section had a huge lego sculpture to go with it. Nothing opens an aquarium like the god of the sea.

This was the shark area.

I've been requested to have more pictures of me. Which is hard when I'm the one holding the camera, but this outing is my first attempt. It's maybe not completely clear in this photo, but this shark was MASSIVE. Two of me could have easily fit inside it, both in length and width.

The freakiest part was that is was still for a really long time then suddenly...... move it's head into attack position.

There was an amazing lego mosaic that I want in my future house, here's how tiny many of the blocks were.

They made up this incredible image! Awesome!

A lego sailor opened for the local fish. There were a lot of fresh water fish and a few turtles.... but most of all there was a miso eel. It was very big in the body and had a tiny head. The first time I walked by it was peering out at me moving it's head around. The second time I walked by it was lying down nice and still for a less blurry picture. 

Look at those big eyes and the little frowny face. awwww. Possibly the cutest eel ever.  I had a strong urge to give it a scratch under it's chin.

 

Around the corner from the freshies are all kinds of unusual and more exotic looking creatures. For example upside down jelly fish. They like to lie down with their tentacles up so that they can absorb more sunlight.  

A garden of sea horses. I did find it interesting that when the seahorses moved they sort of dragged their bellies and tails along rather than bounced or swim. If I were a seahorse I'd bounce on my tail everywhere. It would look more horsey.

Some actual jellies swimming!

So pretty and gelatinous. They lit this exhibit really nicely and it showed off the translucent quality very well.  I could have watched them for hours.

But I needed to move along to the octopus!!!!!!!!!!!! Last time I was here the octopus was sleeping in a tiny aquarium. This time it was hiding it's face. Still beautiful but I wish it was moving a bit more.

Last time I was here I filmed these little fish swimming up and down with their tiny fins. This time I was able to get some decent pictures of their patterns. Very cute.

Ah the mermaid exhibit. In which they had real live mermaids swimming around.

That's a funny looking fish lady...

These are dugongs and I believe that they are actually different than manatees. Their tails look different to me. They're also really sneaky.

 

It was so fun to watch this one swim laps around us. They're surprisingly graceful and move so easily through the water. I think I expected them to swim more cumbersomely because of their size and nick name of sea cows.  If cows were this graceful we wouldn't eat them.

A fun side note, while Tom and I were in the dugong walk we ran into Aurah, Dougal and the kids. We walked through most of it with them then I started to take for ever with my camera. As we re-entered the main building we bumped into them again and Aurah pointed out these lovely sea dragons which she and I had been talking about earlier in the week. Then I took forever again getting just the right shot.

 

A few more sea horses.

This is a Tom original.

This picture makes me laugh because it's as if I've ended up with a 3D image of this fish. They all posed so that I now have a great resource if I want to draw one from different angles.

I find this puffer fish looks like a cartoon, it's face is almost human some how. It makes it less cute and a little creepy.

Welcome to the shark tank. Jump in!

Watch out Tom there's one headed straight for you!

As we left one of the big ones drifted by the window in the ramp area. It allowed us to see just how huge it really was as the curved windows make some of the fish seem much smaller unless they're right up against it.

This is a wrasse, it was hiding for most of the time I was in front of it's tank. And I waited for ages to get a decent shot. In the end I filmed it. It was covered in patterns and just enormous. Next door to it was a rock carp which was the exact opposite. However I think I may use the carp in some art work.

This was a tribute to Moby Dick. I'm the wee silhouette next to it.

 

Here's a few details of the mural behind it. I was really taken with these partly because of their scale but also because the images themselves were so well done.

 

At the beginning of our visit we had been pulled aside for a "free" photo. It cost us $10 to bring home with us but I'd say the laughs I'm still getting from it make it worth it. 

Amazing.

We returned to the outside world to find it had started to rain very heavily. Sigh, not a beach weekend.