Always Hungry: Aquariums

After a few days that were either windy, rainy, or chilly... good weather finally smiled on Osaka. And to take advantage of the beautiful Spring day, I decided to head over to the Osaka aquarium!

The outside of the aquarium. It looks quite modern and space age-y!

The main attraction: a whale shark. I think this one is not a full
adult, as it didn't seem as big as I thought it would be.

Here he is with his mouth open; it was pretty impressive how big it was!

Just some little sharks. Chillin.

I don't feel like I often see this type of ray. They are spotted, and the
head is much more pronounced than the ones I usually see.

So tasty.... I mean... cute! Little squid.

Sometimes it looks like they are dancing in unison.

Mr. Penguin is like, "get me outta here!"

The jellyfish exhibit was fairly extensive.
I thought I saw a few that I haven't seen
before.

Cute! The internal body section looked
really cool in person.

More jellyfish

And there's a little blue one too!

It was astoundingly crowded at the aquarium, as this is a holiday weekend in Japan. So I probably didn't spend as much time inside as I normally would. Luckily, the day was beautiful and I was able to sit outside for a while.

Not the most impressive picture, but it was still nice to sit outdoors
after such a long and dreary winter!

Giant ferris wheel. The view from the top is supposed to be amazing.
However, it is still closed for the season.

The first few days I'm in a new time zone, I tend to not sleep well. The great upside to this is that I am much more willing than usual to get up early and see the sights. I took advantage of that this morning, and headed out for an early start.

San Francisco is well known for its love of fresh local produce. I headed over to one of the larger weekend Farmer's Markets for a quick look, and was greeted by beautiful displays of late summer fruits and vegetables. For the first time since arriving in San Francisco, I felt its charm as I strolled through the market. Lucky for me too, the vendors were really generous with samples; I thoroughly ate my way through the market, sampling tomatoes and plums and grapes and cheese (to name just a few).

Late season tomatoes

These were so sweet, I ended up getting a pound. Each one had a
distinctive flavor and texture; I couldn't decide which one I liked the best!

Did you know peppers came in this many colors?

Multiple varieties of figs were available

Beautiful wildflower blooms for sale

Huge plump eggplants and squashes

So many kinds of cheese!

There was an indoors section as well to the market. I love the sign for
this store! 'Tasty salted pig parts'... could anything be better than that?

There's a kit where you can grow your own mushrooms!

Three tiny perfect tomatoes

I tried this cute little California-based oyster. It was called Sweetwater,
and was really reminiscent of a briny, clean East Coast oyster. It was
extremely delicate, and had a slightly sweet finish.

After I had my fill of the market, I realized that it was still so early I should head over to the Wharf to visit the aquarium. It was a very small one, but I enjoyed seeing some of the exhibits featuring local marine life. There was also the requisite shark tunnel and jellyfish display, and I spent a pleasant hour and a half there. While I walked around, I realized why I liked aquariums so much. When you first look into a tank, it's tempting to just glance at it and walk on. But if you stop for a minute and stay still, you begin to notice more and more things in the display. A hidden fish will suddenly reveal itself, or a shell would move and you'd realize that a crab lived inside of it. This is a good parallel for life; in other words, stop and smell the roses!

I never get tired of looking at jellyfish!

I just had you for dinner three nights ago!!!!

Is it bad that I keep thinking of sushi when I look at this guy?

Amazingly, it was still early when I left the aquarium. So I decided to take a short boat tour around the bay to get a closer look at some famous landmarks.