Tokyo Sea Life Park

On Friday, May 22nd, I went to the Kasai Aquarium, also known as the Tokyo Sea Life Park, with a tour group I signed up with through the Family Readiness Center. It is on the east side of Tokyo(the far side from where we live). So, it took us about 1.5 hours by train to get there. It was a trek, but luckily I knew a few others on the trip (my friend Heather, her hubby and 11 mo old son and my friend Courtney, her hubby and her 5 mo old daughter).  And when you are traveling with 2 babies and a pregnant lady, you totally qualify for the "priority seats" in the train car. 

Once we got there, we ate (at McDonald's - we are such Americans, but there wasn't a lot of choices). Then we were off to explore the aquarium. The 3rd floor has a glass dome that looks like it is almost floating on the bay. 

Then we went down to the 1st floor and circled around the aquarium, back up to the top, seeing all sorts of sea life. Here I am in front of the shark tank, at 28 weeks pregnant (yep- I'm officially in the 3rd trimester now- yippee!!)

Here are a few other interesting things we saw at the aquarium:

This looked like seaweed floating in the water, but it was actually a live fish!

I wanted this guy to puff up, but he wasn't cooperating with me :)

This guy was creepy sticking out of the rocks!

These little penguins were so cute waddling around. Sadly, I'm afraid I'll be waddling just like them in just a few months from now!

This guy has my dream job-he gets to go scuba diving everyday! Of course, he has to clean the tanks too. That part probably isn't quite as fun.

After our tour, we ate some ice cream (NOT the green tea flavor this time!) and headed back on the train. We were lucky and caught the special limited express train- it takes less time b/c it stops at fewer stations. I fell asleep for a few minutes on the way back- all that walking wore me out. But it was a fun trip and I enjoyed seeing the sealife and hanging out with good friends. I loved seeing the 2 kiddos mesmerized by the fish, and can't wait for our daughter to be born so I can take her to fun places too! 

I wish Brett could have join me today- he was at home working on his papers for his masters. He was supposed to have been gone on a trip to Singapore so I didn't sign him up for the tour, but the plans were changed. Hopefully he will get to go soon-he was looking forward to going. I was going to try to fly Space A over there and join him, so I'm hoping that plan all still works out. 

We did get to go to the Sumo Wrestling tournament yesterday, which was actually a lot of fun. I'll post about that soon!