Ocean Expo Park

We have been wanting to go to Ocean Expo Park and the Churami Aquarium for awhile now and finally made it there on Sunday afternoon. This park is not only the aquarium, it also has a dolphin studio, a botanical/tropical garden, 2 different Okinawan culture museums, and a white sand beach next door.

The aquarium itself was awesome and they have a great facility to display all of the marine life that is found in Okinawa's waters. The complex (which sits right on the NW coast) obtains it's seawater through an intake pipe and generates some of it's own power. This island is very eco-friendly and efficient, so this wasn't surprising at all. One of the most popular sights (and one of our favorites too) was the large tank that held the huge whale sharks, manta and sting rays, and other types of sea critters. A little cafe sits inside just next to the tank, so we ate lunch while watching the 8 meter long whale sharks swim right by us. These sharks are not carnivorous, so my little fear of "Jaws" was not a problem here :) There are some places on the island where you can actually scuba dive with these sharks and that would definitely be an experience! We still have not become scuba certified yet, but maybe later on this year.

After we toured the aquarium, we went outside to see the dolphin performance. It was in Japanese, of course, but we got the general idea. Dolphins are just amazing animals! I was disappointed that they had part of the dolphin exhibit closed, because it is home to Fuji, a bottle-nose dolphin wearing an artificial tail fin especially designed here at Churaumi. Maybe some of you heard about that on the news awhile back. We bought season passes though, so maybe it will be open next time and we can see Fuji!

We also toured the Tropical Dream Center, a tropical botanical garden with a neat observation tower in the middle. As usual, orchids were everywhere and there were some interesting flowers and plants that I had never seen before. They even had little venus fly traps... tiny ones, but pretty cool :) After catching a nice view from the top of the observation tower, we decided to call it a day. Might have stayed longer, but it was so hot that day and it was hard to enjoy the outdoor part when you are sweating like crazy. The weather here is great in the late fall, from what I hear, so we'll probably try to come back then.



Here is a link to all of the photos I took at Ocean Expo Park...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27905094@N06/sets/72157606290572045