Japan 2...mostly fishy

Now for some pictures from my good camera. I didn't have a ton of free time (six days of meetings...one early dismissal afternoon and one day off at the end...).  I did visit two aquariums and did some sightseeing in Sapporo one hot sticky afternoon.

The first aquarium was really small, but they had a touch tank of those little fish that I've heard about that nibble on your dead skin during a pedicure. It tickled on my hand - I can't imagine how tickly it would be on feet!

This is a real starfish, I swear. It looks fake though, like a plush starfish, it even has a seam...except that it's real. How awesome is that?

The view from my hotel room. Meh.

A covered shopping street in Sapporo. It doesn't look 90 degrees with 95% humidity, but it is.  Even my feet were sweating, and then I got blisters.

I love the fake food displays. I don't know that they really help me decide what to order, but at least you can point to whatever it is you decide on.

LOL. What a name...

I love the money there...this tiny  handful of change is, like, 17 US dollars.  It's great!

These adorable chicken in an egg things were very popular...

Just in case you were wondering...

My last day in Japan I took a personal leave day to do a bit more sightseeing (though in hindsight I was really ready to go home). This was by far the coolest (temperature wise) day during my stay in Japan. It was ~75 F and utterly pouring rain, monsoon-style. I was soaking wet to my knees. But it was fun to get out of the big city to a slightly smaller city on the coast, and see another aquarium once the rain stopped.

The canal in Otaru, Japan. In the rain.

This aquarium was much bigger, and had two main areas. One was the main 'fish tank' part up on top of a big hill next to the sea.  The other was down the hill (almost cliffs) next to the sea. 

This is a tank full of things that will kill you. Lion fish, mean eels, some sort of creepy spotted thing, and other fun critters. Unless I knew what something was by sight, or knew the genus and species name (which were in English), I didn't know what things were since the common names were in Japanese.

But this incredible (and HUGE) fish is a humphead wrasse. Very cool!!

Despite it being a Sunday, it wasn't very busy. I was happy about that.

Here's the second part of the aquarium. There were walrus, otters, penquins, seal and sea lions. There was also a place to rent a small pole and fish in a tank full of starry flounder...I am not sure what you do if you catch one - keep it??