After days of haze hovering around the moderate to unhealthy levels, we were blessed to wake up to clear skies on the day we were supposed to visit the aquarium. It was also the day J turns 23 months-old and I have been planning this trip for a while.
We got the tickets of Qoo10 at slightly less than $21 each. $7 multiplied by five is quite a bit of savings. (Tickets are at $28 for Singapore citizens.)
Our tickets did not include the entrance to Typhoon Theatre though. I thought they did, and felt bad in disappointing my dad. But he decided that it is quite a fun experience that we should try and he paid for the tickets ($2 per pax). It was quite an interesting 4D show though most of the time, I noticed that our eyes were on J instead, observing her reactions. Her eyes were affixed to the screen. Ah. It's like Pandora's Box after our strict no-screen rule isn't it? We were a little surprised that she doesn't seem to be bothered by the lightning and loud thunder. She even went "Boom boom boom" after it. Thank you Dr Seuss' "Mr Brown can Moo, Can You?"
Raincoat is recommended for little ones since they do sprinkle quite a bit of water!
Following the shipwreck scene in the show, we exited to a underwater shipwreck. That makes so much more sense now!
I had been reading to J prior the visit so there were a few sea creatures I really wanted to spot.
The hammerhead shark is one of them. We have a Safari Ltd TOOBS figure too so that helps.
I didn't expect such a beautiful picture though. I can lie there watching them for hours if I wouldn't get in the way of others.
Moray eels were in my list too since they are in the Ocean TOOBs we got.
I've always wanted to go through that tiny little entrance that looks like it is for children, but the three times I went with J, she was in a stroller. It's so much easier now that we were without one!
It's quite intriguing, watching the eels move. Reminds me of Flotsam and Jetsam from The Little Mermaid. So says the sis. It smells a little funky in there though.
We visited the Big Silver Fish (I don't know it's name) since J really like watching it the last time we were there. This is one huge fish that is popular with children.
Hello Nemo and Dory.
Ahh... I could sit in front of this for a long, long time too.
Sea jellies. Love them.
We even saw the itty bitty baby ones that are soo adorable! They are only about 1 cm.
The dolphins came.
This was our fourth visit but it was my first time seeing the dolphins.
And we saw them playing with the balls.
J likes them too, I believe, because one night before bed, she said "See dolphins play ball again. Next time."
And finally another one we see in the books - the lionfish!
I love the touch pool. We had a go touching the sea stars and J learnt a little about their textures - hard, bumpy. There were some sea cucumbers too which J missed since she doesn't really have gentle hands.
I really appreciate the activity corner at the Open Ocean.
While I prefer to sit in front of the glass panel to look at the fishes and manta rays, J had other plans. She just wanted to walk up and down the stairs. Because... so many flights of stairs!
She wouldn't stop until I told her that we could do some colouring.
The volunteer on duty is a nice young man whom we bumped into at the touch pool, and once more when we took photos with the mascots as we were about to leave.
I don't know what these are called. Sea worms?
But they are one of my favourites.
Don't they look like they came out from some cartoon show? And they look like they can talk.
Like guinea pigs. Those talk too.
The Living Fossils exhibit is on when we visited (till 30th September) so we spotted some dinos.
I wasn't concentrating at this point because I was occupied with the "Annual pass or not?" question.
The cutest of them all.
The axolotl.
This one bumped into the sides of the tank and looked utterly confused. Or maybe it was going "Ugh. Did it again."
I'm sorry I laughed because it was really quite funny.
I thought of it as an alien sea creature until I googled for it's pronunciation and saw that people keep them as pets. A real-life pokemon!
We never had luck with mascots either so the manta ray was a pleasant surprise.
He/She even interacted with J and as her momma, I really appreciate that gesture.
As cliche as it may sound, I'm very grateful to my family for making this trip possible.
And for the love they give J.
She was one happy kiddo that day.
Sidenote:
I love the aquarium a lot and when my friend asked if I would get bored visiting it many times a year, my answer was a "no". I realised I could sit in front of some tanks for hours, just looking at the coral reef and fishes. There's just so much to see you know?
What kept me from getting the RWS Attractions Invites was the fact that I have difficulty travelling alone with J and the stroller, which is a necessity. Thank goodness my best friend for life, who is also my sister, shares the same thoughts about being in an aquarium, so yay! we both got our passes!
Note to self: Take photos in landscape next time.
Here's what else we did this week:
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