Went to Kaiyukan (Osaka Aquarium) today. It's huge, one of the largest there is. Such fun. I like swimmy things - Don't ever want to swim with them but I do like them.

It's groovy, you go in and they heard you onto this escalator and you don't think about it until you're on. The escalator goes up FIVE STORIES HIGH and there's a big window beside you looking out over the ocean. I could not move my feet until I got past the window.

It's amazingly well set up. You start at the top and walk down a big spiralling ramp and the tanks are along the outside with all the different types and one huge tank that goes down the centre of the building for nearly all five levels. It's huge! They had a couple of whale sharks in there along with a whole bunch of other swimmy dudes and there was still more than enough room for everyone. It was lovely.

I had a moment with one of the seals too. About three floors below the surface of the water for the seal tank, this one seal came up to me and I took a photo and it stopped and did the little shy face (nose down and eyes looking up at me like "I'm cute, yes?"). So I knelt down and waved and she posed again and I took another photo and she kept staring. I pressed the off button on my camera so I could wave with both hands but as soon as I turned the camera off she swam away.

I am so loving that camera. I took a lot of video with it today, especially when I got into the jellyfish section. They don't show up well with a flash. I would put it on the blog but for some reason this site doesn't seem to recognise the files. It should, they're saved as .avi and that's what the site wants but for some reason it won't read them. I'll keep trying so you might see video turn up in a day or two.

Did some shopping today too. I don't think I actually bought anything other than a couple of souveniers at the aquarium though. There are endless things I wan't to buy but my luggage limits won't allow it so I'm being conservatitve but really - whole shops devoted to Hello Kitty and a Totoro shop. ~Totoro to-to-ro~ They're so cuuuute!

Also, today was my first experience with the subway. Dude! So easy, so quick, so streamlined. It was much easier to figure out what platform I needed to be on and everything. The only issue was the ticket machine. It's the first time I've had to buy a ticket (all my JR rail stuff is covered by my rail pass that I just show to the gate person and they let me walk through).

I stood at the ticket machine for a good five minutes - I selected the english option but it wasn't doing what the instructions told me it would do. Anyway the old lady next to me hit the 'call for assistance button' and this guy opened up a window in what I thought was a solid wall between the machines and helped her with her ticket purchase so as he was about to disappear back into his window I asked him for help. Turns out I just needed to put more money in and when I did it gave me a choice of which fare I wanted. I hit the 270 like the guy said an all was good. And that was my first proper Japanese conversation. Woot.

I like the window man - he reminds me of the guy from the Wizard of Oz; you know the one with the "Well why didn't you say so? That's a horse of a differnt colour." *giggle*

And on that dorky note I shall sign off. Have fun on your weekends my dears. I'm off to Tokyo tomorrow (should be interesting, it's supposed to drizzle rain all day tomorrow and I have a half hour walk to the train station with all my lugggage :P)