Made our way to the Osaka Bay area after breakfast. As walked from the train station to the aquarium, the ferris wheel dominated the view. This thing was absolutely huge, and is only a few meters short of being the tallest ferris wheel in the world. But first the aquarium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osaka_Aqu arium_Kaiyukan). After reading the reviews and information packs about it, I was really looking forward to it. I'll admit up front though, I was disappointed. Firstly, there were too many people, and not enough things to look at to keep them amused. For the majority of tanks, especially on the upper floors for some reason (the crowds seemed to thin out the further we progressed down the path). People were queued 6 and 7 deep at the earlier tanks, which made it next to impossible to see anything, especially for the girls. I was able to see over the top of most people, but I had to teach Charlotte and Angela a vital skill. The art of pushing their way to the front. The aquarium basically took you up to the 6th or 7th floor via a massive escalator, and then the pathway wound its way down to the ground floor around a huge central tank which took up about 5 of the floors. The aquarium was organised into regions, and at least 4 of the regions involved Australia in some way. As a result, anyone who has been to an Australian aquarium would be familiar with much of the aquatic life on display in the outer tanks. There were some interesting displays though in the outer tanks, such as the penguins and sea otters. But the massive main tank dominated the viewing, and was viewable from every one of the last 5 or 6 floors. The first time we saw the central tank, it was quite good. The big drawcard of the aquarium, the whale sharks, were a little disappointing. Yes they were whale sharks, but they were babies. With all of the fuss and attention they got in the advertising material, I was expecting them to be a lot larger. These were no more than 10 or 12 foot babies. Still nice, but well and truly overrated. Other than that, the centre tank was good. A fairly sparse mix of sharks and other tasty fish, in a very bland, characterless giant glass box. And since we simply wound around and around it on the way down, by the 30th time we viewed the tank, I was positively sick of it, and was looking for the exit. We made it to the ground floor, and into the "Japan Deeps", which contained an excellent tank, which was probably the highlight of the whole aquarium for me. The spider crabs. These deep sea crabs were absolutely huge, and almost alien like in appearance. What I found amusing too was that the Japanese people were only giving these crabs a vague sideways glance, before wandering past nonchalantly. There was basically nobody at this tank, so photos of these were not a problem. I guess the Japanese have seen enough of these particular crabs for it not to be a novelty. I guess I paid a similar amount of attention to the "Great Barrier Reef" and dolphin tanks. So we exited, and had ice creams at the harbour side shopping mall, before continuing on to the ferris wheel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempozan_ Harbor_Village_Ferris_wheel). 700 yen per person, with Angela free for the next 2 days (which is when she turns 3). Into our small glass box, and up we went, very gradually. As far as views of Osaka go, this one would be difficult to beat. Full 360 degree views of the city from 112m up. I've learn't an interesting piece of trivia about the ferris wheel from the wikipedia page above. The wheel is lit up with different colours at night is based upon tomorrow's weather forecast. If the wheel is lit orange, then tomorrow is predicted to be sunny. If the wheel is green then tomorrow is supposed to be cloudy, and if the wheel is lit blue, then tomorrow will be raining. As we landed at Kansai airport on the day we arrived into Japan, the ferris wheel dominated the view out of our windows across Osaka Bay, as it was lit up bright blue. After this ride was over, it was 3pm, and both girls were tired, so we decided to head back to the hotel for afternoon naps (which I needed as well. Yesterdays efforts finally caught up with me). We went out to dinner at the same curry restaurant that we went to a few nights ago. I had a normal strength curry, since I proved my point by ordering a "10" a few nights ago. I must say it was one of the best curries I can ever remember having. The death curry two days ago was ok, but tonight I was actually able to taste the other ingredients too. Off to Yokohama in the morning. We plan to make it a quiet day to just have a bit of a look around Yokohama, but we will try to visit the Landmark building, which is Japans tallest building, and contains the worlds second fastest elevator.