Gentian's Photographic Misadventures

[Gentian]

It's been a while, but here we are again. When Twilers and I took the trip to the castle, we stopped here, the Lover's Shrine on the way back. Unfortunately, it was late, and the charm shop was closed, so we couldn't buy anything. Well, we went on another date yesterday, so the first stop we made was right here! We looked around a bit, retook the previous picture-sort of-and purchased a nice pair of charms meant for protecting true love: one for her, and one for me.

Mission accomplished!

I wanted us to wear the charms on our date, but there wasn't anyway to do that, so I had to wait until we got back home to take a nice picture of them. I'll include it near the end.

---

After revisiting the shrine, we hopped on the subway and off we went to our destination: the city aquarium! This was Twilight's first time on the subway, and she was amazed at pretty much every part of it. The tiniest, most mundane things were catching her interest, and it was delightful and refreshing to see her so happy.

When we arrived, I was surprised to find a life-sized Lego giraffe waiting for us. Neat! Look how tiny Twilight's vessel is compared to it!

Behind it you can see a Ferris wheel. This one is special, because it's the largest one in Japan, or so they told me, at 112.5 meters tall. I didn't know it was here, either, but we decided to give it a ride. Like I said before, Twilight LOVES to see the city from above. Sure, she can fly up anytime, but chances to do it with me are few and far between, so I had hardly finished explaining what it was before she was rearing to go.

When we got to the gate, they took our picture. It's the first one anyone's ever taken of us together, for our benefit, anyway. I'll include it at the end, too.

---

Here we are in our gondola. TwiTwi found herself a friend to take in the view with.

---

And what a view it was! The pictures, clockwise from top left are: shortly after boarding, on our way up, looking... southerly, I believe. The next 3 were taken at the top: looking northerly, southerly again, and northerly. It's amazing how quickly 15 minutes will pass with a nice view and excellent company!

---

After the ride, we wandered through the shopping center that was between the wheel, and the aquarium proper. There was a Lego themed attraction, and a store wall-to-wall with Legos of every description. We browsed the store a bit but decided to forgo the Legoland, and continued onward to the main attraction, Huzzah!

Emerging into the bright sunlight, we found a wide courtyard with some benches, and small, overly-pollarded trees. This is looking at the aquarium, ticket office, and dock for the sight-seeing cruise. Said cruise was filled with noisy kindergartners, so we didn't stick around.

---

There's something this aquarium is famous for, other than Ferris wheels and Lego giraffes: Whale Sharks! Apparently, they're really difficult to keep alive, but this place has one. Here's Her Royal Highness, getting a plankton's-eye view of the world's largest fish, right outside the main entrance.

---

A little way in, past the lockers, stamp-stations, and gift shop, there's a tank built like a tunnel. It's an elongated, inverted "U" shape, and it had a trio of sharks sitting on the acrylic, right over our heads. That was a pretty neat introduction to the place, but there wasn't a way to get a photograph, especially since all the aquariums visitors have to squeeze through this thing.

I managed to get this pic of Twi posing by one of the sharks on the ground. The aforementioned trio were still up there, eyeing us while we took it. Oh well, if they want to be famous they shouldn't hang out in unphotographable parts of the tank, should they?

---

Once through the tunnel-tank, and a few more actual tunnels, you emerge in to the "Japan Forest Exhibit." Pretty neat, actually. This is where the otters, giant salamanders(they're as big as they are ugly!), and tiny crabs live-more on them later. This tree is of course, fake. But I noticed that it's also part of the climate-control system, and cold air was gushing from the hollow branches, and holes in the trunk. Kudos to whoever thought of that!

---

These are the crabs! They're about 3cm across, dull orange and cream colored, and, coolest of all, they spend their lives climbing up and down waterfalls devouring the moss and algae that grow on the rocks. Did you know there were waterfall-climbing crabs out there? We didn't!

There are 2 crabs in this pic, but they're hard to see. The easiest one is right above Twiler's left ear, snuggling under a tiny ledge in the wet stones. If you look down the waterfall, there are a lot more clustered at various points, but this was the best shot I could actually get. Ce'st la vie.

I'll post a pic of the crabs circled as an attached file after I've posted the others, so don't open it if you want to find them on your own.

---

Beyond the forest, through tunnels and darkened rooms. We saw seals, fish, dolphins, and lots, lots more, but it was so crowded, and not many places for my lady to pose. This terrible pic was taken at the tail end of the "Great Barrier Reef" exhibit. It was the first place that we had room to snap something, and I was worried the rest of the trip would be like this. Well, never fear...

---

Just around the corner, actually, the hall opened up. A new exhibit also began: the "Seto Inland Sea." Here's an octopus, busily doing octopus things.

---

And here it is: Rhincodon typus, in the flesh. It's a lot smaller than I thought. That's not to say it's little, though. I'd guestimate it at being between 4 and 5 meters. Wikipedia says they get much larger, but the scientific name on the wiki doesn't match the one on the placard at the aquarium. I think. So maybe they're different kinds?

Anyway, it was friggin' cool, and Twilight and I stood for 20 minutes, maybe, just watching it make its slow circuits of the tank. I didn't know there were benches further along! My injuries started acting up again, and Twilight, bless her heart, said she wished she was here in her real body so she could carry me. She's so thoughtful.

I did point out that she probably couldn't carry me, since I'm so much bigger than her. Know what she did? She just laughed, called me her silly adorkable human, and sweetly chided me for not realizing she would use her magic to float me along.

She also reminded me that as an Alicorn, she has the innate physical-magics of an earthpony, and the weight-altering magics of a pegasus, so she actually could carry me quite easily if she so chose thank-you-so-very-very-much-indeedy-do.

That's my girl!

There was also a particularly large stingray in this tank, bigger than the manta ray, even. The placard called it a Whip Ray. Anyway, it kept returning to our "window" and would park itself vertically, and we'd watch it's gills and mouth alternate open and closed. It never stayed long, but it always came back, and when we moved on, it kind of followed us.

I don't know why I didn't take a pic of that. Poor fella probably wanted some attention.

---

More whale shark: coming, going, and a nice full-body shot.

---

See, horse? Sea horse!

Actually, it's considered rude to call a pony a horse. In Equestria, horses aren't any more sapient than they are here, and ponies look at them in the same way we look at monkeys, or apes. But Twilight says it's ok this time.

Anyway, these are the only sea horses in the whole place.