Day 7 in Taiwan: Return of the Aquarium

Last day in Kenting, tomorrow we’ll be going to Tainan to visit family.

Breakfast was at the lodge as usual. Had some Dou Jiang coffee again, still good.

Breakfast at Kenting

We decided to attempt the aquarium again and got right onto the bus after breakfast. We actually got past the gates this time!

National Aquarium Sign

Interestingly enough, when we checked in at our lodge at Kenting and while getting into the aquarium, they checked everybody’s temperature using an external thermometer that looked something like a gun. It’s kinda interesting having the clerk point a thermometer gun at your head. I guess they’re really worried about H1N1 over here.

The National Aquarium has a lot of real estate. Huge fountains, lots of gift shops, a built-in convenience store and a Starbucks!

Convenience Store in the National Aquarium

Starbucks in the National Aquarium

We went into the main building of the aquarium and went straight for the “Waters of Taiwan” exhibit. Highlight of the exhibit was definitely the huge tank with the Whale Shark in it.

Whale Shark

Afterwards we went into the “Coral Kingdom” exhibit with lots of those underwater glass tunnels that aquariums have.

Underwater Tunnel and a Ray

At the end of the exhibit, there was this huge tank with a few really friendly Beluga Whales.

Beluga Whale

Ate lunch at this place in the aquarium facing the sea.

Aquarium Cafe

I had a set meal featuring a bowl of fried flying fish. Ironic considering that the restaurant had a flying fish motif. It wasn’t bad, but the flying fish tasted kinda…. normal? Was kinda expecting something more.

Fried Flying Fish Rice Bowl

After lunch we walked over to the “Waters of the World” exhibit which had its own building.

Waters of the World

The exhibits had everything from 3D movies of prehistoric fish (complete with 3D glasses!), to deep sea fish, to an Easter Island statue, to a Star Trek-style exhibit.

Angler Fish

Easter Island Statue

Sea Trek Bridge

Of course, the real attraction was everybody’s favorite Antarctic bird: the penguin.

Penguin Tank

Those suckers are fast, you wouldn’t think so from them just using their flippers, but they really move underwater.

Streamlined Penguin

Speedy Penguin

We left the aquarium after realizing that we pretty much had spent the entire day in there. Got back fairly late in the day and wandered around Kenting for a while. Had some Obama ice cream:

Obama Choc. Brownie Ice Cream

Pretty good stuff.

Got back to the lodge and realized that I had dropped my keys somewhere. Luckily, the only set of keys on there were to the lock on my laptop bag… but, my laptop bag had everything I wanted in there.

We eventually borrowed some pliers from the information desk and went to work:

Fail Lock

Looks like I’m going to be in the market for a new laptop bag soon.

The bright side to this whole lock business is that we got to see Kenting at night, when the main street and all the small stores are bustling.

Kenting at Night

We picked out this seafood place for dinner in pretty much this manner:

“Let’s eat seafood.”

“Okay.”

“How about this place? It has a light-up crab on it, must be legit.”

“Alright.”

Legit Seafood Place

In defense of our method, the place was pretty legit. Extremely fresh seafood, even got to pick out the fish to eat:

Fish: Before

Fish: After

The fish was delicious, really fresh and everything. I’m also a huge fan of whole fish, filet is for the weak.

Rest of Dinner

The rest of dinner was pretty good, too, black bean oysters and tofu, sa cha crab and leek, and vegetables like day lily buds (delicious yuri lily).

Not much to write about today but lots of pictures. We did seriously spend about the entire day at the National Aquarium, but, it was pretty cool, they pretty much had anything in the ocean over there.

It was kind of interesting how commercial the aquarium was though, most aquariums in the US will have a gift shop, but the National Aquarium here had at least a dozen gift shops, a bunch of stalls selling ice cream and the like, multiple restaurants, a convenience store, and a Starbucks.

We’ll be heading to Tainan tomorrow. I’m not too sure about the internet situation over there, so we’ll see if I can write or not tomorrow.