Sharks in Ginza!
I briefly alluded to the Sony Aquarium in an earlier blog post , but I’ll mention it again here because I happened to be passing by the other night and I took some photos of the current aquarium inhabitants.
Every summer, an aquarium is set up outside the Sony Building in Ginza and there is some kind of “theme” (this is the 43rd Sony Aquarium) . The 2010 theme is “Kuroshio” (黒潮), which is the strong Pacific current that sustains the coral reefs around Okinawa, so here’s what you can see curbside every day until August 31 (obviously, despite the title of this entry, it’s not just sharks):
White-tip reef shark (Triaenodon obesus) (ネムリブカ)
Malabar Grouper (Epinephelus malabaricus) (ヤイトハタ)
Zebra shark (Stegostoma fasciatum) (トラフザメ)
Moray eel (Muraenidae) (ウツボ)
Young tourist looking at the sharks (tempted to follow the pattern and put Homo sapiens here)
another angle of the same White tip reef shark
If you feel so inclined, you can also venture up to the 8th floor and catch the 3-D Sony Aquarium movie in which you can (as the Sony Aquarium website says):
Experience the dynamic Kuroshio (Japan Current), the Pacific equivalent of the Gulf Stream, on a giant 200-inch screen. See whale sharks and manta rays roam freely alongside myriad varieties of fish. Itfs so real, youfll feel like youfre swimming alongside a whale shark through the powerful currents of the Okinawan sea.
The link to the English site is here (and I’m happy to report they’ve updated it because it was horribly outdated when I did my earlier post) and the Japanese site is here. It’s worth clicking on the Japanese link for the very pleasing intro (which has some English subtitles as well).
For the technically curious, all of the above photos were taken with the silky smooth Canon 135 f/2.o L USM – a lens you will NEVER regret buying (but you will regret not having bought it sooner)!
There is definitely something quite fabulous about walking through Ginza late at night (or anytime, really), coming across a giant aquarium and then seeing the delight and wonder on people’s faces as they take a few moments out of their day to to marvel at what’s inside.
Little Creatures
Last night, I went to a local festival (I’ll post more on that later) and, just as I arrived and I was surveying the scenery, I turned to my left and saw this:
festival attendee with his two little friends on his shoulders
Speechless…
Middle of Tokyo. No doubt they were smuggled here in a paper towel tube or something else. What compels..?
Anyway, as for taxonomy, will take a bit of research. Some type of lemur, but that’s as far as I’ll venture.
EDIT: See comments, below. Thanks, Dave, for IDing the “little creatures”. Definitely marmosets based on this Wikipedia picture. (By the way, Dave is the creator of the awesome KanjiBox app – get it!)
Can Someone Answer Some Questions About Japan?
I don’t often end up on Yahoo! Answers (has anyone ever found a decent answer to anything there?), but, for some reason, found myself landing on a page there quite a few months ago: a list of questions about Japan put together because the person posting them is “writing a story that I guess in a way is like a manga, but no pictures, and of course, it takes place in Japan.“
Yes, “of course”.
And what, exactly, does “like a manga, but no pictures” mean?
Anyway, here is the list (I thought about blurring the icon and name to protect the innocent, but, hey, it’s posted on Yahoo! Answers for all to search and see):
Clearly, this is where we all chime in with the old adage “Write what you know”.
I’m pretty loose in my application of the “write what you know” approach – I think great things can be written about places one’s never physically visited, but, obviously, you know, that would require RESEARCH.
I’m not sure which of these made me laugh the hardest, but I can definitely say that, when reading #17, I did mentally answer: “No, thankfully, we are not all subject to the shockingly crappy cell phone service that some of you lucky U.S. subscribers suffer.”
When I went back to get the link for this blog post, I discovered that a few people had actually taken the time to answer the questions in a friendly, helpful, way.
Of course, when I went back, I had to click on another link for more hilarity:
Oh, don’t worry, ChiefOfAzns, you’ll be just fine when you embark on your globetrotting adventure…
