Tokyo Sea Life Park

Yesterday was the Kodaira City festival.  It was supposed to have vendors, food, mascots, and games for the kids.  We first heard about it a few weeks ago and have been excited to explore.  Unfortunately yesterday we woke up to a complete downpour of rain.  We were hoping the rain was going to lighten up so we could still try it but by mid morning the rain was only getting worse.  We decided to ditch the idea of going to an outside festival and go to an aquarium instead.  We decided to go to the Tokyo Sea Life Park.  We all bundled up in rain gear and gloves and headed to the bus station.  One bus, two trains, and two hours later we arrived at the station near the aquarium.  After two hours in the train we forgot how badly it was raining.  When we got near the doors we realized the rain had almost doubled in amount and intensity as when we left our house.  We couldn't see anything around us because the rain/clouds were so thick.

It was a ten minute walk from the station to the aquarium and in that time we all got drenched!  The umbrella I was using was broken on one peg.  Apparently while walking the material on that peg inched up and water was just dripping straight down my back.  By the time we got undercover the back of my coat and butt were completely soaked! Jeans don't dry very fast.

The entrance to the aquarium was a giant glass dome (this is a picture offline because it was too rainy and we were too wet to try and take a picture while walking!)

So you enter the dome and here everyone took off their rain gear and dried their umbrella and then headed down the escalator to see the animals.

The idea of an aquarium seemed great for a rainy day, however we forgot to keep in mind MArley's attention span.  Within literally 2 minutes he was saying hes ready to go.  Thankfully we were able to keep him occupied and interested in the fish to keep moving but we had to do so fast.

Here are some of the pictures I took!

This is a lump fish

I think he's my favorite! A leafy Seahorse!

Big bellied Seahorse and a Leafy Seahorse!

This fish buries into the sand to attack its prey

He is huge!

A giant spider crab

Hard to see but its the only octopus that was semi out.  Can you see him?

Baby Penguins!

Another hiding octopus.
Maybe they know I had some for dinner the other night and they were plotting revenge

Overall the aquarium was a lot of fun and we got to see some interesting sea animals.  And by the end it was time to go I was finally dry! Just in time to go back out in the rain and head back to the train station haha

Of course any day isn't complete without getting lost along the way.  We took the train from Tokyo station to Shimbashi were we stayed the first 4 days to visit a toy store.  From there it was supposed to be two trains and we'd be home by 5.  Transferring from the first train to the second was a fail.  We went out the wrong gates and couldn't get to the JR line from where we ended up.  We had to go outside and re-enter at a different spot.  It was now 5 o'clock, dark, ad raining.  We walked around aimlessly for a good 10 minutes before we found a map and a new entrance.  However, this station did not have a JR connection so we had to take yet another train in the opposite direction to Shinjuku to then catch the JR Chou. In turn it took us 5 trains and way longer than it should have but we made it home!