The first creatures you see after entering are fish, of all things, with the added bonus of being able to bottle feed the Koi, those large orange and white ornamental fish you typically see in Japanese movies and the like. There are also a whole pond of them at the Singapore Flyer too.
And yeah, as in use a baby bottle to feed them, instead of the more typical throw stuff at them.
Other tanks housed Elephant Sharks, various catfish, sturgeon, various stingrays and something you should look up, a 'Mandarin duck underwater' correctly called a Limulus, a sort of living fossil, like those hard shelled crab-like creatures you see from ocean fossils from the Jurassic era etc.
After that I walked down a corridor lined with portholes that had chinese descriptions of famous ocean explorers, the only one I managed to easily recognise was Captain Cook. At the end of this corridor was a large aquarium, suspended in it was a large love heart outline made out of fake flowers with fish swimming all around it. Quite a few couples had photos taken in front of it in the short time I was there.
More small aquariums with tropical fish and coral, one had a whole mess of Moray Eels curling around each other and yet another was a cylinder aquarium with a rotating 'chandelier' of shells that housed poisonious fish, such as the Lionfish, in it.
It was at this point I got the hurry on via a helpful employee, moving everyone through the rest of the building to where they had the last seal show of the day.
The show was pretty good, the seals where well trained and got fed well for their efforts. Did a good mix of humour and showmanship. Other than that, it was a seal show, with
all that entails. The music was VERY recognisable from movies, even the podium was a character from a recent kid's CG movie. As with everything, it was indoors and the crowd was kept in the dark. But so people could see a little, they had painted icicles on the support columns. These then glowed via the nearby ultra violet lights (those purple ones that makes your white clothes glow) and looked like they really were made out of ice, it was a neat effect.After the show finished and I battled the crowds some, I went back to where I left off at the fish aquariums. Standard aquarium fish were there with the most interesting being a few starfish affixed to a viewing window, next to sucker fish that were doing the same, so you can see how they affix themselves.
The next area had a shallow 'pond' you could watch seals just swimming in, with a helpful cartoon sign to remind you that seals will munch on your fingers should you give them the opportunity.
From there was the penguin room which. like the Singapore penguin exhibit, had a tank where you could watch the penguins on or below the water, or the ground behind that. Apparently they recently celebrated the first chick born there too.
Arctic foxes and their pups featured next, with the foxes in a small glass enclosure and the pups in a similar glass enclosure, that featured a large hamster wheel for one to run in. The foxes just circled their glass cage, it was depressing.
Going by the advertising, the polar bears are the headline act for the park, but their area was drained and under renovation when I was there. I could just see one at the back of the enclosure in a little cage. It looks like they do not get much room either.
The areas for the Arctic foxes and the polar bears were a bit depressing, but they had nothing on the tank allocated to the two Beluga's or White Whales. They had just enough room to circle over and over, not on top of the water, as there was not enough room, but like viewing a wheel of a car.
It made sense why this was so when the show started, as it gave the audience an easy close contained way to view the whales, as they performed graceful tricks with the trainer who was with them. You could choose to watch the show from above or below the water, with large LCD screens on either floor so you would not miss the action. To finish out the show they blew air rings from their blowhole, that expanded as they went up.
From there it was jellyfish of all sorts in large plastic tubes with various multicoloured lights on them, then through to the large aquarium featuring sharks, turtles, cod and various other large fish. Projected on the opposite wall was a fish screensaver that I don't think I've seen for like 10 years. A blank wall would have been preferable.
Running the gambit of souvenirs shops and eateries, I ended up outside where after a bit of worry, I managed to hail a cab and get back to the hotel.
All up, this place was depressing. While it's not run down, the animals look healthy and it's clean. It's just the lack of space for the animals. I can understand they want to give the audience the best possible view of the animals, or the lack of funds perhaps, but it was just so depressing that the animals should have had bigger enclosures. I know that's my opinion from what I've seen back home but I just came away from this place bummed out.
Kids would love it much more, as perhaps they won't be bothered by it.
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