London Aquarium

Helen and I went to London Central. First, we had a look in the IMAX cinema to see if we could get the ticket for Polar Express 3D, as recommended by Flor. Unfortunately, it was not on screen on Tuesday. We weren't interested by other films on screen. Heading to London Eye instead, we found there were lots of people queueing for the tickets. Being not sure about riding it during the day or in the evening, we visited the Aquarium instead.

The interior decorations and facilities in the Aquarium isn't new. Some tanks are even in reconstruction. The aquarium has only 2 levels. There is a big pool with 2 storeys showing animals living in Pacific Ocean including sharks, e.g. the scary-looking one in the picture on the left is called "Sand Tiger Shark". Also, there is a touch pool in zone 7 for people to touch the Rays. But you have to touch them with wet hands and you need to watch out your fingers (Reading the notice, I guess they might bite our fingers). This touch pool is the most exciting thing in the Aquarium. There is a robot fish in zone 6. Hooray, artificial intelligence!

Having seen the film "Finding Nemo", everyone get to know Nemo the orange fish. However, its scientific name is Clownfish, an invertebrates who "can happily live within the stinging tentacles of the poisonous anemone that can kill larger fish" (copied from the London Aquarium Visitor Guide). Wow... what a indomitable and dogged kind of fish! Now that you might know why the film-makers made Clownfish as Nemo in addition to his lovely orange colour and black 'n' white stripes. I was also excited by jellyfishes floating in front of a blue background. It'd be nicer if they could have more jellyfishes.

In sum, I would be quite relunctant to recommend the London Aquarium to you, but you could go there when you're extremely bored only because it has the touch pool. There were no touch pool in Valencia Aquarium in Spain, the largest Aquarium in Europe and Ocean Park, Hong Kong. The touch pool is not a very new idea for Helen because you can touch many animals in Mainland China. She said she was once kiss by Sea Lion. There are Bears who could put their arms around your back and shoulders. I also saw a photo of one of my aunts, taken in Mainland China, carrying and feeding baby white tigers with a bottle of milk. Anyway, Helen and I went to London not because we wanted to go anywhere specific, but we'd like to let steam off by getting out of Reading. At least the purpose is achieved once we got on the train, we've set a very easy target, indeed.

We've spent 3 hours-ish in the Aquarium. Then, getting back to Oxford Circus, we did some window-shoppings. As time goes by, we tried to look for a restaurant when the shops are closing down. Finally, and perhaps strangely for you, we decided to dine in Reading. A italian restaurant, STRADA, that I've never been to. We shared a rice and a pasta main courses and a Tiramisu dessert. I prefer the seafood rice to the basil pasta. Tiramisu was very nice, but fattening, I know. After dinner, we walked back home together so it wasn't that bad to have our dinner started at 10:00pm.

I've enjoyed a simple day in London and Reading.