The COEX Aquarium

I love aquariums.

I mean, they terrify me, especially in any part with enormous tanks or underwater tunnels. I've seen one too many "mild peril" scenes in films where the glass cracks and all the fish escape to reclaim their domain from the tyrannical grip of humans.

But I also love them, in the way that I can just see thousands of different fish, going about their business being all colourful and...swishy. Fish are also disgusting and sometimes I freak myself out if I look too closely at them. Scales are weird, fins are weird...have you ever looked inside a fish's mouth or eye? Those are weird too.

I'm not really selling the idea that I love aquariums, am I?

I do. In the same way I love bugs but also simultaneously want them all to die. I find bugs and fish fascinating and could watch them all day, but at the same time I never want one less than 5 inches away from me without there being some kind of protective barrier between us. If I could exist in a bubble where nothing would ever touch me, that'd be ideal, yeah.

And no, I can't walk in the sea or on grass barefoot, thanks for asking.

Anyway, before we get any further into my weird, contradictory likes and dislikes I'm going to tell you about the time I went to the aquarium with my friend Kiegan.

Chuseok | Osaka Day 2

We left Mako-chan at home to guard the apartment. He seemed pretty happy to do so.

We woke up and had a good lie-in (about 10am, oh how times have changed) before going out. We decided that we wanted this holiday to be a little bit more spontaneous and less hectic than the previous one, so we had a list of places we wanted to visit and a rough schedule but nothing set in stone.

A cute little drawing of a cicada near our building. I can only assume the writing says "HI, I'LL MAKE MAEMMAEMMAEM NOISES UNTIL YOUR EARS BLEED AND YOU GO INSANE"

I thought this looked too perfectly anime to NOT take a photo of.

We decided to go to the Osaka Kaiyukan, one of the world's largest public aquariums. I hadn't been to one in ages, so I was really excited.

So was Haru, so we brought him along for the ride.

 The ride from Shin-Osaka to the bay area was easy enough, and the huge aquarium was also pretty easy to find. With an incredibly tall ferris wheel right next door, the area as a whole is hard to miss.

KAIYUKAN

Before going in we decided to have some breakfast (I guess technically brunch by this point) so we went into the little shopping complex nearby and headed for the food court.

Culture Class | Fish and Freedom

So this week (ish, I'm behind, good start) has been dedicated to superheroes and fish. I'd mentioned to Nick a while ago that I do actually want to read Wonder Woman at some point so he went and got me the books for the current New 52 series, which has pretty pictures and scantily clad gods and goddesses. Cool.

Also, to my shame, we're continuing with our "Why do you like Avengers so much, the individual films are so much better" education. Having finished Captain America and Thor, we moved onto Winter Soldier this week.

I'm loving Wonder Woman. It's just the right amount of creepy and gory and superhero-y, and the designs are all weird and cool enough that I actually drew some fanart. So you know it's good by my book.

Captain America was pretty good, a nice balance of funny and "omg nooooo!", although the shine was taken off when a car chase/accident sent me into a panic after the slightly traumatic events witnessed in the summer vacation. [I'm not going into detail about that anywhere. I'll just say it was scary to see, and "road users on small vehicles, use your goddamn crash helmet and pads".]

Today's food is fish. Just fish. We decided to branch out and buy a fillet of what we thought was mackerel. I like mackerel. I don't think it was mackerel. There were a lot of bones...even on the outside?

But if you can get something a little bit more similar to mackerel, I just heated a pan with some oil in it, threw in some chopped onions and garlic, maybe a tablespoon full of soy, and fried it until they were nice and soft (can't tell about browning because of the soy).

Then I put the chunks of fish in, salted on both sides, skin side up. Not too hot, because I don't want things to stick and burn, but not too cool because I need this to cook quickly, haha.

Fish cooks quickly anyway, which is why it's good, so after a minute or so, if the colour of the meat has changed a bit fairly deep into the middle, I flipped it and turned up the heat to crisp the skin. Overall, I was cooking for about 25 mins, and the fish was in there for all of 10-15.

We just served it up with rice because, again, we're lazy ;p

Not many photos bc there wasn't much way I could make a pile of pan fried fish in a ricebowl look good. And nobody wants to see raw fish with bones everywhere. I've got a few more posts from vacation to do, so I'll get on that!

Seoul Food | Sushi in Sushi

So a couple of times now, we've walked down one of the main roads in Bupyeong and I've spotted a sushi restaurant on one of the upper floors of a building, descriptively named "Sushi in Sushi". It turns out that it's an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet, and for a weekday dinnertime meal, it'll cost you 14,900₩ per person. That's about £9 per person, and on a busy day you have an hour and a half to stuff your face with as much food as you like.

We just went in, asked for a table for two (and by asked, I mean they made a face that said "how many?" and we held up two fingers), and were seated in seconds. A few moments later, one of the assistants appeared with a little green card.

Too cute!

But yeah, there's a machine for coffee and water on one side, and a fridge and soda machine on the other (we didn't spot this until we were leaving, sadly.)

There's a great range of traditional and creative nigiri and maki creations, and it all tastes a darn sight better than any of the stuff I've had in restaurants (or god forbid supermarkets) at home. It's not a patch on the fresh and expensive stuff I had in Australia, but then again, look at that price.

In addition to the rows of sushi, there's also a nice salad bar (overlooked by a cute little bowl housing two tiny terrapins), and some hot food including the best potato wedges I've had since moving here, and some very spicy chicken. All of it is constantly being replenished by a pair of chefs in an open kitchen area in the middle, in small batches so it's never been sat out for too long.

To top it all off, there's a waffle station at the back, and a row of wonderfully soft and fluffy cakes, and ripe fruit for dessert.

I'm definitely going back again!