After our trip to the Ocean Expo Park and Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium, I think I agree with Sebastian - "everything's better, down where it's wetter!" At least when it comes to viewing the extremely impressive Kuroshio Tank!
We opted to take the coastal road, instead of the one expressway on this island, hoping for some nice scenery. It took us about 1 1/2 hours to get to the Expo Park, driving the whole way along the water. It was gorgeous!!! We even finally found some of the resorts everyone's been talking about.
Thoroughly enjoyed the Aquarium. Our favorite exhibits were the Kuroshio Tank and the Aquarium Planetarium (very dark room where you could see the dea sea fish that actually light up). We loved the lantern eye fish! They looked a bit like twinkling stars.
We loved the dolphin show outside at the Okichan Theater! Very, very fun! And you just couldn't beat the backdrop of the real sea! We also visited the Sea Turtle Pool and Manatee Pool. The American Manatees were a gift from the Mexican gov't to the Japanese gov't. We had a good laugh over that.
Stopped for some yummy ice cream before we left the park. Brandon enjoyed his "Passion Fruit" and I liked the "Brown Sugar" ice cream. The beautiful drive back was the end of a very fun day. We definitely plan to go back - the Expo Park has several other exhibits we'd like to see (including a tropical and subtropical arboretum and botanical gardens, as well as two museums), watch the dolphin show, and we'll definitely visit the Aquarium to see the Kuroshio Tank again.
I've posted a bunch of photos from our day. Hope you enjoy!
---Arielle
