Today I took the boys to the Waikiki Aquarium. Gavin and I had never been there before, but Leif was a pro. He knew where all the cool stuff was and wanted to show us everything. We were given those hand-held tour guide controller things and Gavin used it for every display he could. When Leif figured out what it was, he did the same. He would find the numbers on the wall, punch them in to the controller, and listen to the man talk for as long as he could before wanting to look at the next display.
We each had our favorites that we wanted to stay and stare at all day long. For me, it was the jellyfish. Not the clear ones, but the ones that looked like they had bred with octopus. They were so fascinating. For Gavin, it was the clear jellyfish. There were 30 or so jellyfish in that tank and they were lit with a black-light so we would be able to see them better. He was also enamored with the octopus and the predator tank, which contained various sharks and other big mean looking fish. As a matter of fact, he had to sit and erase old pictures and videos off his iPod because he ran out of space. As for Leif, his favorite thing was outside at the reef tank where he was able to hold the hermit crabs and touch the sea urchin.
We spent almost 4 hours there looking at all the coolness in the tanks and learning about them and commenting on how ugly or pretty they were. In some of the tanks were fish that you had to search for because they blended in so much with the coral. Leif enjoyed playing find-the-fish and matching the fish in the tanks with the pictures below that contained the name of the fish and a blurb about them. The anemones were mesmerizing. They swayed and moved with the current while the fish just swam in and around them.
We had a really fun time. The kids both got to pick out something from the gift shop. Leif picked a semi-truck with “Waikiki Aquarium” stickers all over it. Gavin chose a wind up submarine that dives and surfaces on it’s own. We all left happy people.
