Kenting Aquarium

As you've seen so far, our trip to Kenting was full of surprises, and the Kenting Aquarium (or is it is officially called, The National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium) was no exception.

The Kenting Aquarium is by far the best aquarium I have ever been to. It was absolutely amazing. The aquarium consists of three or four buildings set right next to the Ocean, complete with outdoor promenade and an authentic ocean breeze.

The best part of the aquarium, by far, was the coral reef section. This exhibit had the biggest fish tank that I have ever seen complete with THREE tubes for visitors to walk through (that's 3 tubes going through 1 massive tank!) to provide for amazing fish watching from all angles. It was spectacular.



Almost the entire coral reef exhibit was done in a sunken ship theme so you kind of felt like you were walking through a sunken ship, exploring the marine life that had taken up residence inside it.

One of the more unique things about the aquarium was that in some exhibits they actually simulated fish tanks with huge video screens hung on the walls that were playing videos of fish swimming by.

It sounds kind of lame, it's actually pretty cool. They used this set-up for instances where it would be very difficult or impossible to have actual fish tanks. So it kind of felt as if you were looking at a huge fish tank, but it was actually just a big video screen.


For example, here is a short little video of one of their fake fish tanks for viewing deep ocean bioluminescent fish:



pretty neat, huh?

After leaving the Deep Sea Exhibit (which consisted mostly of video screens) we headed to the Prehistoric Oceans Exhibit. As we walked through we saw more video screens and lots of recreations of extinct fish (interestingly enough, we learned that whales actually evolved from a land mammel that made it's way back into the sea!). At the end of the exhibit we were given 3-D glasses and ushered into a video theater, and I thought to myself, 'are you kidding me!'

I kept walking through the theater, not wanting to waste any of my time on something as lame as a 3-D aquarium movie, but as I reached the theater's exit, I realized that my friends had decided to stop and watch.... ugh!

So, I hovered at the edge of the room, waiting for my friends to loose interest.

As I watched impatiently, an ancient dinosaur-looking fish lunged towards me to gobble me up for lunch, causing me to let out a loud yelp! Thankfully, another ancient fish swooped in and saved me at the last minute!

Ok, so I have to admit, it was by-far the coolest 3D movie I have ever watched - we stayed in the theater to watch the whole thing!

I would definitely recommend the Kenting Aquarium to anyone who has the oportunity to go... it was awesome!

Here's a picture of a huge tank that had a ton of awesome fish in it, including a whale shark

and this is the two story kelp forest exhibit