Australia - Day 4 - The Sydney Aquarium

The Sydney Aquarium is suppose to be one of the best in the world.  Given th fact that it borders the ocean and the Great Barrier Reef is part of the country you would kind of expect that.  It definitely upheld its claim to fame.

I started walking across town around noon and had to trek through busy downtown Sydney. Which sounds lick a hassle but I love this city! Beautiful buildings, trees everywhere and loads of styling, sexy people!  So I tossed on some short shorts and a sleek black V-neck (as well as my sunglasses, always need the shades) and tried to fit in with the crowd.

On my way I walked through an open air mall, that was just packed with people, and was approached by a man holding a book. Most people just throw up there hand and walk by, but I have no schedule and I'm not in a rush so I stopped and had a little chat.  Turns out the guy was Canadian and was giving away free books. He was a monk from Indian, serving Krshna, and the book was The Journey To Self Discovery. So I gave him the last of my Canadian money as a donation and gladly took the book with me.  I've started to read it since and it is amazing. Some parts are just to much to grasp and a little to extreme but it speaks of material possessions and the lack of happiness that comes along with them. The age of consumption and  how it denies a person true happiness.  The point is this book is truly eye opening and if travelling through a foreign country by yourself isn't a journey of self discovery I don't know what is.  So I'm pleased to keep reading and will take what I can from Srila Prabhupada's philosophy.  I invite anyone who's interested to check out this book.

Anyway, on to the aquarium!  I went by myself to ensure I could leisurely take my time and grab a photo of whatever I wanted with my new camera (which is my most favourite thing ever!!!!).  At the entrance they offer a photo for you and your family. Well I was by myself and didn't want to look like a loner so I asked the ticket girl to join me.  She gladly 'jumped' in :)

For those of you who haven`t seen my facebook, jumping photos are my favourite! There will be more, I promise.

So I started working my way through the various tanks and displays.  They are are gorgeous and very well kept.  I was so impressed at the end I asked the front desk about job opportunities and with my experience I could work with the fish! So Sydney, I`ll likely be back again!
`
These are some of the fish I ran into:

Polyp Anemone

Green Sea Horses

Some sort of ray

Octapus

The Sydney Aquarium foretells possible evolutionary tracks of life.

Heading to see the mermainds - they have these huge tunnels that you walk through and everything is just swimming above and below you.  So cool!

Sting ray - weird face

Sailfin Tang

Monos

Foxface - venomous

Goatfish - I think

Find Blindside!

Dori!  Blue/Hippo Tang

Dewgong!  Now he's a little heavy so he's doing some crunches....

So exhausted he's blowing bubbles 

They only eat sea grass and are most closely related to elephants

Weedy Sea Dragon

Leafy Sea Dragon

Two baby sharks

Stonefish -  difficult to see and very venomous...so not a great combination

Pineapple Fish - a deep water fish covered in armor that used glowing red patches under its eyes to catch its prey. The red is produced by bacterial fluorescence.

A very large Hermit Crab -  as big as my fist!

A very interesting lobster that has evolved shields instead of claws.

A pair of mourning cuttle fish.  These guys are almost always found in pairs and are very small, only about 4 inches long.

I managed to capture a photo of the female feeding on tiny shrimp! They have to extensible tentacles that they use to capture prey.

Old Wife fish - venomous

Yellow Barred Leatherjacket

Three Barred Porcupine Puffer

A huge Sea Turtle living with the sharks!

Emperor Angelfish

Blue Fin Tuna - one of the most expensive fish in the world - one just sold on the asain fish market for      $350 000!  Mother ****!

A huge tank with tons of fish  and sharks.

Black Tipped Nurse Shark

Look at those teeth!

Lego Land sponsors the aquairum

All in all my trip to the aquarium was a spectacular day! So much to see, it wasn't that packed and I even got a deal on the photo package I bought because the girl in the photo sold it to me :)