Saturday began with a trip to Landmark to see Avatar with Sam, her sister and brother in-law. I don’t know if it was because it was my second time seeing it, but everything seemed much clearer and crisper than in Tucson. Whereas before most “blue cat people” shots seemed still too fuzzy and fake they now seemed closer to “the real.”
Afterwards we went to Noodle Planet in Westwood. Later we split up so that Sam and I could go to Long Beach and visit the “late night” event at the Aquarium of the Pacific. There were a ton of loud incorrigible uncontrollable children screaming and banging on the tanks. Often we were discouraged to see the “parents” banging on the glass and hollering both to wrangle their children (who were previously running wild) and to startle the poor animals on the other side to perform on demand. Occasionally there were a few children with big eyes and mouths agape in awe letting out nothing more than a quiet coo of fascination and wonderment. Very rarely did these children communicate their discoveries back to their parents in english or spanish.
The first floor of the museum had some large tanks and some outdoor touch tanks, but was fairly lackluster. Upstairs was where time really started to slow and we started to enjoy our visit. Upstairs there are several exhibits featuring the rarer creatures of the sea such as jellyfish, sea horses and giant spider crabs. Here are a few photos:
In one hidden corner there was a floor to ceiling half cylinder that a few visitors at a time could stand in. The cylinder had a ceiling about seven feet high that curved over. This feature was added so rays could lay on top of it underwater and we could look up at their curiously amusing grins, usually unseen.
The most annoying screaming I’ve heard in a long time occurred when children saw the spider crab tank. Although these creatures were scary looking, I can only imagine if they’d been the real deal version with a leg span of twelve feet. These minimonsters had a span of less than half that.
There were at least four different Jellyfish tanks.
throughout the museum there were a plethora of starfish suckling on the glass.
