Coex Mall and Aquarium

I am pretty sure by now you are all aware that Korea is in many ways different than America. One of these examples is the way in which stuff tends to be organized. For example in America we might have several tourist destinations near each other, especially in a city, but we don't tend to locate them all in one building or mall. In Korea everything is connected and you are usually able to do several different things in one place if the mood hits you. That is how the Coex Mall is. This mall is enormous, and that word doesn't do it justice. First of all it literally has its own subway stop, it lets you off right in the mall. The mall contains not only lots of stores but, a book store that would put any Barnes and Noble to shame, a 3-D movie theater, a museum about Kimchi, a blood donation center, several doctors offices and dentists, a surgery clinic, a Duty Free and an Aquarium. We are not talking a few fish either, it was huge and took us a few hours to get through.

Our plan for the day was to go to the Aquarium. Many of my friends have been there and highly recommended it. I really do find it strange though that the Aquarium is in the mall. I mean in America that would just never happen, either you go to the mall or the aquarium, not one to get to the other. Anyway, when we got to Coex Mall we walked up to this beautiful shimmering plaza. It was all decorated for the Holidays with these stings of silver discs that reflected the sun light. It was so beautiful, even the Koreans were stopping to take pictures.

Welcome to Coex Mall.

The pretty things reflected light everywhere!

Once we entered the building we needed to locate the Aquarium which required finding a map. The maps were touch screen and interactive. You could change the language and scroll or search for your destination. We also used the signs to find our way. On our hike across this place we discovered lots of cool places to distract our attention. The best though was this awesome uber epic Hello Kitty Store!!!! Mike was not a fan of all the pink to say the least, but Giulianna and I had a blast. It turns out she is almost as cute and in demand as Hello Kitty. As soon as we went in the store she was mobbed by Korean ladies pawing at her and petting her, and telling her she was a princess. Anyways, Mike was right about the pink, it was almost like swimming in a bottle of Pepto Bismol, although you cant really tell by the pictures. But if there is something you want and you want Hello Kitty on it and its not in that store it doesn't exist. I mean I bought a really cool spatula/spoon with Hello Kitty on it and yes it is pink! They have clocks, car accessories, clothes, toys, kitchen utensils, toilet seat covers, pens, blankets, umbrellas, and the list goes on.

After our stop in the Hello Kitty emporium we finally found our way to the Aquarium.

The entry and ticket area are on one level and then you go up a big escalator to get to see the actual exhibits.

The entrance.

The first room of fish.

The puffer fish came to check Rhyon out. (According to the sign he was a Balloon Fish, gotta love translation!)

A lot of the tanks were open top. This was interesting, especially for Salt Water fish, you would never see that in the US because no one would respect that and all the fish would be dead!

After the first room Rhyon was so excited we decided to let him out of the stroller. This was a bit of a mistake on our part because he was so over excited that he couldn't contain himself and was running every where! I swear at one point I heard him say fish, but to this day I have been unable to get him to repeat it. There were a lot of really nice exhibits. I will share a few pics and try not to bore everyone with a million pictures of fish. It is always more fun to look at them yourself than look through 100 pictures someone took. The one exhibit that I am sure you will all find extremely comical will be pointed out below....

A very descriptive sign, again I love translation!

The kids looking at the fish.

Not sure why there was a chipmunk in the Korean, Korean Fish section but there was!

Rhyon loves watching fish.

Another cool open air exhibit. Rhyon had a blast going over the bridge 1000 times too.

Yeah that's a fish in the potty!

 I promised an exhibit worth looking at! The whole section was fish in things like sinks, refrigerators, beds, phone booths and even a computer. It was silly but very well done.

Close up!

Fish computer.

 There is a place here called the Dr. Fish Cafe and it is a cafe you go to to let the fish nibble your feet while you enjoy your beverage and they essentially give you a pedicure. We haven't been there yet but we will. Keep an eye out for that future post! Well the aquarium let you get a mini mani but testing your hand in the fish tank. Rhyon wasn't so convinced but the rest of us enjoyed it. The fish really loved me, I had a ton of them. The secret is not to move, which was lost on the kids.

Thats Giulianna in the lower left trying to get some fish!

My hand getting a nibble.

Trying to get Rhyon to do it, but he wouldn't keep his hand in.

The next big section was the Amazon. The whole area was pretty cool to look at. They had the biggest electric eels I have ever seen!

The Amazon (I just noticed you can see out into the mall from here!)

Really big Electric Eels!

Scuba Steve er Giulianna!!!

Yep putting your hands in would be a bad idea, after all it was an open air shark tank!

This was a very cool exhibit!

These were very weird looking manatees, they had strange eyes...

I wish the sign had some English on it so I could at least know some more info. Guess I better do some research and learn about "Asian" manatees.

Sign on the touch tank, HAHAHA Don't throw them! I just love the translation!!!

Cool tunnel thing. We saw a stingray swim over head!

It was clean the penguin exhibit day, so we didn't really get to see them and this was the last exhibit.

Giulianna wanted to see what kind of penguin she was as tall as.

The last few pictures are of the mall. Pretty much as described above.

An interactive touch screen map.

Surgical clinic anyone? Its right down the hall from the Outback Steakhouse and the TGIFridays!

Blood clinic very convenient!

Try out Wii Dance 2, Koreans rule at this game. They were so fun to watch, sorry no video.

Giulianna reading dinosaur train in Hangul! (Well reading about as well as she does in English.)

Close up of the page.

We have been up to so much I haven't had the time to blog as often as I should. There is still more to come. I have a lot of catching up to do....