Osaka Bay Area - Tempozan

We had so much fun visiting Tempozan area which is a newly redeveloped part of the Osaka Bay. It has much tourist attractions being located next to each other by the sea. We used our 2-Day Unlimited Pass and enjoyed all the attractions for FREE. They have the world's largest Osaka Ferris Wheel, Suntori Museum, Osaka Aquarium and Boat Cruise on board the ancient "Santa Maria" ship. The weather was perfectly cool and cloudy that afternoon. I loved it.

We rode the Ferris Wheel first, to enjoy the spectacular view and breathe the cool Spring's air. The higher we went, the tighter we squeezed! We could see the entire view of the Osaka's Bay Area with bridges across. It was quiet as we chose to visit on a weekday. The weekends are still packed with local tourists instead from neighboring cities. The foreign tourist arrivals have dropped significantly since the big earthquake and nuclear leakage. Some souvenir shops there hung the signs - "OSAKA 100% RADIATION FREE!!"...

 

My wife was wearing fresh flowers! Isn't she cute in this Spring Collection of Eco-Dress?... Some cubicles provided Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse inside for the visitors to hug in case they got frightened of the height. When our Ferris Wheel stopped at the top, I wanted to vomit as it was rocking because my friends and I shook it violently. What a bunch of idiots!

 

 Who is adorable and cuter? Mickey or Twilight Man?

 

We got off from the Ferris Wheel and proceeded over to the harbour to wait for the arrival of the ancient Portugese ship named "Santa Maria". It was really a huge ship with a big restaurant inside complete with a spacious comfortable conference room. There was a deck outside for the passengers to sit and view the scenery. It was my first experience taking a short cruise on board a ship!

 

Ahoy! Meet the ship's "Captain Twilight Man" from Selangor Darul Ehsan!.... Kekekeke

 

We under passed the same bridges twice and the entire port city looked boring and grey! Somehow it was relaxing and I enjoyed the cool breeze. The whole cruise lasted less than an hour. We headed to the Osaka Aquarium next.....

 

 

I must say that this Osaka Aquarium is bigger than the ones in Langkawi Island or Hong Kong's Ocean Park. It was an eye opener for me to see so many exotic & very weird creatures living deep in the ocean's bed where it is completely dark without sunlight reaching beneath! The fishes and other urchins could glow by itself. Isn't that very amazing??? No need batteries to light the fishes and squids up!

There is a huge indoor rain forests complete with beautiful landscaped waterfalls and rapids. It was an awesome and nice sight to see the animals like sea lions enjoying themselves inside! The Japanese Mandarin Ducks are so beautiful and colorful like faked ones! Muahahaha.....

Their penguins sanctuary was the biggest I had ever seen with so many species of penguins huddled together. Before this, I didn't know that Penguins have so many species and races! They probably had inter marriages and more exotic species were born.

They also kept a wide variety of lizards including several Chameleons and some even flashed their wings out like a Batman! I had instant goose bumps seeing that! Blergh!

There was a fish that glued itself atop the giant Stingray fish which acted like a taxi. The bottom right was a weird looking crab with long tentacles. You could see the darkness of that photo which meant it lived deep on the Ocean's floor bed.....thousands of feet below!

Aha! These are the luminous Squids that lighted themselves in darkness. They looked so long & wavy and moved gracefully as if they were under water dancers from Leningrad's Ballet! Beautiful!

Here they explained to the visitors how thick the acrylic glass were used in the aquariums that contain 5,400 tons of water!

This right squid looked like old priceless Ginseng roots! The Buddhists believe in 'reincarnation of lives' and I kept thinking what karmic effects could produce such ocean beings? I really felt very sad for them.