Shinagawa Aquarium, Tokyo Dome City, and Kushiage

I can't top Sam's description of the rides at Tokyo Dome City, so I'll write mostly about the rest of the day yesterday. We started off by traveling to the Shinagawa Aquarium. This attraction is certainly not aimed at Western tourists, mostly because of location. It's off the main train lines, and it required a few train transfers to get to the station. Then, there are vitually no signs from the station to the aquarium. We were able to ask for directions from a police officer who communicated well enough where it was. Luckily, we found it, as it was very nice.

It's a small aquarium by US standards, but had some nice exhibits and was on very nice grounds.

There were two highlights from the visit -- the dolphin show and the underwater tunnel. The dolphin show as packed with school kids on a summer field trip. The dolphins did some tricks, and the kids loved it.



The tunnel under the water was also really nice. There were turtles, rays, and all sorts of fish swimming around you. You could walk through and see the sea life from many different angles.

The aquarium also featured penguins, sea lions, sharks, octopus, and many types of fish. It tooks us about 90 minutes to see it all, which isn't bad since we couldn't understand most of the text on the exhibits.

On the way back to the train station from the aquarium, we stopped for lunch at Yoshinoya. This is a Japanese fast food place that everyone visiting has to try once. It has a very limited menu, good, basic food, and lightning fast service.

We went from there to Tokyo Dome City to ride the rides, as Sam described. As a roller coaster lover, I have to say that Thunder Dolphin was a good ride. Kudos to Sam for overcoming her fear and going for the ride. I think she opened her eyes at least once or twice.

We then met some friends for a wonderful kushiage dinner near Shinjuku station. We had all sorts of fried delights: chicken, shrimp, beef, quail eggs, fish, fish eggs, asparagus, and more. Although all of the dishes are fried, there were very light. Sam tried them all, although she shared later that she hated some of them.

We also stopped by at an amazing store -- Takano Fruit Parlour. The web site doesn't get the message across -- this place sells $50 bunches of grapes and $100 melons. They grow each melon on its own tree (you can also buy one still on the tree). Not sure who buys such things, but there were people there buying things -- not us!