Underground Aquarium

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Met up with this english guy Terry who I met up in the Bay of Islands and we headed over to Kelly Tarltons underground aquarium. It's built in some old sewer system underground. The big selling point for me was the penguins. There is a free bus that takes you out there and leaves from the sky tower. Apparently a lot of people wanted to take this free bus which isn't very big and we missed the first one as it was already full. It only comes once an hour so we walked around the sky tower for a bit and checked out the gift shop.

So, 2nd bus comes and a bunch of people are standing there and they all push us out of the way and we miss ANOTHER bus. Oh man I was getting ticked off. The driver remembered us from the first time so he said he'd come back in 25 minutes and do another run and make sure we get on. While we waited AGAIN we saw a bunch of cop cars pull up at the hotel there and then we find out the President of Vietnam is there with the police escort. Never saw him though.

Finally, the bus comes and we get on, thank god! Takes about 15 minutes to get there and you go straight underground. The first thing we went to do was go on a ride on a snowcat like thing that takes you through the penguin exhibit. They are soooo cute. I love penguins.

Saw some stingrays and sharks and a sea turtle. Other then that the aquarium is the same as any other one. They were playing a documentary film called Sharkwater so we watched part of it. It was really interesting and made me feel really sad for sharks. If you get a chance to watch it you should. I had no idea there was such a shark fin industry and how they are controlling the governments to allow this illegal fishing that is wiping out the shark population.

Caught the local bus back into town since there was a big wait for the free bus. Walked around downtown a bit before saying bye to Terry and going back to the hostel.

Chatted with a couple of girls here and just chilled before going to bed. But then 2 south african girls in my room came back in drunk and tried to get me to go out with them with these 2 american guys. I talked to the guys for maybe 5 minutes before I was so over them. I can only take so much "america is the greatest country ever" crap talk hahaha.

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Comments

[anonymous]

I LOOOVE the photo of the penguin looking at the camera under the water! It's awesome!!!

[Gail]

snowcats
Hey Laurene, where are you, its been days since you made your last entry on the blog. I am always thrilled to see an email that you have made a new entry.