9/27/14: Monterey Bay Aquarium, Gift Shop Haul (Birthday Trip Part Eight)

Usually, gift shops have tacky, overpriced items. There were women's shirts but the designs are the usual cheap-looking souvenir shirts. However, the men's section has better stuff. I got this shirt in small. It's still a little big but I was thinking that I could just modify it like I did to the men's Pulp Fiction shirt that I own.  There were more designs but this is the one that Q and I both like.

Now that I look at it, I'm not very sure if I still want to cut it up so that I could wear it. I'm thinking of just giving it to Q. I really love the freedom of both being able to wear men's small shirts bring us.

This is another thing I got from the aquarium. It's not unique to the Monterey Bay Aquarium but I've always liked papercraft, cards and postcards. Most of the time, I buy myself postcards from places I visit and if I have the chance, I send it to myself from there. So I bought this card, wrote myself a cheerful message and sent it before we headed to the freeway that will take us to L.A. I would have preferred to send it in the post office of Monterey Bay but it was the weekend when we went and they were closed already by the time we got out of the aquarium.

9/27/14: Monterey Bay Aquarium, Tentacles Exhibit (Birthday Trip Part Seven)

What's another marine creature I'm in-love with? Octopuses. Of course, the aquarium did not disappoint. Here's the Tentacles Exhibit. Before the octopuses though, here are more impressive marine creatures.

Bigfin Reef Squid

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Can you believe that the dark-brown ink of this Common Cuttlefish was the same sepia ink onced used for writing and drawing?

Also, my friend said it looks like Benedict Cumberbatch. #accurate

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Again, with another help from the Aquarium's twitter, I have confirmed what octopuses are in these next two photos. They even provided the links to the animal guide! How extremely helpful!

This Day Octopus looks different from the ones they have on their Animal Guide so I'm guessing this might be an albino one. They boast that these octopuses are really active and might be the most entertaining to see but this octopus was just chilling in that rock for the couple of minutes we stared at it. I wish I could've seen it in action but it's all good. Still looked amazing!

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This cutie in a jar is a Veined Octopus. And this octopus was from the Philippines. Just like me!

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Last but definitely not the least is the Giant Pacific Octopus. This octopus wasn't part of the Tentacles exhibit but I decided to put it under this post anyways. It was really really stunning. I wanted to keep watching and recording but I didn't want to hog the space. There were a lot of visitors wanting to see it so we decided to move along after adoring it for a couple of minutes.

There were still a lot of interesting things in the Aquarium but these are what personally appealed to me. I also want to encourage you all to check it out for yourself! There were so much to see and these photos and videos will never ever be able to give justice to the experience I had there. We spent the whole afternoon there which wasn't very hard to do considering how magnificent everything there is. I thought that it would be one of those places that I wouldn't care for in the next couple of years but I couldn't wait to go back. I want to go back.

9/27/14: Monterey Bay Aquarium, The Jellies Experience (Birthday Trip Part Six)

I think jellyfishes are one of the most fascinating creatures on Earth, inherently gorgeous and beautiful. A friend from class described them as "therapeutic" and I would have to agree.

I cannot express how much I enjoyed these Sea Nettles. There was a lot of them in each tank and I think I spent the most time just standing there and watching them move.

I promised myself that I will someday get rich and have a huge jellyfish tank as a bedroom wall.

However, these beautiful creatures are one of the dangerous ones. Their frilly tentacles are basically "mouth-arms" that are covered with stinging cells used to paralyze the prey and bring it closer to the mouth. Well, I was glad I was outside the tank. Haha.

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These ones are called Moon Jellies. Judging on their color, it seems that the aquarium feeds them crustaceans. 

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This one is a Crystal Jelly. They're really small and I'm lucky I got a decent photo of it. They're very luminous thanks to their tiny light-producing organs that light up their outer bell.

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Aside from the jellyfish exhibits in the general area, the Monterey Bay Aquarium also had this separate exhibit featuring only jellyfishes, The Jellies Experience! I don't know if this is a permanent thing but I definitely felt very lucky to be there while an exhibit like this was going on.

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If I'm not mistaken, this is a South American Sea Nettle. Monterey Bay Aquarium boasts to be the first one to display them!

See them for yourself with the Monterey Bay Aquarium live cam or you could check out my video below.

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These cute jellies are Spotted Jellies. I didn't witness it myself but apparently, small fishes sometimes hide in the bellies of these jellies to protect themselves from predators until they mature. 

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Speaking of cute and round jellies, here's some Blubber Jellies. Apparently, these ones are edible if dried and processed correctly. The Chinese believe that it helps lower high blood pressure.

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Not anemone, not corals. They're Upside-down Jellies! Ocean sunfishes eat these jellies. (We saw an ocean sunfish in the aquarium's Open Sea exhibit and our friend was right for describing it as a steak with a face. Haha. Unfortunately, I don't have any decent photo of the ocean sunfish to show you.)

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I didn't take notes on each and everything there so I had to look up the names of those I couldn't remember. This one probably took me the longest. At first, I thought it was a Sand Jelly but it's actually an Indonesian Sea Nettle. I really enjoyed watching these. They're so beautiful and elegant.

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Another stunning jellyfish is this Lion's Mane Jelly. They can grow very big up to eight feet in diameter and a hundred feet in length! I definitely want to see a jellyfish that big!

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Straying away from big jellies, here are some tiny Cross Jellies. Apparently, they grow up to four inches but these ones I've seen are baby-sized.

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What's this Pokémon?! It's not a Pokémon but a Lemon Jelly! When I saw the Monterey Bay Aquarium's monthly wallpaper of this, I thought we missed seeing it but when I went through my photos and videos, it seems that we actually did! It just looked slightly different in the well-taken photographs in the aquarium site. 

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These gare Flower Hat Jellies. They look really impressively glowy in the exhibit but I wish we saw them lit differently since they look gorgeous in photos I've seen online.

To be honest, I still couldn't believe what I saw there. If I ever had the opportunity to see something beautifully surreal in my childhood, I would've probably went to marine biology or something. In fact, everything we saw there was so unbelievable that this happened:

See this jelly?

This post took longer than expected because of all the video uploading and all but mostly because I needed to find out what each jellyfish was. I could not figure out what this one was that in my desperation, I tweeted the aquarium to find out.

I was so embarrassed! I don't know what possessed me to not realize that these were lamps. I completely forgot about it until the tweet confirmed that it wasn't even a living thing. I hope they didn't think that I was trying to prank them or anything. I was just tired, I guess. 

But let's not talk about that. I'm really amazed with the Monterey Bay Aquarium in every way. They're doing social media right! Nothing beats responsiveness and helpfulness. Thank you so much to the kind soul that paid attention to me! My next post which is going to be about the Tentacles exhibit will also be complete with the right names thanks to him/her! Thanks again and hope I'll be back soon!

9/27/14: Monterey Bay Aquarium (Birthday Trip Part Five)

I was most excited about this part of our trip. I heard from Q that the Monterey Bay Aquarium is impressive and he doesn't exaggerate so I looked forward to it enough to skip a trip to the Manila Bay Aquarium when I was visiting the Philippines.

The entrance itself was already pretty satisfying. Cannery Row was just right outside but the Aquarium still made an effort to incorporate its aesthetic in the interior.

The first thing we saw was the Sandy Shore and Aviary.

It astounded me how much effort they put in recreating the natural habitat for these animals. I've always liked going to zoos and animal exhibits to see the animals, but I never liked the feeling that most zoos and exhibits just seem to provide another kind of prison for the animal. Sure, it saves that species from hunters and natural predators but most zoo setups are evidently cages and closed spaces. I think, the Monterey Bay Aquarium did an excellent job in designing their exhibits in a way that emulates an open space and encourages the feeling of freedom. 

The next couple of photographs are just other things we saw in the aquarium. I actually have much more than these but I had to pick only a few.

We saw some pretty interesting things that we found hilarious.

Like these tempura looking things.

There are these fishes who are just very happy to see us...

And these fishes who don't want to deal with visitors at all.

"I'm not here, go home."

Of course, they took advantage of the Finding Nemo fandom too. The kids were very amused~

(Finding Dory)

(Finding Nemo)

Another impressive thing we found in the aquarium was the Kelp Forest. Take notice of the school of fishes in the background. I couldn't remember exactly if they were Pacific Sardines or Northern Anchovies and I regret that I don't have a close-up photograph that would help me recall. 

I've always seen it on TV or books but I never saw it in person. My year of Marine Biology in high school didn't teach me how fishes know what formation to take but watching it happen was so mesmerizingly incredible. In the photo below, they broke their former formation, headed lower into the Kelp Forest and started forming a tornado-like shape.

(Fishnado!)

(Swimming in circles.)

I found this fish particularly amusing as well. I wish I took a video because this photo cannot show it but this fish was just bobbing up and down the water like it's trying to swim upwards but it can't. Haha. You can also still see the school of fish in the background.

Another thing I enjoyed so much are the sea anemones. I really appreciate how the exhibits in this aquarium do its best to compliment the wonderful things in it. They make sure that the lighting and arrangement of each and every exhibit displays the creature inside it in the most appealing way.

(Barbie colors.)

Aren't they beautiful?

I might be biased but those aren't even the most gorgeous things I've seen there. On my next post will be my most favorite marine creatures in this world. Jellyfishes!