So after Yoido and the Han River Cruise, we took the subway to the Co-ax Coex Mall. This is a rather big premium mall. They have exhibition halls too. At that time, I believe they had a car exhibition. But the posters didn’t say exacly where in the mall it was. Also, the mall is superbly big so we couldn’t just walk around till we found it.

There was this event held by the “Department of Family Services… something something”. We got free photos taken and after that we were supposed to write something to tie to the christmas tree there. The poor tree had its needles crushed from over-enthusiastic tying. I tried to tie mine on as gently as possible…

I still didn’t really get the purpose of the exercise. I guess having free photos taken and being able to write something that would be put on display will foster warm and fuzzy feelings towards the department…?

We had lunch there, as we were still hungry after that picnic with the school girls after the Han cruise. After finding the food court, Ray and I set about exploring the stalls, while Mokeun sat down for a rest. It was interesting because most of the signs were in Hangul, so I was testing out my very rudimentary hangul. In the end, Ray and I settled for a bowl of naeng myun. I was worried I didn’t order the right type, what if they gave us the most expensive dish??! In the end I resorted to pointing and gesturing (universal language~) just to make sure.

After lunch we had a bit of time to kill, so we went to the Apple shop there. Nothing really different from Apple shops in Australia or Hong Kong. I guess they are all the same.

After that, we proceeded to the Co-ax Coex Aquarium. It’s located right in the mall itself. I’ve also been a fish hobbyist so I always like going to aquariums.

There was a small temporary tropical fish exhibit at the front. We thought at first that was it, but then we went around a corner and discovered the entry into the aquarium proper.

There were a bunch of large tank displays for both freshwater and saltwater fish. They included your standard freshwater tanks as well as coral reef tanks.

Some of the tanks looked rather impressive, chock full with shiny pretty fish, all of the same species. But I have serious misgivings as to the wellbeing of the fish in those tanks. The fish looked overcrowded and slightly stressed (you can tell by the torn fins – they get it when they start to bicker among each other). The tanks that were overcrowded (in my opinion) were filled with species that are relatively common and cheap. I hope that the managers did not make the choose to have those exhibits because the costs of replacing the fish did not exceed the visual benefits of having the tank over-stocked.

Then there were themed exhibits such as “rainforest”. As you walk through it, there are waterfalls cascading, lots of over hanging trees and lowered tanks, so you can clearly see across the surface of the water as well as the fish there. The water was a bit smelly though, it really smelt of fish. Someone should clean out the filters.

The rainforest exhibit was quite large and it also had other animals too in their own tanks; reptiles such as snakes and large lizards and amphibians like frogs.

There was a kids’ area in the middle. I guess it lets the kids have a bit of a rest. Which was good for the bunch of kids that were on a class excursion when we were there. They were all Koreans, probably about 7 years old, and they attended the Seoul Canadian international school. So the Caucasian teachers were talking with them in very exagerated and emphasised English, I suppose trying in vain to get the kids to learn a bit of English. Well, I guess it works though, they could reply in heavily accented English, but they still talked among themselves in Korean. I really quite admire the teachers there. The young woman I saw still looked so enthusiastic. Those kids would have driven me insane.

Anyway, the little rest area also had tanks of “ice angels”. It’s some weird sort of pink organism; its natural environment is in the icy cold waters of the Antarctic (or possibly the Arctic). They’re really cute. They are really tiny, and they swim by flapping their “wings”, so they look like little cartoon angels. But they are pink, not white, so I would associate the colour more with a cute cartoon devil…
I’d have put up a photo except they all turned out horribly blurry >.shark egg case, also known as “mermaid’s purse” was pinned to the front of the tank and shone a light through it so you could see the baby shark wriggling inside. Then the next tank over shows another egg at a slightly later stage, the shark is beginning to eat its way out (or if it’s a bit older, the baby shark would have eaten its way out n you just see it lying at the bottom of the tank with the discarded egg case still pinned to the front). The last tank shows a bunch of newly-born sharks, swimming around in various states of energy. You can tell the younger ones are the ones swimming slowly; they look like their in a daze.

All in all, it was a bit pricey, and the exhibits weren’t all that unusual, but they were all big and there was alot of variety and that’s always impressive. So it was worth it. The entry fee was around 10,000 won (about 10 USD).