Tokyo's Incredible Designer Aquarium

Hey guys, welcome back to another video. Today we're at Tsumide Aquarium, which is part of the Tokyo Skytree Solomachi Village. It's really popular for its cute, fluffy penguins and its modern aesthetic and design. So on July 16th, 2020, they opened two new exhibits here at the aquarium. The new Aquabase, where you can see the staff feeding and caring for the animals. And also a new jellyfish tank, which is home to over 500 jellyfish. So I'm pretty excited to go and check it out. Let's go. Immediately upon entering the aquarium, you'll notice its striking yet minimalist design. Many of the tanks are also open top, so you're able to see the fish from all angles. So obviously the main purpose of the aquarium is to enjoy watching the fish. But personally, I enjoy looking at the landscape more than the fish. You know, the shape of the rock and the color. Look at this bar, for example, it's like the grass field in the water. It just makes me feel calm and peaceful. Extending on from the original jellyfish area is the new big Shade Pool, which is occupied by around 500 jellyfish of varying species. So we just came out of the new jellyfish exhibit. Really, really cool. What did you think, Yasu? It was amazing, right? I mean, like I was never a big fan of like jellyfish, but you know, it looks so unreal, exquisite. Yeah, it was very otherworldly. It's probably the best way to describe it. You know, all the rainbow lights shining through the jellyfish. Very unreal experience, I would say. So in English, it's called the Petri dish, and you can look from the top down and it's not shaped exactly like a Petri dish, but it's got a very kind of similar vibe to it. But it's got a different name in Japanese, right? Yeah, it's called Big Shade. Big is, you know, obvious. Shade is a Japanese word for Petri dish. Oh, OK. I think it came from German. Oh, interesting. Yeah. You learn something new every day, eh kids? After passing through the jellyfish area, you'll reach the main room of the aquarium. It's a fairly sizable space with tons to see, but everything is mainly centered around the large penguin enclosure in the middle. You'll start off on the upper floor where you can see the Water's Blessing tank, which is themed around the sea life that can be found in the waters around Tokyo's own Ogasawara Islands, which are located 1000 kilometers away from the mainland. There's also a wide variety of tropical fish to be found in the coral reef section, including some very inquisitive characters. So if any of you guys at home that also listen to our This Week in Japan podcast, you might remember a story from about two months ago during lockdown when these garden eels were feeling a little bit lonely due to the lack of human exposure. And you can actually apply for a competition to be able to FaceTime with eels during that event. Basically, they would hold an iPad up to the glass so they could experience some human interaction. But it's good to see they all look a little bit more lively now, poking their little heads out of the sand and happy to see all the humans again. Continuing along the walkway, you'll see you end up in the Edorium, which features a Japanese Edo era aesthetic and is dedicated to goldfish, which have a long and interesting history in Japanese culture. Yeah, this just reminds me of the kinkyosukui or goldfish scooping in the Japanese summer festivals. And basically, you use a paper scoop to catch these goldfish. And you can try as many times as you like. But when the paper breaks, then, you know, game over. The other new area in the aquarium is the Aqua Base, which features a kitchen where you can see meals being prepared for the animals and also get a close up look at how creatures like jellyfish are bred in the lab. This is the other new area called Aqua Base. And the staff member behind me told me that to avoid the crowd, they're not disclosing the feeding schedule. But if you're lucky, you'll actually get to see it. So one of the main attractions of this aquarium is its massive family of 58 penguins, super adorable, super cute, some kind of chilling on the rocks over here. And the rest of just really chilling out at the moment floating on the water. Yes, probably hanging out waiting for dinnertime. Although we didn't manage to catch any of the food preparation, we were there in time to see the penguin feeding. And as you can probably guess, with 58 mouths to feed, things can get pretty complicated. In fact, it takes three staff just to dish out all the fish and another two to keep track of who's had what. Okay, so you can see here this Sumida Penguin Soukanzu 2020. So Soukanzu is like a family tree or the diagram that describes the relationship between all these penguins. And for example, like this girl or woman called Makaron and this penguin called Anzu are like married. But Anzu used to go out with another male penguin called Yuzu. So they're like a male couple. But eventually they broke up and Yuzu got married with Vanilla, a female penguin. But Yuzu was also having an affair with Tsukushi, another female penguin. Yeah, things like that. And of course, on your way out of the aquarium, you can check out the gift shop. In celebration of the new Petri dish pool, the shop is stocked up with a whole bunch of brand new jellyfish merchandise, including a rather curious blue jellyfish tea. So that's the end of our virtual tour of Sumida Aquarium. What was your favorite part today, Yasu? I really enjoyed overall, but probably I'd say penguins. You know, they look really relaxed and happy, even though they live in the aquarium. Oh, true. They're definitely happy around feeding time that we caught just before we left. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. So what was your favorite part? I think for me, it was the new jellyfish experience, the Petri dish. Just visually, from a visual standpoint, very colorful, abstract. The music, the very dark room, just a very ethereal kind of feeling. It was really cool. I agree. Yeah. Okay, so thanks for watching, everyone. And make sure you subscribe to RyuTokyo for new videos every single week. So until next time, see you again. See you again.