fishy situation.

ryan's brother, nicholas and his gf (brittany) came to chi-town for the wekeend. ryan and his bro discussed what they were gonna do while they were in town and shedd aquarium was in their itinerary. we were totally into that idea since we've never been there. yes, it is rather embarassing - i've been in chicago for six years now but i've never been to shedd aquarium...  -.-

the entry fees is about $27 for a fantasea pass. since shedd closes at 6pm on saturdays, we had about two hours to check out the whole place.

the first aquarium we saw had a ton of cool fishes in it (like d'oh right?) but what i really liked was the sting ray cos of it's gracefulness as it swims. ryan was fascinated with a rather huge fish but i don't remember the name. no pictures of this, unfortunately but i will have the pictures of the other things i found fascinating do the talking.

i was most excited about to go to the section with beluga whales, penguins, sea lion, otters, and dolphins... what is there not too like?! it's like they put all the my favorite cute aquatic creatures into one section, essentially making it the awesome-est section in this entire exhibition.

those are the beluga whales.

i think i ooh-ed and ahh-ed at the penguin section the longest - just like a lil girl at a candy store. they are mighty adorable! our welcome that we got from the penguins was the penguin pooping as they were standing at the rock, looking as if nothing happened. hahahah. another penguin swimming in the water was very close to being a victim of pooping penguins.

^ this actually reminded me of a tshirt they were selling at a souviner store and the design was a bunch of penguins standing on a rock mountain and it says penguins rock. i concur!

extra penguin pictures just cos they are extra adorable.

and check out this chilling sea otter. sooo cute! think it's taking a nap.. well come to think of it, a lot of the other animals were also taking a nap while we went to see them....nap time perhaps?

we came across a fish named cortez angelfish. lol. i made fun of the cortez brothers when brittany and i saw the name of the fish.

always seen sea urchin on tv as food. but never seen it in their natural habitat. (not exactly natural... but you know what i mean! hehe) oh and i saw it move too, very slowwwwwly. such pretty colors!

let's play spot the seahorses. how many can you find in this picture? (answer at the end of the entry..hehe)

ooo kelp. oh wait, do you see that seahorse?

i was tempted to have a staring competition with this fish but ryan and nicholas thought that i'd probably lose to the fish. it didn't move the whole time we were looking at it.

this snapping turtle was freaking huge. at first i had trouble figuring out if it was a sculpture or if it was real. it had its jaw opened the whole time and it barely moved. what am i to think? i think ryan and i stood there for about 5 minutes staring at it to see if it moves. when it moved it's head slightly, i thought it was my imagination.. lol. maybe it was hoping that the fish would just swim into its mouth to feed it or something.

i call this glamour fish cos of all the spots that glitter on the side of its body. not sure what the real name is though. so much for this "educational" trip to shedd, huh? lol

oo this is called a paddle fish. which i initially thought  was a swordfish.

and the best of all, the question we all wonder:

that was some of the interesting photos at shedd. it was fun but i dunno if i'd return for a second time. i even bought some souviners for my nieces but i'm not saying what they are until they get them next weekend :)

as we walked out, there was a beautiful view of chicago skyline from the shedd aquarium. of course, we had to take a photo with that as a backdrop.

as we were walking back to the car, brittany wanted to take a picture of a man with a fish sculpture. there was a family standing there, posing for a picture. a passerby with her family offered to take the picture for them and as she prompted them to say cheese, her daughter (probably like 3-5 years old) went, "cheese!" i thought that was absolutely adorable.

we had dinner at a mexican place called la ciudad, which i will blog about in another entry.

we ended our night with a xd 3d showing of alice in wonderland. so excited! our seats were a lil too far up front but we still enjoyed the viewing experience. i thought the movie was very interesting and a lot of fun to watch! i was slightly out of it cos i had a short nap just before coming to the movies. but by the end of it, i was a happy girl.

imo, the character that stole our hearts was the cheshire cat. <3 him!

the other characters who left an impression were the mad hatter and the red queen. johnny depp's character reminded me a lil bit of his potrayal of willy wonka in charlie and the chocolate factory movie. and oh mad hatter's dance moves at the end was pretty crazy.. lol.

as we were heading back to our cars, we heard someone saying that the movie was really good but he/she wouldn't go back to watch it for a second time. would i watch it for a second time? i haven't really decided yet really. quite likely i would.  the movie was indeed interesting.

then sunday morning we had our brunch at fraiche in evanston but that would be in another entry.

oh and as for the answer: this would probably be a clearer picture of the seahorses -

there's four of them if you are still unsure :)

p.s. there is a cooking class i am attending with ryan, christina and her bf tonight at bespoke cuisine. i'm mega excited!