Kyoto Aquarium — Attraction in Kyoto

Arrived half an hour early so I was about 3rd in que, but because of my ticket from klook, my partner and I was practically first to enter.

This is the first time I've enjoyed an aquarium so much. I didn't realise how big salamanders can be, it was cool!

Makes me want to visit other aquariums for sure in Japan for sea animals I am not use to being able to see.

Every staff member was kind, got their blue Hawaii shaved ice and their melon shaved ice and it was a refreshing snack.

They are very friendly to English speakers.

Stayed from opening til 2pm to watch both of the dolphin shows at 11:30 and 13:30, couldn't stay for the 16:30 one as we had to visit more of Kyoto, but I would have stayed to watch that one too or visit again at a later time!

At the end I got 2 salamander stickers because they cute and goofy looking and their signature magnet for memories. I was very tempted to get a a salamander plushie.

Their seals was extremely cute and cool to watch their routines. The penguins were cute but did look like someone woke them up too early lol, it was fun looking at their relationship chart!

It was also cute that if you went by foot to get to the aquarium, if you follow a certain path, there are mini statues of the sea animals they have,pointing you towards the aquarium.

There was also an area that was extremely peaceful with a large fish tank and many seats, after circling a few times whilst waiting for the next dolphin show, I saw many people falling asleep to how comfy it was.

And just before the dolphins, there is a whole jelly fish lab area, where you can see the workers working on schedule, it was almost bizarre, but impressive.

Of course there was also fun gacha near the end and cute place to take a photo for memories for 600 yen.

Didn't get to try the actually cafe area, but did also try their snacks and it was good.

There's also a mini garden where you can sit and watch the carps and catfish...

This was such a terrible and sad experience. The aquarium's tanks are incredibly small for the animals. The giant salamander was on a tank that fits the poor animal with absolutely no space for it to turn or swim, nothing to entratain it, just some rocks, but with that tiny space I doubt it could do anything. The other tank with giant salamanders was horrible as well, the animals are over 1 meter long and there's easily over 12 salamanders in a tank that's not even 5 meters long, all of them were in a corner on top of one another, crushing each other. Some fish tanks were smaller than what you would buy your kid to keep a goldfish at home, with the exception that these were trying to fit over 20 fish on that same space. There are three dolphins, one has a small tank where it can only swim in circles, for the other two, I'm not sure if they can even turn on or do anything besides hit their poor heads on the wall. The seals were also in terrible shape, one of the tanks had around 5 or 6 with so little space for them that they would crash into each other while swimming. The absolutely worst part was the other seal tank. The space was even smaller and due to this, we witnessed a terrible fight between two of them that left them bleeding and shaking terribly from pain, THEY ARE TERRITORAL ANIMALS, THEY CANNOT BE IN SUCH A TINY SPACE. IF there are marine biologists or any kind of specialists looking over this torture chamber, they need to go back to school and ACTUALLY pay attention to the animals' needs. Such a horrible and...

It may be easy to be drawn in by the vast and impressive collection of dolphins, seals, penguins and giant salamanders, however the problem is that the space is clearly nowhere near the size it should be to house this sizeable number of large animals. Before even entering the Aquarium, whilst waiting for your time slot, there are looking glasses into a tank, which initially looks like an empty, completely plain tank, until you notice a lone dolphin swimming around in circles. We know that dolphins are intelligent, social animals, that need both social and environmental stimulation, and to neglect this for the sake of easy viewing for customers is absolutely abhorrent. Secondly, the first exhibition is of the giant salamanders native to Japan, and again, the very first salamander on display, about a metre in length, is confined, isolated, in a clear, empty tank, barely even big for the poor salamander to turn around. Again, this is purely so that we can get a good close up look of these fantastic creatures. It upset me a lot to look at. Nothing should be left like that, not even able to move. The next salamander tank was prettily decorated with rocks and waterfalls, but again, filled with about 5 or more of these stunning giants all clambered on top of each other for lack of space. And this was generally the theme of this aquarium. There is 0 point in having these animals without the proper space to home them, it feels greedy, disrespectful and devoid...