New Jersey Aquarium

Last Wednesday we flew to Philly to meet up with Josh and Anna for a day (or two) of fun before the wedding mayhem began.  We had a bumpy ride, but made it safely.  Thursday morning when we woke up it was windy, rainy and grey.  I didn't run :( and we didn't get a chance to do a lot of outdoorsy things, but we did make it to the Adventure Aquarium in Camden.  We got on a train about a mile from Anna's place and got a tour of Jersey.  As always, train tours are interesting, you get to see a bit of industry and main street for the different towns.  We also got to see a lot of the river (the Delaware), and the river was white capping most of the time. 

Once we made it to the aquarium we were across the Delaware from Philly, just a bridge away. 

Inside the aquarium there were all sorts of fishes, frogs, penguins, seals, sharks, and hippos! We spent a lot of time with the hippos, Jenny and Button.  At first the two hippos were simply hanging out, sleeping, as hippos do most of the day. 

We went through the hippo area to the jellyfish and shark tanks.  There was also an octopus, a really big octopus, that was hiding from the world.  We managed to see just his tentacles, but those were quite large. 

After the shark tank we decided to go check on the hippos again.  The aquarium had underwater viewing, which I had seen for bears (at brookfield) and heard about happening other places, but never really seen.  It was really neat to see the hippos in action under the water.  As hippos can spend about 18 hours a day in the water, and up to 10 minutes at a time (if inactive) underwater, what they do underwater is a big deal. 

After we eventually left the hippos and went to see the other stuff.  We got to see really neat corals and fishes!  The penguins were also neat and outdoors.  After seeing the penguins waddle around, we went back inside (it was also starting to rain again by then). 

We rounded out the day with more hippos and got to listen to a hippo talk.  The keeper also gave the hippos kale so it was fun to see them eat. 

After the aquarium we got to hang out with Anna and Josh and simply rest some.  This was good as we had a busy weekend before us.  I'll write more about that in my next post, with more pictures of course.