The Age of Aquariums

"Something's fishy here..."

Aki is always a good sport when we take him with us to do grown-up stuff. A couple of weekends ago, we turned the tables and tagged along with him to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, one of L.A.'s kid-friendliest places.

There's no better way to start off a day at an aquarium than with a nice hot plate of Fish 'n Chips. After we got ourselves stinking with salt, oil, tartar, and malt vinegar, we let Aki try out his sea legs by walking around outside.

He was pretty brave about touching everything, including the sting rays, starfish, and sea urchins. He cooed at the tubby sea lions, and reached out for the colorful lorikeets. But his favorite part, I think, was the shark lagoon.


"Dada, these teeth are kinda big..."

It was also the last day of the Aquarium's Autumn Festival, which featured booths and performances by different Asian cultural groups. The most virtuosic of these was probably a group of Korean girls who literally bent over backwards to show off their percussion chops.

These days As soon as Aki gets his shoes on, it's off to the races. He also wants to hug every kid in sight, and since not every child reacts to this positively, there's a lot of dashing around, blocking, and prying apart involved. Mommy and Daddy are getting a lot more exercise these days!


Who's crabby? Not me!