Mum and Lovey go to the Aquarium

One fine summer's day, our valiant trio braved the mean streets of Sentosa Island with the hope of seeing what legend and brochures had told them was the world's largest aquarium. Despite the allegedly world-class status of the aquarium, it seemed to the brave threesome that they were the only ones on the island of Singapore who had ever heard of the place, as the concept confused every person they encountered - hotel staff, taxi drivers and even seemingly the people at the gates of Sentosa Island. However, the beginning of the story had a happy ending, as they soon learned that they could say "near the casino" and lo! All was clear.

Shipwreck tank

Many different populations of fish sharing many tanks

Right, bugger that pretentious tense - we went to the aquarium, right. It really did live up to expectations, and not just for the air con (although that was lovely). It was a really big space, with a lot of room to move for most of the fish in most of the exhibits. There were huge shipwreck tanks, the largest single tank I've ever seen in an aquarium and lots of fish/animals I've never seen before. They divide the aquarium up by different ocean zones, which meant lots of new non-Pacific fish I was unacquainted with. And rays - sting rays, banjo rays, manta rays, so many rays! I love rays.

The first real nautilus I've ever seen.

One of the coolest parts was  the Ocean Dome - the huge tank with the manta rays, and a HUGE goliath grouper. It was about the same size as most Singaporeans. Actually, scratch that, I'm sure it weighed a lot more. This had a really great diversity of fish life, and I've no idea how they manage to arrange such an extensive artificial ecosystem with no predator/prey action going on. Also in the aquarium, there were eels, some impressive jellyfish (cleverly lit), shark tanks, river monsters (OK, only little ones, but every bit as impressive as most of what Jeremy Wade catches), lovely tropical fish, and even a brown trout for Dad.

Ocean Dome

Giant grouper (larger than the people standing in front of it)

MAAAAAANNT (a ray) with its posse

Mum pondering pond life

Mum and the shark tank

Lovey was very impressed with the shark tank

Hammerhead!

A small part of the shark tank.

Would definitely highly recommend this one to any Singaporean visitors, even if no locals seem to know anything about it. Also, the TYPHOON simulator thing was interesting and amusing in a quite tacky way, featuring the most American accented Chinese sailors ever to hit the high seas. I wouldn't delay your visit by the up-to-40-minutes that some people seemed to have waited around to see it, but if it's starting within 5 minutes of when you walk by, it was a bit of fun.