A day at the Lisbon Oceanarium/Um dia no Oceanário de Lisboa

According to one guidebook, the Lisbon Oceanarium (don't call it an aquarium!) is the second-largest aquarium in the world. I suspect that information might be slightly out of date, but nonetheless it is quite large and rightfully occupies a position of pride among Lisboetas who care about such things. It is located in the Parque das Nações, which is a large former industrial wasteland which was redeveloped to host Expo '98 in Lisbon. For my fellow Seattlites, it's kind of like the Seattle Center. Along with the Oceanarium, it houses plazas and pavilions, a marina, a concert hall, a shopping mall, fancy residential complexes, a new train station, and nearby, a casino. There's also a cable car traversing from one end to the other so you can take the whole thing from above.

Arrival: Here is the Gare do Oriente (East Train Station), which is the location both of trains to Europe and the last Metro stop on the Red Line (Linha Vermelha). It was designed by Santiago Calatrava, who is a very famous architect from Spain.

We walked through the mall (named after Vasco da Gama) and out the other side, then you are immediately confronted with this:

On the way to the Oceanarium, you pass a lot of different stuff. Here is another cool statue. In the background, you can see the cable cars I mentioned. There's also a pedestrian causeway with numerous runners and bikers. I should mention that's the Rio Tejo in the distance.

Here's a view of the Oceanário from distance. It's built right into the water.

Here's a more close-up view of the Oceanário. I've read that people think it looks like an aircraft carrier, but I think it looks like a evil movie villain's futuristc lair.

Mrs. Nojo with Vasco, the Oceanário's "mascot".

The main attraction of the Oceanário is its large central tank, which houses many many different fish species. The rest of the exhibits are built around this tank, meaning as you wind your way through the aquarium, you come back to it multiple times and get different angles and see lots of different fish. It was hard to photograph into the tank well, so this is the only picture of it I'll post, but needless to say this photo doesn't really do justice to its size. There are some enormous fish in there, including whale sharks, manta rays, and sunfish, but none of them are visible in this photo. (Silhouette belongs to Mrs. Nojo).

OK, let's move on to animals I was able to photograph decently. One cool thing about the Oceanário is that it isn't just fish. There are some cool bird exhibits as well. Here are some South American terns:

Pacific Sea Otters! Gah, so cute!

This is a Turaco, which I believe is an Indian Ocean bird.

This little bird looks like an oriole, but it was in the same exhibit as the turaco, so I think it was also native to the Indian Ocean. I didn't record its name, unfortunately.

Here's a fish I managed to get an ok picture of. It's not very pretty or exciting, but it was big.

Sea anenome:

Here's some kind of salamander or newt or something:

This is a small Australian shark:

That's all for now. An enjoyable place to visit, if kind of expensive. And packed with children. Animals!