New England Aquarium

Whenever I’m visiting a city, there’ll be two manmade types of places I’m especially interested – architectural, and aquariums! The marine tanks in the San Francisco Pier 39 Aquarium last March were pretty good though a good part of the site was closed then for renovations, and the marine aquarium exhibits at the California Academy of Sciences were even better.

I was especially looking forward to the visit of the New England Aquarium, reportedly one of the best public aquariums in the United States. The Aquarium is also pretty special because of its well-known conservation and research efforts. There’s a research center in fact located inside the Aquarium block, and visitors can view their treatments of marine life through full glass panes.

The main block is dominated by a giant ocean tank and visitors view it through a curving walkway that runs from the ground floor around the tank, all the way up for four levels.

OK; pictures! I’ll have to try to properly caption as many of them properly. The first two pictures were taken at one of the entrance tanks:

There were several tanks in the basement level of jellyfish swimming very serenely and peacefully:

The next three pictures were taken at the Armored and Venomous critters exhibit:

Baby octopus.:)

The next four pictures are from the Reef Community tank.

Last two pictures (the rest are in the Flickr album): a colony of penguins having fun:

No you can’t have my air-conditioned spot.

And the gift and souvenir store where I picked up a few things, including a new stuffed toy for Hannah.:)