Swim like a fish

In two weeks time I'll be running in the Sundown marathon in Singapore, inaccurately named on two counts: it starts at half past midnight and I'll only be running 21 kilometres, but if Singaporeans want to display some imagination in their names for things, who am I to discourage them?

London Aquarium

After the zoo, then the aquarium.

Siam Ocean World

Siam Ocean World, in the basement of the Paragon shopping centre in Bangkok, isn't the greatest aquarium I've been to. It's not the worst, or the one with the least fish, but it feels like one of the most expensive, at 900 baht.

Osaka Aquarium

For our last day in Osaka, we got up early and went to the Kaiyuken, a huge aquarium near Osakoko subway station. It's an enormous building, vaguely reminiscent of a house made of lego, and apparently contains 314 tons of hardened acrylic glass (one and a half year's worth of global production).

Vancouver Aquarium

Having arrived in Vancouver last night after enduring various grumpy Air Canada staff, each apparently more aggrieved than the last (and all annoyed because the lemon-sucking woman on the check-in desk had stapled our tickets together), we got up slowly this morning and walked over from Gastown to the Aquarium.

All the world's your oyster...

... or sea cucumber, or squid, or whatever else you care to pick out at the fish market.

Piranha 3D

Today the sun was shining, and I leapt out of bed, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, to lollop down to Causeway Bay to catch the 10 am showing of Piranha 3D.  It feels morally dissolute to be watching a film in daylight hours, doubly so when you're foregoing the only opportunity in a rainy weekend to see the sun, but the double allure of B-movie shlock and cheap tickets was irresistable.

Perking up

The past two days have been much more enjoyable. No longer have I been having mandatory fun; instead, we've been spending our time looking at fish, either live, in the aquarium, or nearing death, at the fish market.

Fish

The hotel that we're staying in has an unusual design feature; the toilet is enclosed in a glass cubicle, next to the glass shower cubicle, which is next to the bath, which is next to a large window to the bedroom. This means that your significant other can have a clear and unobstructed view of you on the toilet, whether she likes it or not.