National Sea Life Centre, Birmingham: 20 May 2007

We thought it would be a good idea to introduce Sarah and Amar to the sea life world. They love "Finding Nemo" movie so much so we thought they would appreciate the real thing if we take them to National Sea Life Centre in Birmingham.

We've been there before two years ago with Tok Ayah, Opah, Ayah Ji, Ummi, Lin and Yaya. Amar was only three months old back then. The place is still very much the same and probably with the same old animals too. Except for the entrance fees have gone up quite steeply.

The journey was quite straightforward. We followed the brown sign and we were tempted to change our destination to a Birmingham Botanical Garden when we saw its sign along the way.

The Sea Life Centre in Birmingham is located near Birmingham Canal, the 19th century equivalent of a motorway [per waterscape.com].

You can go on a boat tour along the canal with some fees of course.

As usual Babah took a lot of photos, but I have just noticed that the above Hyatt Hotel building reflects the colour of the sky and thick clouds.

As it was a school holiday plus on a Sunday, there were so many people visiting the place too. We had to follow a narrow pathway with different aquariums on each side. I was amazed looking at the different types of stingrays gliding in the water. Their wings rippled beautifully as if they were dancing to a music.

At the end of the first section, we saw a lady holding a tiny crab. She drew lots of attention from the school-age children. Next to the lady was this gigantic metallic red stuffed crab toy. Sarah thought it was a real crab and became very frightened. She began to cry and from there, she became very moody and mind you, it was only the first part of the Centre!

Apart from the little crab, other animals or fishes were inside different thick glass aquariums. Hence giving Babah a big challenge to photograph good images. Plus they were all active animals that rarely kept still added to the difficulty too. Plus some other factors like lighting where some sections do not allow the use of camera-flash, the screen of the aquarium not very clean or clear or dirty and the people factors all topped up to the challenge. It must have been the most difficult assignment for Babah so far.

[Marine biologists excluded] Do you know that seahorses are just tiny little creatures? Do you know they are the slowest fish in the sea? And do you know that the male seahorse get pregnant instead of the female??? I can definitely use the latter as a teka-teki to my little friends. Read more about seahorses here.

Most of the areas were dimly lighted and one particular area was pitch black! It tried to resemble the deep sea. The above may remind you of the creature that lit up in the Finding Nemo movie when Marlon and Dory went deep into the sea to find the goggle, remember?

This particular area just gave me the creeps. Well, you can obviously imagine what Sarah and Amar were like. They were uncomfortable too.


Sarah recognised the above jellyfish immediately. They were beautiful creatures but can be poisonous too! They also looked like they have tungsten lights below their bell margin which illuminated their tentacles.


Other animals include otters,


starfish,


poison dart frog, the above was only as big as a 50sen coin!

The final section was a huge aquarium where you can see a few sea turtles, sharks and some other fishes. I think the centre we went to was a mini Aquaria, KLCC. I found out about Aquaria from Lela Khalidah's blog (Lela, I can't visit your blog at the moment. Our pc wouldn't open your page and restarted by itself when I click on your link.)

For those who'd love to have an underwater experience are encouraged to visit places like sea life centre. Apart from enabling to help with their S.O.S. work towards endangered species, you can enjoy the breathtaking experience without having to jump into the deep blue sea.

As for us, we'd give it a rest until the children are much older. We hate to see our children upset just because of a stuffed toy!

credits:
papers ~ Anna Benjmin, Danielle Engebretson, ShabbyShoppe
button stitches: J. Gorny
circle stitches: L. Garay