Anyone who knows me, knows that I love animals, especially sea animals … I can’t count how many times I have watched Blue Planet II. So seeing animals in Korea was a must for me … however … at the time that I went, there were some mixed opinions on the way Korea treated animals in their various facilities and in their homes as well.
I once saw a dog in a woman’s push chair with a plastic cover all zipped up in 25 degree weather. But I digress.
I knew the zoo would be out of the question for that reason however the Lotte World Aquarium seemed pretty good and had a decent student discount.
To get there I had to take a couple of different lines as it was on the other side of the river, right next to the Lotte World Mall (in fact you have to go through the mall to get to the aquarium). So I took blue line (4호선) to Dongdaemun History and Culture Park which is a bit like Stratford in the UK because there are tons of line changes available. I changed to the green line (2호선) and got off at Jamsil Station.
The carriage and stations on the green line were not as modern as the blue line stations but the majority of them were outside so it was nice to travel in sunlight.
After that it was a quick walk to Lotte World Mall and from there it was really well signposted to get to the aquarium. I had brought my student ID with me and the original price of the ticket was around ₩30 000 but with my student discount I got in at ₩21 000 (£18.59 -> £13.01 as of 4/2022). It was quite a good discount from an already cheap ticket – would definitely recommend for an unexpensive day out.
When you walk into the aquarium it is quite dimly lit and there are lots of different coloured lights in the tanks. The information was all in Korean with the occassional piece of English which really put my Korean to the test. Thankfully the majority of the names were Koreanised (the English name written in Korean) so I had a vague awareness of the kind of animals I was looking at.
They had some really interesting tanks including piranhas and if you look at picture 2 in the slide show above, you will see a robot fish which was a completely new one for me. It shouldn’t have been surprising considering it was in one of the technology capitals of the world but it was still an unexpected find!
They had lots of other fish and marine life, too many to list, but some of my highlights were the multiple tanks of jellyfish and the huge walkthrough tank tunnel with rays and other fish swimming around. There were also penguins, we all love penguins.
But the highlight of my visit was their Beluga whale exhibit. Having never seen one of these arcitic dwelling whales before, it was definitely a bucket list moment. The tank was quite big and had two sections however there was limited privacy and a lot of the tank was seethrough to an extent. The whale seemed fairly happy when I was there and the people were crowded around but weren’t noisy or poking the glass which helped. Due to the way the whale was moving, I didn’t get many clear pictures but it was great to see up close.
Of course no trip of mine would be complete without a trip to the gift shop. I got a few things but forgot to take pictures of them. The shop itself was beautiful and had a lot of Beluga whale merch which I took full advantage of.
And that was the end of the trip.
Pink Bows and Sparkly Toes 
Very cool! 🤩
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