Korea Journal Page Four Journal Page 1   Journal Page 2   Journal Page 3   Journal Page 4   Journal Page 5   Journal Page 6   "Swimming Together" (left) When Ivan heard that there was an aquarium in Busan that occupied three floors he was excited to tell me about it. He knows that one of my obsessions is painting fish so he thought that this would be a great opportunity for me to get some drawings. When I snorkelled for the first time, I would have done anything for pen and paper that worked underwater. Therefore, I jumped at this chance to go to the aquarium. The other appealing factor was that this aquarium sounded so spacious that I felt assured I wouldn't be depressed about animals being confined to small spaces. Well.....my heart sank when we saw the very small building that housed the aquarium's entrance.  The aquarium was all underground with escalators carrying visitors down to three different levels.  At that point, I didn't know for sure that we'd find fish dungeons down there but, the sick feeling I had as we purchased our tickets warned me that I might be very distressed at what lay below.  Then I chastised myself for being so pessimistic...maybe  with advanced fibre optics it would be like true daylight down there, with happy frolicking sea creatures swimming in ecstasy.

"Fish Studies" (right) Some parts ended up being okay.  However, I'd say the bad outweighted the good overall. Some sea creatures were given spacious tanks while others had atrociously small tanks that prevented them from having any kind of decent life whatsoever.  I could only do drawings of the fish that seemed to have enough room to swim around comfortably.  I had a hard time believing that any of the creatures were content with living in a basement. Because, as anyone who has lived in a basement knows, there comes a point when, no matter what kind of fancy electric light you might have down there, you start craving real sunlight with every cell of your being.

"Busan Aquarium" (left) The aquarium boasted of 250 kinds of fish. Well, let me say that I'd much rather see 3 fish living in comfort than 250 fish living in highly cramped quarters. The huge majority of people going through the aquarium hardly stopped long enough to look at any of the inmates properly so why have so many in the first place. I felt that most people viewed the aquarium as some kind of theme park and lost track of the fact that what they were looking at were real animals and not some 3D image on their computer screens. And, I wanted to scream at them to have respect for these animals that were in  prison cells just for their viewing pleasure.

"Sea Horses" (right) I just didn't get the feeling that the owners of the Busan Aquarium cared one iota for the fish or for educating the visitors on the miracle of each marine creature that swam there right in front of them. I felt the aquarium was just a fantastic moneymaking machine for someone. Needless to say, I left this place far from happy.

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