Aug 15, 2013 - 1 min read

Marient Aquarium, Hachinohe

Flat fish, starfish, doctor fish, Nemo fish

By Peter Sidell

Community writer

Hello, little fish in your colorful home!

The tanks house lots of different kinds of fish

Baby jellyfish float around, cartwheeling like spacewalkers

Sardines going round and round together like a little tornado

A model of a mining ship, one of the educational displays

My note says "Fat fish" (All the labels are in Japanese.)

In the restaurant, with a view back to Kabushima

My lunch, a tasty curry with locally produced 'Mishima' cider

Tickly little 'Doctor Fish' nibbling the dead skin off my hand

The touch tank, where the kids can pick up starfish or sea cucumbers

Insert here your own joke about having found Nemo, or post suggestions in a comment

Evolution has produced some pretty weird creatures

Just a few minutes' walk from Kabushima is Marient, a small but appealing 'Marine Science Center'. There are plenty of educational displays in Japanese, which look like they're about tectonics and oceanography, but the main attraction is the aquarium part.

The tanks house a diverse range of marine life such as clownfish, starfish and tiny jellyfish; there's also a touch tank where the kids can get to handle some of the residents, and a small tank full of 'Doctor Fish' which happily nibble the dead skin off your hands, which isn't bad for a mere ¥300 admission. Upstairs there's a roof terrace and a restaurant, both with fine views out over the ocean and back to Kabushima. For more information (in Japanese only), the website is here.