how to relate a summer shirt to a sea anemone

I can't believe I've deserted this blog for more than ten days! Obviously I need more decipline...

Anyway, I was at the Shedd Aquarium yesterday, the first day of my spring break. The entrance fee was eyeball-popping-out expensive (a silly Japanese expression), but after having seen all the exhibitions, I have to say that it is reasonablly expensive. Especially the big reef exhibit downstairs is just amazing. Fluorescent fish of different sizes and designs gracisously swam in several large tanks filled with tentacled creatures. Fun sculptures of corals and sea anemones adorned the entire wall, giving us the feel of actuallly being in a reef. Touch-panel computers were everywhere to inform you of the names and habits of the oceanic creatures. (Not that the fish solo cannot impress you.) We were lucky enough to be in front of the largest reef tank when two divers started to feed the fish. As they moved around, sqeezing out the powdery food (planctons?) from special bottles, golden fish of different sizes followed them like a thousand dart, with amazing swiftness, leaving only blurry impression of their motion and existence.



Small tanks upstairs were also fun. There was a sea anemone that looked exactly like tiny serpents dancing in a red-and-white gingham check sack. (In Japanese, we so appropriately call sea anemones "draw-string sack of the beach.")



A pack of crafty grandmas passed us as we stared at this sea anemone. Dressed in hand-knit sweaters and macrame bags, they were apparently having a heated discussion about whether this gingham check would make a nice summer shirt or not. It was the most endearing moment of the day...