The Sea Life

Today was Misha’s birthday, and we asked if we could hang out with her to celebrate. Misha’s mother let us know that while she had to work, Misha’s father and uncle were going to be taking Misha to Sea Life, an aquarium in the mall. She said that Misha would love if Troy was there (and so would the guys). So, we tagged along too.

I had always avoided this aquarium, because it was a bit pricey, and really, how big could an aquarium be in the mall?! Well, I was pleasantly surprised. It was much larger than I thought and also well laid out to cater to kids. They had interactive centers, places they could crawl into, things they could touch, and people stationed throughout to provide information about the sea entities.

They loved the interactive screen in the shark section, where with the touch of a finger, they could peel off the shark’s skin and see the organs beneath. They enjoyed the tank where they could stick their little arms into the water and pet sea anemones. They were even interested in the turtle rescue area, where they had to carry a toy turtle around to various stations of care, recovery, and release. But the coolest places were where the kids could climb under the fish tanks and pop their heads up into clear bubbles, watching the fish literally swim past their noses.

Misha, of course, had her usual attention span of a fruit fly, and merely wanted to flit from display to display. While Troy truly seemed interested and wanted to look. At several places, Troy refused to follow Misha in her whirlwind sprint, and she was forced to come back and slow down. Then, Troy would talk to her about the animal or fish, and she’d find out she was interested too. This happened at the baby crocodiles’ and the yellow python’s tanks. He had less success at the shark’s and jellyfish’s tanks, where Misha ran off around a corner, and we were forced to go looking for her.

Misha’s uncle was amazing with her, patiently talking her through things at the interactive centers. Strangely, her father mostly just stood off to the side and watched the people walking by him. I spent the majority of the time, chasing both kids around and trying to at least keep them headed in the same direction. My wife and mother-in-law thoroughly seemed to enjoy themselves and trying to talk to the kids about the fish.

After the aquarium, we broke for lunch at the Taj Chaat House Indian restaurant, which was supposed to be famous for its dosas. Since I have nothing to compare it to, their dosas could have been phenomenal, as far as dosas go, but personally, I didn’t really enjoy the food. First of all, it was all vegetarian. And even though we got things that were at an enjoyable spice level, I didn’t really find the flavors all that remarkable. It was just okay. I’m not sure that I would ever intentionally go back again.

After lunch, we went back to the mall for the second part of the excursion…LegoLand. And this time, Misha’s mother joined us. LegoLand was entirely intended for children, so I’m not sure why they charge the adults to sit around and watch their kids play. That would be the biggest negative I have against it. It was too expensive to sit around and not actually do anything.

But Troy and Misha seemed to enjoy it. They mostly played in the samurai village, which was simply a large enclosed playground filled with kids, while parents lined a couch set up outside. Then, we went to the go-carts, which was apparently Misha’s favorite. There weren’t very many kids in line, but they still had to wait longer than I thought their little patience level would last. Troy did pretty well driving the cart around, but the ride didn’t last very long, and he didn’t want to wait in line again. But Misha did, so she rode the go-carts, while Troy and I went to see the Lego Dallas display. It was really cool. They had built various parts of Dallas out of Legos, including the airport and the downtown skyline. But Troy can only look at Legos for so long, and he wanted to go back to the samurai village.

They had other kinds of rides, but we didn’t get to do any of them before we had to leave. It wasn’t as much fun without Misha anyway, because Troy was alone, and I couldn’t get on any of the things with him. All-in-all, I don’t think it was worth the money. Empire Kids was a bigger, better playground with more to do, it was cheaper, and adults got in free.