I knew when we were planning our trip to Monterey that I had to go to the aquarium.  It would be a waste of a trip if we didn’t go to visit one of the largest aquarium in the US, right?  Besides, if I didn’t go, I would have missed seeing the sea otters! How can you say no to this cute little wet nose??

The sea otter exhibit was one of my favorite ones in the aquarium because they looked like they were having so much fun swimming around.  What’s especially cool is that at designated times, the trainers come out to feed and train the otters in front of all the aquarium-goers.

I also saw a bunch of jellyfish.  They really did a good job with the lighting in the jellyfish exhibit because they looked so alien! Jellyfish weird me out because they’re animals and they move, but when you look at them and look through their translucent bodies, it’s like there’s nothing in them that looks animal-like at all. I can’t believe there’s such weird stuff in the sea!

There was also a “Secret Lives of Seahorses” exhibit and I joked that it must not be much of a secret if there’s hundreds of people looking at them every day.  The seahorses looked so strange and cool, but they were kind of boring because they just perched on stuff in the ocean.  Some of them were pretty damn good at concealing themselves in their surroundings though.

I also spotted a fresh water otter all tuckered out and taking a nap on dry land. Awww it looked so fuzzy I wanted to touch it! The Monterey Bay Aquarium is definitely worth the $30-$40 ticket price just to see the otters frolic.  I’d recommend going on a weekday if possible though because the crowds are insane on the weekends — especially people with children running around all over the place.

[Flickr Set of the Aquarium]