One of our most unexpectedly memorable adventures during our stay in Kanazawa was north toward the Noto Peninsula at the Noto Island Aquarium.

Our trusty Kei-car took us up the Chirihama Nagisa Beach Drive Way, through beautiful country scenery and up to the aquarium.

To be honest, we didn’t expect much, and we were just looking for some sort of activity to do in that direction. My first impression of the place was that it was old and from the Showa Era (golden years of Japan 10-20 yrs ago).

We paid the reasonable entrance fee and made our way in. The sun was blistering and it was a super hot 35°C outside. We took the walk from the parking lot and freely rushed into the air conditioner building.

Unlike other aquariums, the Noto Aquarium opened up immediately into one of its main attractions, the huge whale shark exhibit.

It wasn’t as big as the Churaumi Aquarium in Okinawa but it turns out that this aquarium is the only one in northern Japan that houses, whale sharks, so that was sort of cool. The whale sharks seemed like younger ones, and were accompanied by other two sharks, a bunch of stingrays and other larger fish…

I didn’t think my kids would be too into it, but they spent a fair amount of time in all, just staring at the fish and at the ominous blue light. The path spiralled around the water tank, giving us multiple views of the aquatic environment.

After that, we walked through some actually pretty innovative and clever projection mapping displays and other illuminated walkways that really updated the feel.

It showed that the staff were actively trying to update the entertainment factor as much as possible. That is something that we really appreciated.

After that, we made our way through variety of different, aquatic, displays, fish, and crustaceans, which I kids really enjoyed.

After moving from building to building, we enjoyed the dolphin show outside and got up close with the penguin walk. Each penguin had a name and they were probably more than 30 of them. It was funny, watching the younger caretaker try to figure out the name of which penguin was giving him trouble. The more experienced caretaker was quizzing him on bodily markings and other hints.

We also got to feed the fish. That was actually more enjoyable than expected. There was a discreet little box with some fish food and a sign written in Japanese saying leave ¥100. Foreign tourists would totally miss this but it was definitely a lot of fun. The fish were used to getting fit so they were swan wherever you were. Try to throw the food as far as possible to watch them. Consequently, other tourist could walk underneath that particular aquarium, so they probably had a great show watching the fish swarm in different directions.

After lunch, we noticed a pier where you could go fishing for a fee. You could rent all the equipment and it is something we will definitely try it the next time. Even on other local, attraction, blogs, that fishing pier is highly rated so I think we will check it out.

The drive up there was also half the fun taking you through quaint old fishing villages and beautiful country sides with old school Japanese houses.

I’d give the aquarium a 3.5 out of 5 for facilities bit a 4 out of 5 for fun.

It’s just an enjoyable place to be and I look forward to going back there again.