An afternoon at the aquarium

As a special treat, Tracey Brookshier took me to the Monterey Bay Aquarium after we finished teaching on Friday. What a feast for the eyes! The aquarium is famous for its jellyfish exhibits and rightly so. I need to go back with my good camera, the jellies are hard to photograph with a point-and-shoot.







I found myself completely captivated with a tank of sea anemone. The colors were amazing. I feel a new series coming on...





Some of the pictures I took were disappointingly blurry - the leafy sea dragons (unbelievably cool and surreal-looking), the river and sea otters, and the sand dollars (we stared at these a long time while they moved in s l o w motion) so I'll need to try again next time. We bumped into some of my students who were practicing their observational skills at the aquarium before their flight home.

After we had our fill of the fishies, we headed to Cha-ya, a Japanese tea, art and antique store in an old part of Monterey, where I found origami paper, small dragonfly dishes, a couple of pretty chirimen bags and a tiny metal jizō statue (that caused my luggage to be searched at security the next day, I guess it looked more menacing in the x-ray machine than it does in real life!) Then on to an art supply store for a paper fix, gorgeous handmade paper with Thai writing on it, a vintage-looking map and more handmade paper with newspaper inclusions. And finally back to Tracey's house for a home-cooked meal with her family. All in all, a fantastic ending to a fantastic week.