Old Man Winter seems to be sticking around Korea for an extended stay this season and the howling wind blowing between the tall buildings is enough to frighten anyone from venturing outside.

All is quiet deep inside the mountain where the bears have gone into hibernation in their cozy caves.

Even the fish are sleeping underneath the thick slab of ice covering the river. But there is one place where all varieties of fish swim excitedly all year round. Let’s escape from the cold and windy streets and enjoy a little warmth while watching an array of beautiful fish at COEX Aquarium.

COEX Aquarium can be reached from Samsung Station of subway line two. Enter COEX Mall through subway exits five and six directly connected to the mall and about eight minutes on foot will take you to the aquarium. COEX Mall is a gigantic shopping and cultural complex opened in 2000. It features a 463,000 square-meter department store, multiplex movie theaters, an aquarium, many restaurants and clothing stores. Between 100 and 150 thousand visitors are estimated to visit the mall every day. Our destination for today is COEX Aquarium and here’s an aquarium employee, Han Won-min, to give us an overview of the aquarium.

The aquarium opened in May 2000. By water volume, there is about 3,000 tons of water in the over 14,000 square-meter aquarium. There are some 130 water tanks which house roughly 40 thousand fish from 650 species. Our aquarium is an open-style one and you’ll be able to see fish from all over the world. It’s unlikely that you’ll see more varieties of fish in any other aquarium than COEX Aquarium.

The aquarium opened in the same year as the mall so it is celebrating its 11th year. In the earlier days the aquarium set a Guinness World Record for having the longest line of people waiting to get inside at 850 meters. Roughly 2.5 million fish have called the aquarium their home over the last decade, delighting visitors with a wide array of fish from all around the globe. Now let’s go inside COEX Aquarium.

The first section you see after entering the aquarium is Art Hall filled with blue lighting.
Six cylindrical water tanks set against the clear walls bubbling with colorful water bubbles make you feel like you are underwater. Next stop is an exhibition of indigenous Korean fish.

This exhibition shows fish that are found to live in Korea, as well as the indigenous species. There are about 600 fish from 70 to 80 different species. This exhibition has been around for eight years. Although aquariums nowadays have tanks devoted to freshwater fish, we were the first one in Korea to have opened a freshwater fish only exhibition.

In this corner the river, lake, rice paddies, and muddy swamp environments have been recreated to show Korea’s freshwater ecosystem in its entirety.

- It’s fun to look at Korean freshwater fish. The first time I was here I was surprised to find out that there were so many freshwater fish that I didn’t know about.

It’s interesting to learn the names of different fish that live in the Korean ecosystem. Next we come to the Strange Fish World.

The Strange Fish World is not a world of strange fish, but strange places where fish can live. Instead of ordinary square fish tanks or round fish bowls, fish here are found in a closet, in a bed or in a street light. The concept is to find unusual places for fish to live. Children like it a lot, but I think adults like it even more.

- It’s amazing. I see fish in a vending machine and a washer. It was fun and unusual. I wish I could have fish in my desk like that.
- It’s fun. This really is having fish live with us. They are in our bed and our toilet, even in our washer and refrigerator. This is one way to make our children get interested in fish.
I wish I had one of those tanks in our kitchen. That one by the bed is good, too. It would be nice to have one under the sink for my mom works a lot in the kitchen. It’s very unusual.

In the Strange Fish World fish live in the strangest places – in a toilet, a mailbox, a computer monitor, a refrigerator, a bathroom sink, a washer, a vending machine, and even a telephone booth. These unlikely fish tanks delight children and adults alike. This is also where visitors can see harp-playing fish.

Now we enter the wild Amazon jungles. The Amazonian World seems to take visitors to the middle of the Amazon forest. With lush green surroundings and the sound effects of rushing water and wild animals, you will feel like you have joined an expedition team exploring the deep dark jungle.

There is even a roaring waterfall amid the dense forest. One of the most popular attractions in the Amazonian World is vicious piranhas known to devour a man in just a few minutes.

The Amazon region has the world’s most diverse animal and plant species. Our Amazonian World is where we have brought a small part of that world to demonstrate the Amazon’s ecological diversity. Here we have tanks with carnivorous piranhas and pirarucu known to be one of the largest freshwater fish in the world.

In the Touch Pool visitors are allowed to touch marine creatures like starfish and sea urchin. It is also fun to let Garra rufa, or better known as “doctor fish,” nibble away those dead skin cells from your hands and feet.

- It feels great. I think doctor fish is eating the dead skin cells from my hand. It tickles.

A must-see attraction at COEX Aquarium is the sardine tank, where some 20 thousand sardines are kept. A special New Year’s event is going on at the sardine tank to delight the visitors.

It is an event where underwater divers dressed in traditional Korean costume of hanbok greet visitors with big bows in the water. They even play traditional Korean games underwater. Visitors cheer them on as they throw long darts and jump the boards.

In celebration of the year of the rabbit a diver dons a bunny suit and races against a sea turtle in a reenactment of the Aesop fable, “The Hare and the Tortoise.”

So who won in today’s race? In the ancient fable it’s always the slow and steady tortoise that beats the fleet-footed hare, but in reality the result varies depending on the condition of the sea turtle. Following the undersea performance is the group dance of sardines. Visitors are awestruck as they watch more than 20 thousand silver sardines swirl and swish in unison.

- It was fun watching the sardines swim and the divers greeting the visitors with a New Year’s bow.

A mermaid is said to live at COEX Aquarium. What it is not a real mermaid, but a marine animal that has often been mistaken by ancient sailors as the mythical creature. It’s the manatee, nicknamed a gentle giant. This mild-tempered marine mammal is also called the sea cow. Only two aquariums in the world, Toba Aquarium in Japan and COEX Aquarium in Korea, have manatees, a telling indication of how rare this animal species is.

Here are two manatees. The one in the front eating cabbage has just turned six and measures 215 centimeters in height and weighs 250 kilograms. The other one enjoying a swim is nine years old and stands 6.68 meters. It is a big one weighing in at 400 kilograms.

Being a rare breed, manatees are given special treatment at the aquarium. They are tended in a 150 square-meter tank with 200-ton water capacity. Their abode is equipped with top-of-the-line filtering facility and ozone system, and their conditions are constantly monitored by their own aquarist. The aquarium hosts a feeding event regularly and the sight of these bulky yet sweet creatures munching on cabbage leaves is enough to make anyone fall in love with them.

- It’s amazing. I don’t know how they can eat cabbage underwater. Humans are not the only vegetarians. They’re also vegetarians. I think they look marvelous. They are like cows living in the sea.

Another must-see feature of COEX Aquarium is its underwater tunnel. The nation’s first acrylic underwater tunnel takes visitors through a huge water tank on a 72-meter moving walkway.

When we opened in May 2000 people said that now there is no need to go overseas to see great aquariums, because there’s COEX Aquarium. This is Korea’s first underwater tunnel in an aquarium and the most popular part of the whole experience is seeing the sharks swimming above you. Visitors can see the sharks from all angles, from the bottom and sides.

Walking through the tunnel is like walking underwater. People smile at the sting rays swimming leisurely above their heads and tense up a little when the sharks race by.

- It feels like I’m in the ocean. I want to ride one of those sharks.
- It’s amazing. This is quite different from just watching them in the tank maybe because I’m much closer. It’s scary and exciting at the same time. Sharks and rays appear a lot bigger than I thought.

The last stop in the aquarium tour is a section named the Penguins’ Imagination Playground. There, some 40 black-and-white birds glide elegantly through the water.

There are about 40 penguins here. In other aquariums penguins are kept in an environment decorated with white boulders and icebergs to simulate the Antarctic environment. But we added some fun and imagination to their home, as the name Penguins’ Imagination Playground indicates, and drew fun cartoon characters on the wall for children.

A tour of COEX Aquarium filled with lively fish and marine animals will help you forget about the bone-chilling weather outside, albeit for only a few hours.