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Last weekend the family and I traveled North to visit my lovely sister-in-law.  The city we visited was Long Beach, California.  What?  You never heard of Long Beach, California?  How is that possible?  Here is a little information about the wonderful city.  The information provided is from Wikipedia.

Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California.

The city is a dominant maritime center of the United States.  The Port of Long Beach is the United States second busiest container port and one of the world’s largest shipping ports. The city also maintains a large oil industry with the substance being found both underground and offshore.

Downtown Long Beach is located about 25 miles (40 km) south of downtown Los Angeles.

While on our visit, we stopped by one of our favorites sites in Long Beach, the Aquarium of the Pacific.  What?  You have never heard of the Aquarium of the Pacific either?  Don’t worry.  Here is a little information about the amazing place.  Again, information taken from Wikipedia.

The nonprofit Aquarium of the Pacific, in downtown Long Beach.  The Aquarium was rated #2 Los Angeles area Family Destination in the most recent Zagat U.S. Family Travel Guide, second only to Disneyland.  Aquarium of the Pacific is considered as the largest marine habitat found in the United States.  It features over 11,000 animals in more than 50 exhibits.

In addition to animal exhibits, they have a variety of multimedia presentations on ocean science and important environmental topics.  It is called as the Aquarium of the Pacific because the visitors that usually pass by here are those who are passengers of journeys all the way through the three major regions of the Pacific Ocean like the Southern California, Tropical and Northern Pacific.

This was our second time visiting the Aquarium of the Pacific. It is an amazing place.  In San Diego, we have a wonderful aquarium, but it does not even come close to comparing to the size and types of exhibits of this one has.  This aquarium is appropriate for adults and children, but it is the children who will enjoy it the most.  It has a cool interactive tide pool for touching live animals.  A shark exhibit to view some of your favorite sharks up close and a lorikeet bird area to feed the colorful birds.

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My personal favorites of the aquarium were the huge life-size model of a blue whale and her calf and the sea dragons.  Sea dragons, particularly leafy sea dragons are my favorite marine animal.  Just stunning to look at.

Hope you enjoy the visit.  As much as we enjoyed the Aquarium of the Pacific, it could not compare to visiting with my sister-in-law.

Talk again soon friends.