Just visited Hakkeijima Sea Paradise for the second time on a recent visit to Tokyo and apart from spending the day freezing my ass off, was pretty good. If you’ve read any other destination guide on this site you’ll know Grobbler has been to what seems like a record number of aquariums in Asia so this wasn’t anything too special but still a good day out. When I woke up in my Airnbnb in Shinjuku it was sunny and about 18 degrees so I went out in a t-shirt thinking it was going to be a pearler of a day. Got that one wrong big time. Basically as soon as we got out of Tokyo the temperature dropped and it was about 12 degrees with a wind chill.
Anyway, Hakkeijima Sea Paradise is about 20-30 minutes south of Yokohama. To get there, we took the train to Shinagawa, then got off and and got a train to Hakkeijima Staion. From there it’s about a 10-15 minute walk. We first went here about 5 years ago when Grobbler was still crapping in his pants so he basically didn’t remember anything. Hakkeijima Sea Paradise is actually an aquarium and amusement park and one of these old Japanese amusement parks that is in need of some Japanese technology and tender loving care.
The actual aquarium at Hakkeijima Sea Paradise is alright, the usual sharks, tropical fish, penguins and the like. Nothing out of the ordinary but good enough to keep most kids entertained for at least a few hours. There’s some rides and games and things but we didn’t even try those as it was rather cold, but after checking out the aquarium, we headed to the Hakkeijima Sea Paradise fishing ponds, which are actually pretty good and without doubt the best thing here and perhaps worth taking the hour trip to get here from Tokyo.
Basically you get given a very basic fishing line with some shrimp as bait, head out to the ponds, stick your line in and wait. Took us 10 minutes before we got something but once you find the spot, you can catch fish on a regular basis. They’re Mackerel and for small kids, probably up to 7-8 yrs old, they’re going to have a great time especially if they’ve never fished before. Simply pull up the fish (there’s no reel), take the hook out of the Mackerel and stick them in a bucket. Think we stayed for about 30-40 minutes and caught about 10.
Once done, you take your fish to the BBQ area, which is a bit complicated. You need to go upstairs first, choose how many of your fish you want fried and turned into a mackerel burger (think fish sandwich in Istanbul), and how many you want to just stick on the bbq. In hindsight, I’d have most of them fried and just eat a couple on the BBQ as they’re better in a burger.
You wait 5 minutes or so for your Mackerel to be filleted and fried, get give your burger buns, then head downstairs to have your remaining fish cleaned and prepared for the bbq. This takes another 5-10 minutes depending on how many mackerel you’ve caught. You can then finally head out to the bbq area and start barbequing them. There’s quite a lot of bones in them but they taste pretty good and the whole experience is pretty good and loads of fun especially for the kids.
We headed back to Tokyo after that. It’s a bit far out but if you’re in Tokyo for aan extended period of time and looking for something a bit different to do, Hakkeijima Sea Paradise is worth a visit.
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