Summer options for things to do have a new addition to the list, in the form of the Undersea Forest Exhibition which opened this past weekend at Nanjing Underwater World. And star of the show is an underwater version of the Amazon rain forest.
It was last Friday evening, 25 June, when the new exhibition made its debut, after a full year and half of preparation.
Centrepiece for the exhibition is the 4-metre long, 1.7-metre high and 2-metre wide large exhibition tank. This is the setting for scenes from the Amazon jungle, in which there are more than 30 kinds of aquatic plants and fish in the aquarium.
Elsewhere, there are an additional five smaller tanks with other underwater first scenes, with intriguing names such as “Exotic Pine Welcome”. Therein, the sunken wood’s unique shape imitates the Yingke pine, the landmark landscape of Yellow Mountain, its branches on each side stretching as if to welcome tourists from afar.
The tank is joined by the equally-odd sounding, “Silent Prairie”, “Splendid Striving Flora” and “Sounds of the Wilderness”.
On a more relatable note, there is finally the alpine tank, named with inspiration after the Beatles song, “Norwegian Wood”. Nice one.
And what undersea forest exhibition could possibly be complete without mermaids? While Nanjing Underwater World regularly features mermaids swimming in the tanks, for the new exhibition they’ve started walking around too, making for fun interactions with visitors.
The mermaids, who sing by the way, although they should really stick to swimming, are also joined by other “actors”, such as the “deep sea jellyfish elves”. See them in action in a video posted by the Yangtze Evening News and then enter at your own risk.
The exhibition runs throughout the summer, but only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings. Nanjing Underwater World is located on Purple Mountain, at 8 Sifangcheng Xi Lu (中山陵园四方城西路8号).
