Coex Aquarium

It started with the shark teeth. We whipped past the baby strollers to climb onto the toy shark statue, stuck our heads into the mouth and screamed. Jaws. All around us Asian children giggled, left dirty fingerprints on glass cages.

The Coex Aquarium. Hidden underground in Asia’s largest mall, the winding wonderland of fish tanks houses marine creatures and mammals, twenty five hundred tonnes of water. Electric eels, stingrays and starfish, penguins, prairie dogs, and bats.

The show off stingrays slurped up against the glass, lit up by silver light and the purple ceiling like some Proenza Schouler print dazzling. The fish swam in Coke machines and toilets, bed backboards and phone booths.

We wandered through the local fish chapter into a rainforest and through the tunnel. The light disappeared around corners, exploded into schools of silver fish. Sat down back against the glass, cranked neck up at the rainbow coral and let the sea life swim past, enchanted.