one wheel on my suitcase was broken, but so far it was still working, sometimes it was blocked, but generally worked. i got it delivered like that to the hotel on day 03, so i didn't actually notice it until we first moved. meter by meter it got worse, until it finally broke and i dragged my suitcase on one wheel on the one side, and the plastic edge on the other side. soon the plastic was gone, and i was dragging it on the outer shell. so sooner or later it will be totally foobared. thus i had to buy a new luggage - an investment i really did not want to make since the ATM network is still broken, and the limit of my credit card will soon be reached. but, it had to be. so after checking out from the hotel i went to yodobashi and got myself a new and shiny luggage on four wheels - wohoo, never had that before. at the store i transferred my stuff to the new suitcase. and although i asked the guy selling me the item beforehand if i could leave my old one at the store he then refused to take it. and this is where the challenge starts: trying to trash my old suitcase in japan. i asked at the tourist information, they said that's hotel service, i asked at the JR desk, they sent me to the luggage and bags repair service at the railway station. no way. i thought about leaving it somewhere, but with all the 9/11 fuss and all those "report unclaimed luggage" signs everywhere i thought it's better not to. also i thought about bringing it to the lost and found office, but that might have been too obvious. so for now, i decided to keep it until i can dispose it somewhere. so we got on the JR train to osaka, as we had planned to visit the osaka aquarium today. nina really wanted to see this, so she was really looking forward to that. also, after the super hot day before, i thought it will be a day in a cooled down environment, since it will all be inside. yay, win:win. and approximately 45 minutes later we arrived at osaka station. there we stored our luggage at the luggage office at osaka station, since we would get on the train to hiroshima once we visited the aquarium. oh, the guys at the baggage room also did not trash my suitcase, and instead charged full price for my empty suitcase. grrrrrr... but now, time for some fishies, sharks, turtles, and crustacean! we got to the aquarium[005-133] pretty late, due to all the suitcase troubles in the morning, so there was no queue at the entrance area. good we thought, believing to find an uncrowded aquarium, also because it was monday. but, again, we were wrong. inside there were masses of people[016,126], it was loud with kids crying and shouting, loudspeaker announcements, narrow, and packed, at least it seemed so to us, i guess it actually was not that busy - maybe, as people seemed to enjoy all that. it took quite a while to get used to all that, or at least be able to ignore most of the stress factors, but soon it was bearable to us. so we could finally focus on the animals and really big and beautiful aquariums. i think the size was quite okay for most of the animals. especially cool was this huge tank right in the middle of the aquarium, where the main course through the building was circling down the aquarium. in there they had two huge whale sharks[043,059,082,084], rays[045,057,059,065-066,088,090,093], sharks[046,047,056,061], sleeping sharks[091,092,094,095], sleeping dolphins[071], really huge crabs[075-087], octopus[050-055] and more. they even had a jellyfish[096-116] section, that was pretty big, with jellyfish the size of only a few millimeters to those really big ones[110-116]. that was really amazing get-ting to see so many different kinds of jellyfish. then came the seal zone[120-125] with cute seals. throughout the museum there are markers on the floor that tell you how far it still is to the exit. the total course was around 600 metres long, and now there was only around 150 metres left. so we thought we will soon be at the exit. but what came as last highlight was so awesome! an aquarium where one could pet little sharks and rays[126-129,132]! while we had doubts PETA would approve that, we just couldn't resist to touch a ray and shark. no, no, we had to - and they feel awesome. actually it seemed the animals either liked it (rather unlikely) or got used to the petting (more likely), and they could also take a break in the middle of the aquarium. oh, and i touched a catshark too - meow. at the aquarium shop i bought nina a pillow in the shape of a gray seal[125] (actually it looks more like a barrel with face and fins, but nina's pillow is already worn out, and i wanted to buy her a new one for months now - so an excellent opportunity to replace it. but then it was time to hurry back to the railway station to get on a train to hiroshima, as it was already rather late. while walking through osaka i noticed that japanese people seem to be rather indecisive about standing on the left or right side on escalators. within one metro station it was even mixed several times, always indicated by a sign on which side to stand - weird. and as the ATM network still is not working, as already mentioned, i will raise my credit card limit again. fortunately this can be done online. so now i set it to the maximum amount - i hope we will not come up against the limit. on the 1.5 hours long train ride to hiroshima we ate our bento box we bought at the station in osaka - yummi! then we drove to our hotel, checked in, and went to bed.