Descriptive Essay

The aquarium

Do you love going to the aquarium? I still remember the first time I went to an aquarium with my family I was still a little girl and how it surprised me with the wonder of sea life. 
As I went through the stone-grey entrance, I was stunned by the miraculously huge ocean-blue tank placed in front of me. And meanwhile a breeze of chilly air inside the aquarium hit me, goose bumps crawled all over my skin. The chlorine-like smell in the aquarium felt refreshing and clean. That was the first time I've ever been to an aquarium, the excitement within me aroused. I ran towards the tank and put my hand onto the icy cold glass while I was watching a group of fishes chasing each other in the water. When I lifted my hand, a steamy handprint was left on the glass. The aquarium was filled by the sound of fishes gliding in the water, ripples were formed on the water surface when I looked up. The sound of laughter from the visitors inside the aquarium was loud and clear. 
There were a lot of diverse and colorful fishes swimming freely in the tank, some of the slimy and scaly fishes look gorgeous and some of them look hideous. Some of their colors were showy and vibrant while others act as a camouflage which can easily be concealed among the coral reefs. Each of their scales look different, some have a smoother edge while some may look sharp, having a tooth like shape. What most enchanted me was the fact that all those exotic fishes are swimming seamlessly in the water, each of them having different characteristics and living their own lives in this enormous tank. I discovered that those with a pointy or a bullet shaped body could swim faster than those with a hump-back body shape. Fishes with a smaller mouth were nibbling on the small plants while those with a bigger mouth were eating the food distributed by the aquarium staff near the water surface. I stood by the glass and gazed into the tank for ages, refusing to leave until my family had to drag me out of the aquarium. As time passed by, it has already been a long time since I’ve been to the aquarium. I decided to revisit it recently but the whole experience of my impression in the aquarium once I remembered as a child, completely changed.
Seeing the enormous tank again, despite of the enchantment of the sea life, I felt pity to the fishes inside the tank. What bothers me the most was that I noticed a disturbing action made around me, where most people were taking photos of the fishes using flashlights. Red lights shooting out from the cameras, pointing towards the tank regardless the signs of forbidding visitors to take photos using flashlight was hanged beside the glass. What’s more was that seeing all the sea creatures captured in a bounded space, it made me realized it was and never would be a freedom for them to swim in the never-ending ocean. The smell of the aquarium was no longer refreshing but hospital-like and discomforting. It is a freedom for us to visit an aquarium as our entertainment but on the other hand, are we abusing the freedom of the sea creatures for a moment of our happiness?