Previously: It was a disbelief, considering it was one of the places I'd always been dying to go to. The day really left me with a distinct impression and I somehow hoped I would be able to experience the same thing all over again :)
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- DAY 4: DECEMBER 20, 2011 -
Our days onwards would be continued with Aymee and Ardy, who just arrived last night at around 3 am. We were originally planning to go to Seaworld, but the only shuttle to go there would take off from the hotel at 7.20 am – that's very early especially considering Aymee and Ardy only had small portions of sleep. So change of schedule, Epcot was chosen! The earliest and only shuttle would be ready by 11am so we all could have a chance to wake up late.
Unlike the day before, we woke up at 9 am, took a shower, and got ready to go to the second out of four Disney parks in Orlando. The shuttle took us at 11.00 am and we reached there at around 11.30 am. Much unexpectedly as yesterday's visit to Magic Kingdom, there were lots more people packed outside the entrance in order to go in. I guess going to a theme park a little late was taking its toll, but anyway.
After an hour or so of taking pictures before the iconic Spaceship Earth building (sort of the icon of Epcot park), we started lining up for rides.
1. TEST TRACK
This is the first ride we got on to, minus Elda. I hesitated at first seeing how insanely fast the car went (basically the ride sort of gave you an idea of car speeding and undergoing some tests on engines and speed, thus, test track). But Aymee and Ardy convinced me for going since it was nothing like a roller coaster, which I finally did. It turned out to be an AWESOME ride. Probably the most awesome for a non-roller coaster rider like me. I loved the chilling sensation during the brake tests, and especially, when the car passed the track with a extreme, leaning turns in a super high speed.
After the ride, we walked through a showroom featuring stylish, fancy cars which I believe – even if they really existed not as models in that particular showroom – there are only a few of them on Earth* (=limited edition).
Bumblebee is here too!!
It was superbly impressive overall.
Before moving to the World Showcase, we visited a nearby giftshop from Test Track.
2. WORLD SHOWCASE
Then we moved on to explore the park, passing by a collection of pavilions of the world known as "World Showcase". Before starting, I just wanted to share that each pavilion represents a specific country and everything featured in it was related to the particular country: cultures, souvenirs, the sellers who came right from the real country the pavilion represents, and even the food. Sort of like artificial countries, yes, that will give you the kind of feeling “Oh I feel like in *insert country's name*”
Let's get started to roam around the world within 8 hours!
- Mexico:
Buenos dias! The exterior of it resembles a Mayan-ish temple in Chichen Itza.We went inside and the hall's interior was ABSOLUTELY STUNNING. I kid you not. I fell in love at instant with it. The hall consisted of mostly giftshops selling Mexican-related cultural attributes and souvenirs. Elda, Aymee, and I tried on sombreros and posed on the camera. We were actually planning to see the show “The Three Cabaleros” in the pavilion, but apparently the showtime didn't match our desired schedule.
Fun fact: This is the only pavilion whose foreign country is located not far from where Epcot is. Just a couple of miles below Florida, you'll be right in the real country!
- Norway:
Hallo Norway! The building was pretty, but there was nothing much we found here. We just dropped by to take some pictures.
- China:
Ni hao! Welcome to China! We went there briefly but I could get the China-ish feeling when I entered the “gate” that led to the major temple building which highly resembled the Temple of Heaven, in China. Apparently the inside of the temple was a 360 theatre featuring a movie Reflections of China.
Even before we were about the enter the theatre, a tour guide, a Chinese lady, greeted us and taught us a bit of Chinese (especially “Ni hao”), but seeing that there were still plenty of places to explore at Epcot and that the movie would take up maybe an hour of our Epcot visit, we decided to ditch the movie even before entering the theatre.Anyway, before seeing the movie, we bumped into this small gallery that preserved an imitation of Terracotta warrior. Even though it's fake, it's still awesome, but maybe it'd be more awesome to see the real one ^^
http://farm2.static.flickr.com
| A bit on the interior of Temple of Heaven at China, Epcot. The radial pattern is absolutely absorbing! |
So breathtaking right? O_O
- Outpost:
We visited an African style mini gift shop which sells African cultural attributes
I guess, the reason why Epcot doesn't feature Africa to the fullest is because Africa has its own showcase in Animal Kingdom, a pavilion twice bigger than any pavilions at Epcot
- Germany:Guten Tag alle! Wah, wir sind jetzt im Deutschland! I was immediately drawn to enter the pavilion once we passed Germany, in hopes that I would get to encounter a lot of German-ish stuff. We roamed a bit, took some pictures, and dropped by at the stores. Look at what we did at the gift shop.
http://disney-pal.com
I also stopped by at the cake shop and was drooled by the newly baked kuche they sold. Too bad, I wasn't too hungry that I decided not to have a bite of it.
Actually, I - too - was a bit hoping to encounter any German, well, at least to brush up my German speaking skills
- Italy:
(Let's play "Where's Elda?" in the pictures above! She's easily spotted as you can see)
Bon giorno! Italy offered a completely different atmosphere. After Asia, we shifted back to Europe. We strolled a little and admired the exterior of the buildings there, and one even resembled the Doge palace in Venice! Speaking of Venice, right across the Italy's Pavilion was a Venetian bridge complete with some gondolas docked on the lake's shore.
We also stopped by to see a brief street show performed in Italian, which was quite interesting.
As fans of Greek mythology, Elda and I were taken aback by the statue of Poseidon (or Neptune in Roman myth) at some corner of the pavillion. Elda even pointed out that she overheard someone murmuring, questioning who the statue guy was. Oh please... -_-
- The American Adventures
Next stop, we're coming back home! Yes, the pavillion of USA is located right in the center of all pavillions, on the other side of the Epcot lake. What makes it different than today's USA is the fact that everything else is designed like in the 1700s of USA, where the building resembles the Capitol and looks like the cast members don outfit that dates back to the times of the independence day. Girls wore bonnets and as for guys...hmm everything minus the wig. :p
It was midday and we were soooo hungry, so we stopped by at The American Adventure's Liberty Inn to munch something good.
We were actually planning to have something foreign country's food, like udon in Japanese pavilion, something we don't eat everyday. But we (quite ironically) ended up having a normal American lunch with hotdog and fries -_-
On the way to resume our journey after lunch, we bumped into a mini marching band with its performers dressing up a la the eighteenth century.- Japan
Konnichiwa! Now, we're in “Japan” as we were greeted by the distinctive pagoda. This pavilion probably gave me much more impression than others did simply because I love this country! It seems that Aymee and Ardy love it too, and as for Elda, don't ask any further, she's like a part of the country already. So I can see the face of anticipation and exhilaration shot from her expression, the kind that will say “Oh I'm home!” She was totally speechless and you should really see her face. That's so cute! Elda always loves Japanese stuff (yes, I dedicate this entire Japan pavilion paragraph to our sweet Japanophile) and always wanted to interact with Japanese people since she's fluent in it.
When Ardy bought a sushi from a wagon outside the pavilion, he, Aymee, and I even encouraged Elda to have some talks, but she was too shy, probably she was still warming up.
We couldn't hesitate to go inside while Elda was even more totally absorbed into the atmosphere of the inside of the pavilion! Ardy. We entered a small museum/gallery full of Japanese mythological and non-mythological icons. Elda, who's already familiar with it, explained to me briefly what those icons are. (e.g: moon rabbit, the holy monkey figure), and even more surprisingly, we spotted Naruto – yes that anime – at the end of the exhibition. Wow-ed enough?
After the gallery, we wandered off to a shop adjacent to it. It was a supermarket selling Japanese food and snacks, just like what my nearby Japanese supermarket does. Wouldn't it be funny to purchase some instant noodles to get wrapped in a Disney park plastic bag? XD. I was a bit tempted to buy some instant udon and ramen I always have for emergency, but hell yeah, I confined my wish.
The supermarket was continued with a larger shop with a strong Japanese atmosphere that now filled with Japanese accessories and attributes - Mitsukoshi. Basically what they had there range from kimono, yukata, sake cups, Japanese dividers, paintings, decorations, to tatami mats, pretty much like Daiso. Even at one side of the store, Elda found some anime, Japanese cartoon-accessories and DVD. There was a rack of DVD where they stored Ghibli movies and even, what captured me and Elda the most, a shelf containing plush dolls from Ghibli movies. You name it! Totoro and even Ponyo are all there. Elda was immediately infatuated with Totoro plushes of different sizes and she ended up getting herself a decent sized one. When she reached the cashier, Elda even managed to have a short conversation with the cashier in Japanese, much to the cashier's surprise since Elda was fairly fluent in the language.
To add the surprise element, I knew that Elda had always been a fan of the big, somewhat dumbfounded, fluffy Totoro since forever, and getting his plush in a place like Disney park was surely unexpected.
Seriously, I didn't feel in a Disney park. This whole vibe didn't convince me I was in one, at least.
Fluffy Totoro plush belongs to Elda
(Images taken from misc websites featured in this post are all given credits below)
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