Hey there, it's been a while since I posted the last time. I've been pretty busy these days, with me moving to Melbourne (the one in Florida, not in Australia) for internship for 4 months. Settling down is never easy but I got it over with soon. I'll talk further about Melbourne in my next posts but now, let's get on to something more exciting!
It's been approximately two years since I transferred to Art Center. A year before, I was still in De Anza, and one of the most magnificent vacations I've ever had in my entire period in US happened as I went to Orlando and New York in one winter occasion. Living in Melbourne gives me a chance to revisit Walt Disney World, whom I got to spend quite some time there three years ago with Elda, Aymee, and Ardy, since Melbourne is only an hour away from the so-called theme park capital of US.
This very weekend, I had a blast revisiting one of Walt Disney World parks, and that was EPCOT. Vivia, my current roommate and colleague, and I had been planning to go to EPCOT since last week, but the weather had always been in the way. It had been raining for the past couple of weeks here in Florida and being drenched in the outdoors is the last thing we would ever want to be. However, we finally got to go this week.
After debating over method of buying the ticket the night before, Vivia and I decided that we would just buy the tickets at the gate. Apparently, Disney World does not provide direct online tickets, you know, the kinds of tickets that you can just book online and you get to download the PDF version, then you print it out and bring it to the turnstile. Disney World requires either delivery of the physical tickets or will-call method. We were going to go for the will-callmethod, assuming we could just book today and pick-up the tickets at the ticket booth at EPCOT the next day. However, we were worried that the will-call method will not take a day. So if we were to take that method, there was a possibility that the ticket would take more than a day to be available, and we could get turned away from the gate if we came on the day after we booked it.
Anyway, I woke up at 7.30 am, feeling excited because the day I'd been waiting for ever since I landed in Orlando. We left at 9.30 am to Epcot. We planned to leave earlier though, but apparently we had a hard time waking up. We arrived there at approximately almost 11am, so it took approximately an hour and 15 minutes from Melbourne to get to EPCOT.
Once we got there, we rushed to the ticket booth and got our passes. I was considering to get a magic band but then I changed my mind. I might get that in the future. Vivia and I didn't go off on an attraction or ride just yet, though most of the rides are located at the Future World part, which is at the front side of the park. We thought of strolling all around EPCOT to the furthest part and then go back and do all the attractions and rides at the front part at last.
Just when we got in, it started to rain a little, so I went into Mouse Gear, a gift store and bought myself an umbrella, which would later be a waste because the rest of the day turned out to be sunny (or cloudy) as heck.
So, we skipped Test Track and Mission Space first and went on to the World Showcase!
Apparently EPCOT was having the Food and Wine Festival, so they had small booths of international cuisines served in a small, snack-like portion with an affordable price. We totally went to EPCOT at the perfect time!
MEXICO
First stop is Mexico. It was still 11 almost at noon, and we were already starving. So I went to the Patagonia food booth and got myself Roasted Verlasso salmon with quinoa salad and arugula chimichurri (I've no idea what that was but I was going to try that anyway). Sadly, I was too eager to take a picture of it that I dropped it. Thankfully, a fellow guest notified the staff and he gave me another one without paying :)
Then we went inside the Pavilion. Nothing much changed since I first came here three years ago. I was thinking to re-enact some pictures I took with Aymee and Elda, but I got distracted with the authentic Mexican memorabilia.
Oh and we went inside this ride called the Gran Fiesta with the Three Caballeros. it was basically a slow-moving boat ride that took us around Mexico with Donald Duck and the Three Caballeros. It was an impressive attraction full of vibrant, bright colors that Mexican culture is often associated with.
Vivia and I went inside the accessories store right after the ride was done, before moving to the next pavilion.
NORWAY
I was expecting to see Anna and Elsa in the Norway Pavilion (I read somewhere that they were often found in that particular pavilion), but they were not there. They were probably busy doing the Frozen Summer Fun in the Disney's Hollywood Studios. However, I did find something Frozen-related in the Norway Pavilion. We couldn't simply miss anything related to Frozen when we were in Norway, could we? The iconic, traditional Norwegian house in the Pavilion has been redecorated to house a small museum/gallery that displayed the concept art and all cultural items that inspired Frozen. So there were a mannequin of a Sami girl and a man that eventually inspired the design of Anna and Kristoff. There was also this small model of a snowy Norwegian village with a traditional palace-like house that eventually became the model for the Arendelle palace.
I never explored the Norway Pavilion far enough, except from the iconic building they were using for the Frozen gallery now, but the pavilion also extended to the other back of the building. That was where all the gift shops that sold Norwegian products and merchandises were sold. We also got on to this mild yet fun boat ride with a twist at the end called Maelstrom.
I'm a chicken when it comes to thrill, drop, and roller-coaster ride likes. The drops in Pirates of the Caribbean even irritated me, so I hesitated to try Maelstrom. However, Vivia persuaded me and I eventually got in the line, shaking as heck. I noticed that even grannies and two year-old children that were still carried by their parents, got in the line as well. Then I profusely browsed on the internet on my phone to check if the ride really had a scary drop while lining up.
It turned out, the drop was short and I even barely felt any G-force, unlike in Pirates of the Caribbean ride. There was a part before the drop where the Viking boat moved backwards rapidly and that part even freaked me out a little. I seemed to be the only one freaking out in the boat while other people were just like O_O.
After the ride was done, we bumped into a theatre where they played a short movie about Viking, so it kind of retold what we just experienced in the Maelstrom ride. Then we went to the gift shop. A day after the EPCOT visit, I learned they were going to close Maelstrom on October 4th, before it was to be replaced by a Frozen ride :(.
CHINA
The funny thing that happened when we went to the China Pavilion is, Vivia taking picture in front of the Temple of Heaven replica and Vivia was thinking to post the picture online and drove her friends to think that she actually went back home. Other than that, we just went to the gift shop and had lunch in the Lotus Cafe. I know, i should've saved up for the Food and Wine festival, but I was so hungry and I needed to have a bigger meal. Plus I haven't tried orange chicken in my life.
I was expecting to see Mulan at least, as I read on the internet that she was often found in the China Pavilion for a meet-and-greet, but she wasn't there when I went there. There was a cool Chinese acrobats performing in the Pavilion as well, so Vivia and I stopped by to see their performance.
To be continued.
To be continued.
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