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Previously: By 9 pm-ish, we caught a taxi back home. A nice Egyptian guy happened
to be the driver and we had a good, warm talk along the way back to the
hotel. We pretty much didn't do much when we got to the hotel. Elda
had to pack and the rest of the night we spent by watching random stuff
(like cartoons) to Walt Disney World private channel on TV.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
- DAY 5: DECEMBER 22, 2011 -
With
Animal Kingdom concluding our theme park visit euphoria, and
Elda leaving early in the morning, Aymee, Ardy, and I basically had
nothing much to do for today. We woke up very late the day after
Animal Kingdom, around 11 am-ish. By the time we did, Elda already
went poof-ed. She must have been en route back to San Jose.
I – particularly – woke up with some back pains and extreme
exhaustion. Ardy, Aymee, and I were even awake for less than an hour
before we fell back to bed and resumed sleeping until around 2pm.
We didn't have any special plans that day. At first, we were thinking
to go to Disney Downtown for a stroll, but seeing it took a specific
scheduled shuttle to get there, we cancelled the plan (duh, we
totally missed the scheduled shuttle).
At 2, we went downstairs to Savannah Grill to have late lunch. The
restaurant was soooooo empty! Well, no wonder, since at this time of
the day, all guests must be at an Orlando theme park. We were the
only ones stuck at the hotel, not knowing what else to do, suffering
out of back pains and aches due to walking and screaming for the past
4 days subsequently.
At the restaurant, we helped ourselves with whatever was available.
Aymee and Ardy munched on what I remember sandwiches or burgers, and
I helped myself with a tomato soup, cos I felt like eating something
liquid-ish and warm.
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This isn't the picture I took, but the soup looked like this
http://simplerecipe.net |
However, there was a bit problem...well, actually it was quite big.
When I was about to garnish some peppers on the soup, the loose lid
of the pepper shaker went off, and in the end, I had a huge pile of
black pepper on the surface of my soup. When I tried to brush some of
the pepper off the soup, I accidentally mixed them altogether in the
soup, making the pepper impossible to be removed. Eating it seemed
impossible, and I only cringed everytime I had a spoonful of the
pepper-ful soup. So Aymee suggested that I shared the soup with her
(she also ordered the same thing, but still completely in a good
condition).
Anyway, dun dun dun, we did pretty much nothing for the rest of the
day. We did take some time watching TV, strolling around the hotel,
and looking up for some more restaurant coupons for some cheap deals.
We were cheapskate students/tourists lol. After a while, we found out
that a nearby restaurant, Golden Corral, offered a decent deal only
for that day, where we got $40 for all you can eat! And that's for
three of us! So each of us would need to pay roughly $13 for
all-you-can-eat type of meals!
Around 7, we walked to Golden Corral, which was located around a
block away (remember the street full of restaurants along the way I
told you on the first day we got to Orlando?). The line was sooooo
long, and most visitors are families. It was a quite crowded
restaurant with some stations serving different kinds of food (from
Mexican to Salad station). But we managed to dug our way in soon
after showing the cashier our discount coupon.
The next hour, don't even bother to ask what happened. We crazily dug
into the food. I took rounds and rounds of eating, grabbing as much
as possible, from salad, soup, some beef and chicken, spaghetti, and
lastly desert (I'm sure I took more than that). Well, I wouldn't to
waste $13 for a small amount of everyday meal. By the time I wanted
to munch on the last course which is, of course, dessert, my stomach
felt like a giant rock. I could barely move lol.
After a while of letting the food sliding down the throat to being
digested, Aymee, Ardy, and I were about to take off from the
restaurant before realizing that there was a connection door to an
adjacent gift store. We went there and looked around for a bit, where
I spotted this...
 |
| ORLANDO FRIGGIN LOVES ME |
Ah well, I ended up not buying it since it was actually a real
license plate. The size was unreasonably big to be brought for
travel, so I wasn't sure if it was going to fit my bag.
As for the stuff we bought there, I ended up buying two key chains
for my friends for a good deal. Even though the quality of the items
sold in the gift stores along the road were doubtable compared to the
official shops inside the Disney parks, the price isn't kidding. One
keychain only reached up to $2 max. Disney parks official keychains
can sell up to $6. Speaking of the huge price gap here.
Anyway, from this gift store, we walked our way back home while
listening to some faint explosions from the distance following with
sparks of faint light. Apparently Magic Kingdom fireworks were on. Oh
how I had missed the place even though I just went there like three
days before.
We dropped by at 7/11 to buy some snacks and drinks before our flight
to New York the next day. I bought myself a cold orange juice that
I'd been longing. While waiting for Aymee and Ardy to pick their
items, I browsed through the magazine stall before noticing that
across the stall itself was a counter to buy the tickets to Disney
Parks...at A MUCH LOWER RATE! WTF is this??!! We compared the price
of the tickets we bought online to the one sold in this counter.
Well, it wasn't that much of the difference, but still...that just
hurt me, and that hurt even more when a family of four came to the
counter and purchased the tickets T_T
You know what they say, it's no use to cry over a poured milk.
When we were almost back at the hotel, Aymee suddenly decided to drop
by at another gift store located exactly outside the parking lot of
the hotel (I forgot if I'd mention this before but this gift store
was considerably huge with a huge colorful mermaid carving on its
walls). The prices of the keychains in the store were even
ridiculously much cheaper than the previous store, so I thought of
buying some, and this time...more than two.
It was already 11ish pm. The store was quiet as heck and we were like
the only customers left. Aymee still had fun digging up some stuff
and apparently she determined to find a present for her cousin Nancy,
whose birthday would be at the coming weeks. I first thought that
Aymee was going to give Nancy something Disney-ish but she ended up
buying a miniature of a gold guitar (because Nancy plays that
insturment). Well, the miniature wasn't the only items she bought, as
when I looked to her shopping basket, she turned out to buy more
stuff for her friends and family. How generous of her :)
Seeing it was late and we had a morning flight to catch up tomorrow,
without further ado, we went straight back to the hotel and packed.
We squeezed all the souvenirs and stuff we bought during our
fulfilling days in the Disney parks and Seaworld into our bags. Thank
goodness, the common problem usually found while packing to leave –
which is overloaded content – didn't occur this time. All things
fit perfectly inside the bags!
Okay time to get some sleep. New York awaits tomorrow! :)
