Disney World Trip Report, Trip 1, Day 2

Day 2: EPCOT

EPCOT, the only park designed to separate parents and children to opposite sides of the park. Seeing as how we don't have meddling kids yet, we weren't begged to death to see Nemo and Dori. Regardless, we saw them anyway. But before I get ahead of myself, let's start from the very beginning.

It didn't take long for our bodies to catch up to the night before. Because of that, we didn't arrive at EPCOT until a tad past 11. Luckily for that day, we weren't expecting heavy crowds.



We blew through the entrance and made our way past Space Ship Earth. With no itinerary in mind, we meandered through Innoventions. Actually, if I recall correctly, I was trying to catch up to Michelle as she blazed through this attraction of sorts just to get to the exit. After the hustling and bustling, we arrived at Club Cool. I bet it was strategically placed to refresh people like us that ran through Innoventions. On my last trip here in 2007, I knew that I disliked one of the flavors. Rather than figure out which one it was, I stuck to a few tried and true. In the end, I probably had 10 cups of the drinks labeled for Thailand and South Africa. Mind you, the cups were designed for kids. Which goes back to the point that EPCOT tries to separate you from your kids.

I was told to avoid this like the plague

Just get from the most colorful ones and you won't be disappointed

I'll bet a bitcoin that that cup is empty

After gorging ourselves with the free soda, we strolled towards the World Showcase. We eventually reached a fork in the road. We could either travel West towards Mexico or head East towards Canada. Traveling the world in either direction was both financially the same. I figured that back in 2007, we ventured the world going West, we should try exploring the other way. In the end, this choice worked out for us, which will be explained later.



I've never been to Canada before, but I'm sure it looks just as touristy as Canada in EPCOT. We met a fellow named Martin Short at Circle-Vision. If I learned anything from the short film, it was that I want to move there for the maple syrup. We then exited right into Victoria Gardens, which had a number of pretty flowers. My arms weren't long enough to pick a few of them for Michelle. So I guess pictures of them will just have to do.



Like clockwork, my stomach reminded me that it was time for lunch. So we flew over to the United Kingdom and grabbed ourselves some fried cod and potatoes.



We then wandered off into a shop where I found dragons and swords like those found in Game of Thrones (season 1). I didn't buy a sword that day because they didn't sell any scabbards to carry them in. If I carried it around all day, Michelle and I would look too much like Prince Philip and Aurora. If I were to have my pass revoked, it would have to be for something other than just being incredibly charming.

Somehow, we found ourselves waiting outside of Impressions de France until the next showing. In the queue area, Belle spent a lot of time hugging strangers (for the uninitiated, she's the funny girl in Beauty and the Beast). Inside the theater, we watched a 20 minute advertisement of "the beautiful French countryside."

All of these pale in comparison to Ned's Ice

Behold, the most comfortable seats in the park

It's no optical illusion. They really are that huge

After France, we trekked on over to Morocco. While we didn't find any atrractions to go on (Morocco is pretty much a dining country), I did get to wear a fez hat. Since I tend not to take selfies, Michelle has all the shots of me wearing a hat.



Continuing our journey, we came upon Japan. I would have to say that Japan is my favorite country to visit (at least at EPCOT). I'm probably biased since I hope to visit Disney Sea someday. What I really like about Japan is the Mitsukoshi Department Store. While you can probably find many of things inside this store at your local Daiso, it is one of the few stores that haven't been ravaged (yet) with the same bland Disney merchandise. By the time we left the store, the rain kicked into high gear. Although we had umbrellas with us, we walked over to a bench just outside of Katsura Grill and tried to wait out the rain. Shortly after sitting, a family with two young boys sat near us. For the next 10 minutes, we watched them devour their own, personal turkey leg. Watching them eat certainly made me hungry, but not hungry enough to walk in the rain mindlessly trying to find a location that sells them. Once the rain calmed down, we continued our journey west.

I love all of the details, especially the white streaks that mimic bird droppings

Before deciding to see the other half of the world, we made a pitstop to America. By the time we got here, the rain started to kick in again. Suddenly, everyone around us wanted to see The American Adventure. It must have been a coincidence or something. After about 10 minutes, everyone was ushered into the theater. In the following 30 minutes, I learned more about America than I ever did in college. Literally, just attach the Disney name to anything and I'm all ears.



By this point, we opted to skip on the west half of the World Showcase since we've thoroughly checked out these countries in '07. That, or our shoes were just plain soggy and wanted to check out larger, enclosed areas. So we decided to head back to Future World and see what interested us there. Along the way, we passed by Test Track (presented my General Motors). Since Test Track has an outdoor portion, ride availability was subject to weather conditions. Rather than wait for the attraction to reopen, we passed Mission Space and ended up at Ellen's Energy Adventure. I was relieved to find out that this show was going to last 45 minutes. This was around the time I started to notice a sore throat, probably due to catching a cold from someone a few days earlier. While I never did get an autograph from one of the dinosaurs, I at least got off my feet for a good while.

With Test Track still down, we strolled to the other side of Future World where we found The Land, which has the most creative name ever. They had a few displays that I just wanted to eat. Unlike merchandise, taking pictures of food doesn't actually fill me up.



We looked at the wait time for Soarin, saw that it was at least an hour, and decided to check out the other offerings instead. We went on The Circle of Life, which featured Timon and Pumba as they tried really hard to make me feel guilty about not caring about environmental conservation. It was followed up with Living with the Land, a greenhouse version of It's A Small World.



Now feeling really hungry, I wanted to head back to Tokyo Dining, the restaurant we went to back in '07. By the time we got there, my throat was quite sore. Instead of having sushi and the like, we went back to Katsura Grill and had some bowls of udon.



Even though it was another half hour before Illumnations was going to start, we camped out in a bridge area in front of Italy that is occasionally reserved for VIPs. To kill time, Michelle brought out a lollipop.



Since Illuminations marked the end of operational hours at EPCOT, everyone else funneled out.

Everyone but this guy. He took this opportunity to hop around when no one (else) was looking

Buh-bye huge golf ball. I'll have to take a swing at you later in the trip

With a cold coming in, I better rest up.

Next up, Disney's Hollywood Studios!