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Josiah's Florida Travelogue
Year 1: July 2011 - April 2012
Wednesday (July 20th): Getting the Lay of the Land

I'm in Northern Florida to scope things out before the start of my new job. I've gotten a lot done over the last couple of days, including finding an apartment and finishing a bunch of paperwork at my future work place. Since that got taken care of quicker than I thought, that leaves a couple of days to explore before heading back to Arizona, though not for long. Hard to believe I'll be moving down here in just a few weeks and starting work in a little less than a month. I'm going to miss a lot of things from Arizona. I've still got a couple friends who live in the area, there's lots of shops and restaurants I love, and my place there is awesome and within easy walking distance of tons of stuff. But living here isn't looking too bad. I found a pretty nice apartment complex and there's a pretty good selection of shops and restaurants within a reasonable driving distance (there's a handful of stuff I can walk to as well, though nothing compared to my place in Arizona). I'll talk about the area and my new job and post some pics next month after the move. I've got mixed feelings about the whole thing but having a full time job will be nice and the whole thing could be fun (especially since I've got the beach and Orlando within driving distance, at least on my days off). Besides, my initial contract is for nine months so, just in case things don't work out or I get an amazing job offer from somewhere else, I'm not locked in for too long. Hopefully everything will work out well here but it's nice knowing that, come spring, I'll be able to re-evaluate things.

Friday (July 22nd): Exploring Gainesvile

Well, I'm heading back to Arizona today. It'll be nice to be home...for all of one and a half or two weeks until I move back here to Florida. I'll most likely be staying in Florida for at least nine months but after that, who knows? I may stay in Florida for a while longer or I may be heading back to Colorado, Arizona, Japan, or somewhere else entirely. While there are some advantages to getting to live lots of different places, this will be my fourth move this year alone. I'd kinda like to just settle down in one of my favorite areas for a while and save the new places for vacations.

Anyway, with all the apartment searching done, my dad and I spent Wednesday checking out the major attractions in Gainesville (the nearest city to where I'll be living). First up, Devil's Millhopper. It's a really large sinkhole, though by now the whole thing is filled with trees, vines, and the like. There's a walkway going all the way to the bottom and it's a nice little jungle-esque hike, though it's only really recognizable as a sinkhole because the rest of the area is so flat. In a hillier part of the country, it'd be pretty hard to pick out. Next up, the Museum of Natural History. The museum itself wasn't bad (they had a decent amount of fossils on display and a rather large section devoted to Florida's Indian tribes) but the big draw is the butterfly house, which is far and away the best one I've ever seen. Not only was there a huge variety of butterflies, but they were everywhere, making it really easy to get a good look (and some good photos). And it wasn't just butterflies. They also had the world's largest species of moth. You might not be able to tell just from the photo, but that guy was around 8 inches across. And, according to one of the workers, that's on the small side. We also swung by the botanical gardens, which were fairly nice (though not quite on the same level as the Dallas Arboretum (which I visited last week) or some of the gardens I saw in Japan earlier this year). This is the time of year at the gardens for lily pads, including this giant variety from the Amazon. We walked around Gainesville a little bit too, but I'll save pictures of the city itself, my apartment, workplace, and the like for after I move down here.
My dad and I didn't do anything too spectacular yesterday, but we did stop by Amelia Island, which has a really nice beach. I got in the water for a bit (great temperature and decent waves), saw a dolphin (its dorsal fin anyway), and found a sand dollar, so that was fun. I'll definitely do the occasional beach day once I'm settled in down here (though probably at a closer beach).

Monday (August 8th): Moving In
I made it to Florida and got into my apartment without any serious problems. I've been running around like crazy for the last couple of days shopping and unpacking. Not done yet, but I'm hoping to finish today. That way I can take Tuesday to explore and take some photos (check back later in the week for those), at least assuming that it isn't raining, which has been happening fairly often (though never for very long). Other than that, I'm thinking I'll spend at least one day this week just taking it easy make one a beach day (weather dependent). I'm kinda tempted to go to a water park too, but that would be a pretty long drive and I've already done a ton of driving over the last few days so I might hold off on that for a little while.

Tuesday (August 9th): My New Apartment

It took a bit longer than I thought it would, but I finally got my new apartment all set up. I was originally planning to take a bit of time to walk around and photograph my apartment complex and the little town I'm living in but it was raining way too hard for that (I got soaked most of the way through just running between my apartment and the laundry room (all of 60 seconds away) so, after I finished arranging the last of the stuff in my apartment, I went into Gainesville for a bit and checked out the mall and a few other stores (trying to find the best places to shop for various items).
I'll get some pictures of the complex and town when I can (hopefully later this week), but for now here's a few pics of my new apartment. The living room came out pretty well thanks to the cheap couch I found. Kinda wish I'd brought my old IKEA TV stand down here, but this one works well enough. The kitchen isn't bad either (though I'm going to miss the ridiculous amount of counter space I had at my family's condo in Phoenix). You can see the dining room in the back. I decided to save a bit of money and just get a folding table and a couple chairs instead of a full dinette set. It would have only been around $80 more, but I don't know if I'll ever really need a full sized table and a bunch of chairs here anyway. Moving on, there's a laundry room off the kitchen but, unlike in Phoenix, apartments here rarely include a washer and dryer. There's a hookup, in case I want to buy or rent them, but I decided to try using the complex's laundry room instead (the only problem is getting enough quarters) so I'm just using that room for storage right now (empty boxes mainly, so I'll be all set next time I move). There's a den of sorts, which I'm using as a combination office and music room. It's been a while since I practiced piano regularly but I'm hoping to start up again once I get into my routine here. Finally, there's the bedroom. It's a bit sparsely furnished right now since a lot of the things I'd normally put inside are in the den instead. There's also a walk-in closet, which you can't see in the photo, and a fairly nice (though a little strangely designed) bathroom.
All in all, it's a pretty nice apartment in a pretty nice complex. It's more or less equivalent to the apartments I lived in when getting my Bachelor's and Master's degrees and it is, of course, a million times better than either of my Japan apartments. It's a couple of steps below the condo I just moved from though.

And that's about it for now. I'm still hoping to get to the beach at some point this week, but the weather is looking pretty iffy so we'll see what happens.

Wednesday (August 10th): Alachua

Work starts Monday, though this coming week is kinda a weird one since classes don't start until 22nd. There's some meetings and stuff I have to attend but what I'll really need to focus on is planning for my upcoming classes. I only found out what I'll be teaching a couple days ago and I won't get my copies of the textbooks until Monday. If the classes were on game design or writing, I could probably hit the ground running fairly easily, but since the start of the game design program was delayed, I was given several assorted computer classes, some of which really aren't within my areas of expertise. I'll have to work pretty hard next week to review the books, make a syllabus for each class, and start creating lesson plans. It's going to be an interesting semester...

Anyway, with my shopping and apartment setup done, I'm finally able to take it easy for a few days. The weather was pretty nice Wednesday morning (though it got cloudy in the afternoon and eventually started raining) so I went out to walk around and take some photos. First off, here's a look at my apartment complex. Well, one row of buildings anyway. There's some nice grassy areas behind the buildings, a decent swimming pool, a gym, and an indoor basketball court as well. Though I forgot to bring my access card with me when I went out on my walk so I didn't get any pictures of them. The complex itself is on a hill on the edge of the town and there's some nice grassy fields around it, along with some large trees covered with Spanish moss. There's of lot of tiny little towns in this part of the Northern Florida. I'm in Alachua, which is the biggest and most picturesque of the bunch (or at least of all the ones I've seen). Here's the city hall, which also doubles as the utility company. I had to go there to set up my electric account. At least I can pay it online though, which is more than I can say for my rent.
Unlike a lot of the little towns around here, which are pretty much just some houses and a gas station, Alachua has a couple of grocery stores (neither of which is a Publix, unfortunately), a Lowe's (which seems very out of place), and a decent selection of restaurants, along with a couple other random stores. About half the stores and restaurants are clustered around the grocery stores and the rest on gathered down town on an old fashioned Main Street, complete with a number of neat old houses. I have to drive to Gainesville to do any serious shopping, or get any sort of Asian food, but there's an excellent pizza place just a couple minutes away from my apartment and one of the restaurants on Main Street serves really good (and really large) hamburgers, and there's a few other places I want to try.

Thursday (August 11th): Jacksonville Beach

Of all the days this week, Thursday had the lowest chance of rain so I decided to head to the beach. I ended up at Jacksonville Beach, which is the closest one, though still a good hour and forty minute drive (which is why I didn't want to risk it when there was a high chance of rain). It's a pretty nice beach. There's wasn't a boardwalk or anything like that, and I wish the waves had been a bit bigger, but it was a pleasant way to spend a few hours and I managed to do it without sunburning myself (much). It's too bad the beach isn't a big closer. If it was only half an hour or less from where I live, I'd probably go there fairly often. As is, if I want to go I'd have to devote most of the day to it, which I can't do very often, especially if I want to visit all the big attractions in Orlando.

On an interesting but fairly unrelated note, I'm rather surprised by the lack of Starbucks around here. It's not like there aren't any, but I'm used to seeing one in every big grocery store, every Target, and every Barnes & Noble, in addition to a bunch of stand alone Starbucks. Here, on the other hand, neither the Target or Barnes & Noble in Gainesville has one, nor does any grocery store I've visited. There isn't a single Starbucks in all of Alachua and while Gainnesville does have some stand alone ones, there's less than I'd expect for a city of that size. Not that it's a really big deal. Even at the condo in Phoenix, where there was one right across the street, I'd only go twice a week at most. It's just kinda weird...

Friday (August 19th): New Job
Over the last couple of days I've attended several long faculty meetings and I've got a couple left before the week is up. But that's only part of what I've been up to. I've also had to run around to get my ID card, parking pass, etc. That wouldn't be too much of a problem except for how the campus is arranged. While Florida Gateway College doesn't have particularly high enrollment, instead of having everything in a couple of large buildings, all the rooms and facilities are spread out between thirty or so smaller buildings. Unfortunately, many of those buildings are labeled only by number and they aren't always positioned where you'd think, which can make finding the right one rather difficult. Just to complicate things a little more, my office key isn't ready yet for some reason and the door locks automatically, which means I can only get in if my supervisor happens to be around with her key.
Anyway, now that I've got all my stuff (except for that office key), and finished most of the important meetings (two more to go), and gotten the textbooks and most of the materials I need, I've started seriously focusing on preparing for the courses I'm going to teach. First step, making all the syllabi (which are due Friday morning). You'd think that'd be quick enough, but there's a lot of stuff that needs to go into the syllabi here, including a basic outline of the course, so they're not something you can just throw together. I did, however, manage to finish my first one last night. And while I can't just copy and paste everything, I can re-use enough of it that the remaining 5 should go a lot more quickly.
Of course, syllabi are just the beginning. Once they're done, I still have to actually get all the material ready for the courses themselves (presentations, reading assignments, projects, tests, etc, etc, etc). I can reuse a decent amount of stuff left by the courses' previous teachers (are previously mentioned, the game design program was delayed until spring so I'm teaching a bunch of assorted computer courses), but there's quite a lot that has to be tweaked and a good bit that I'll still have to make from scratch.
All in all, it's looking like the next couple of weeks are going to be extremely busy. I still might try and run off to a water park at some point in the near future, but if I do that would be the one break in an otherwise pretty intense work marathon. Once I've got this semester's courses all laid out, things should calm down a bit (at very least, I shouldn't have to do anything for the college outside of my normal working hours). Though I only have until the end of September to create syllabi and get some basic planning done for the upcoming game courses... But anyway, it'll be a crazy week or two followed by busy month but after that... After that I should be pretty good for the rest of the year...unless, of course, something else comes up. But anyway, that's just the way it goes. And I'm kinda looking forward to working on the game courses so that could be fun...

Did I ever mention which classes I'm going to be teaching this semester? I don't think I did... Well, as previously mentioned, the game design program (which is what I was hired for) was delayed until spring (though I'll need to get a lot of the pre-planning and prep work done for it later this semester) so I got assigned a few assorted computer classes. I've got three sessions of Computer Applications (Microsoft Office), two of Introduction to Programming (fortunately it's a very simple intro class, since programming isn't my area of expertise by any means), and one of Basic Web Programming (which I'm doing more as web design than programming).
Anyway, since my last news post I've finished all my syllabi (might have to tweak them slightly to get approval though). I'm also around 99% done with the prep work for Computer Applications (I was able to modify the other teacher's files, which saved a lot of time), 40-50% for programming, and 15% for the web class (I have to make pretty much everything from scratch for that one). My goal for today (and the weekend if necessary) is to get enough done on those last two classes that I'll be all set for at least the first week or two. If I can get that done, I can slow down a little bit and take the next week or two to finish up the remaining material I need to make for them. Fortunately, I should be able to do all that during my regular work hours, which will free up the rest of my time for various other projects of mine...

Sunday (August 21st): Janmastami

Well, after working all day Friday and most of Saturday night, I managed to get to the point where, while I still have a lot of prep work to do for some of the classes I'll be teaching, I should be able to handle the rest during working hours. Hopefully...

Anyway, since I didn't have to work on Sunday, I was thinking of going to Orlando and visiting one of the water parks on my list for a nice break. In the end though, I wasn't too keen on getting up early (especially after a late night) and driving for a couple of hours. Considering how busy things have been over the past week, I figured it would also be nice to just hang out and relax a bit. Plus, a few days ago, someone told me there was going to be some sort of big festival in Alachua at the Hare Krishna and recommended that I stop by. So I decided to wait a little longer for Orlando (this weekend, weather permitting), get some things done, relax a bit, and check out the festival.

While I know quite a lot about some religions, Hare Krishna isn't one of them. A bit of quick Wikipedia research revealed that it's a type of Hinduism (India's main religion). Some elements of it also reminded me of Buddhism (which also started in India) but I'm not going to go into the details here (partly because I'm still kinda fuzzy on them myself). As a note, Hare Krishna isn't actually the proper name of the religion, it's Krishnaism. And the American "Hare Krishna" groups are part of the Gaudiya Vaishnavism sect of Krishnaism. Hare Krishna is actually the name of a mantra they use, but that's besides the point.
Anyway, apparently there's a fairly large Hare Krishna community around Alachua and yesterday was the annual Janmastami festival, which celebrates the birth of Krishna. The local group has a nice temple just outside of town and that's where the festivities were held. According to the schedule, there were religious services running pretty much all day from early in the morning until past midnight, but the main festival started in the late afternoon outside the temple building. The turnout was pretty impressive (especially considering how small Alachua is) and more people kept coming. While there were some people like me who were clearly there just to check things out, going by how they dressed, I'd say at least two thirds of the people were actual believers.
I only stayed for about an hour and a half, but that was enough time to check out the booths (which sold a mix of Hare Krishna related items, Indian style clothing, and a few other odds and ends), get something to eat (whether or not you care about the religion itself, Hare Krishna groups tend to make excellent vegetarian food), and look at some displays based on famous Hare Krishna temples. They also had what had to be the largest cow I've ever seen (in Hinduism, cows are sacred). It's hard to tell from this picture, but that cow looked to be over five and a half feet tall and between eight and ten feet long. Then there was the live entertainment. While I was there, they were doing a play about the three lives of an important religious figure (I believe his name began with a B, but I have no idea how to spell it). Here's a clip from a section where the main character muses on various matters. And here's a part where...actually, I have absolutely no clue what was going on in that scene. The show bordered on humorous at times (the actors had a tendency to ham it up a bit), but was very well done.
While I wouldn't say this Janmastami celebration was nearly as much fun as the various festivals I've been to in Japan, it was an interesting and entertaining way to spend an hour or two.

Friday (August 26th): Random Florida Comment: Billboards
So, I drove all the way from Arizona to Florida and it's not the first long drive I've done either. When you're driving across country on a highway or interstate, pretty much all the big billboards you see are are for hotels, restaurants, and attractions. If you're in a city, you might see some for stores, TV shows, or events. But Louisiana and here in Northern Florida are the only places I've ever seen giant billboards for porn stores. I pass a series of them on the way back from work every day. And I'm not talking about a single sign right by the exit where the store is. There's a whole series of them that starts at least 40 miles before the place. It's kinda weird... I mean seriously, is there something that special about it? Do they think people driving on major highways are desperate to find a porn store? Not that I have any real desire to go there and find out (had to walk through way too much of that stuff when shopping for visual novels in Japan). It just makes me wonder about some of the people around here...

Sunday (August 28th): Blizzard Beach

I've been talking about visiting the major water parks in Orlando since I moved down here and Sunda I finally got started on that. It took me about two hours to drive to Disney World. It wasn't a bad drive, though the scenery was mostly endless walls of tall trees (that seems to be the norm for highway driving around here). I made a few interesting observations on the way. First off, antique malls seem to be pretty popular here. I must have passed at least half a dozen of them, all of which had a series of billboards leading up to them. Second, the Gainesville and Lake City areas apparently have the highest gas prices in the Northern half of Florida (maybe the whole state). When I went to the beach in Jacksonville, the gas prices there were about 10 cents cheaper. Then, starting at Ocala (the next major town south of Gainesville) and going all the way to Orlando, gas prices were all 20 - 30 cents lower than there are here. What's up with that? And three, Florida has toll roads. The drive to Orlando cost me $3 in tolls. Oddly enough, the drive back cost me $3.75. Not quite sure how that worked...

Anyway, my destination was Disney, but not one of the theme parks. The whole Disney World complex also has two water parks (and quite a lot of other stuff). For this visit, I chose Blizzard Beach, a water park with a ski slope theme (which is one of your more unlikely water park themes, right after electric plant and toxic waste disposal facility). While there, I bought a pass I can use to get into the theme parks and other Disney stuff. While Disney World is kind of expensive if you only go for a day or two, when you buy a multiday pass the prices go way down, and for a little bit more you can add in access to the water parks and stuff too. So now I've got a pass good for ten theme park visits (I probably won't use that many by May, but it doesn't expire) and 10 admissions to other stuff (9 now that I've been to Blizzard Beach). All for around the same price I would have paid for single visit to each of the four parks and two water parks had I bought one ticket at a time.
The centerpiece of Blizzard Beach is this big ski mountain and the Summit Plummet speed slide (for the record, you don't go over that ski jump, there's a tunnel beneath it). It's 120 feet tall, which I'm pretty sure makes it the tallest one I've ever been on by far. It's a lot of fun, at least if you like speed slides. There's a somewhat more mild one next to it and, off on the other side, you got the longest (or one of the longest, different signs said different things) tube slides in the country. Down below you've got a kids obstacle type area and a wave pool (see the first photo), a really choppy wave pool. Which is a good thing, since I think most wave pools are kinda dull. On the other side of the mountain, there's some more tube slides and a couple of toboggan slides (where you go down head first on a mat). One is the usual eight way toboggan race which a lot of water parks seem to have these days. The other, however, is a three way race themed after a ski slalom, which twists and curves and is pretty awesome. They also have an area for really little kids and a very long tubing river running around the whole park.
It doesn't beat Water World back in Denver, but all in all Blizzard Beach is one of the best water parks I've ever been to. The day alternated between sunny and cloudy a lot (which helped keep the temperature comfortable) but aside from some occasional wind, the weather was pretty good until around up until around 4, when they had to temporarily stop the rides due to some thunder. Though I was actually thinking about calling it a day right around then anyway, so it all worked out. Lines weren't too bad either, with only a couple of exceptions. Overall, it was a pretty nice day. Although I will note that waiting in line by myself can be rather dull at a water park, since I don't have my phone or anything to mess with.

Friday (September 2nd): Typhoon Lagoon

Friday had a better weather forecast than Sunday or Monday so I took advantage of the extra time off and headed back to Orlando to visit Typhoon Lagoon, the second water park at Disney World. While Blizzard Beach was themed after a ski resort, Typhoon Lagoon is based on a tropical bay in the aftermath of a big storm (note the boat stuck on top of the rocks and the driftwood and wreckage style of the decor). The centerpiece is the giant wave pool. The wave pool at Blizzard Beach was choppy water all the time. Typhoon Lagoon's, however, is a bit different. It does have some choppy water here and there, but it's mostly about the waves. Really big waves (much bigger than during my last couple of visits to the beach). So big that they actually offer surfing lessons there in the morning before the park opens. When I was swimming around trying to get in a good position between waves, I realized that this was the first time in ages (years, I think) that I've been in water too deep for me to stand. I used to swim in fairly deep pools (10 - 12 feet) a lot but that was a long time ago. Over the last few years, it's mostly been pools at my various apartment complexes. Which, while nice, never get deep than 5 feet or so. I kinda miss deep water...
Anyway... Typhoon Lagoon doesn't have anything to match Blizzard Beach's huge speed slide (there's a set of three speed slides, but they're much smaller) and there's no toboggan slides either. However, there's a rather awesome trio of twisty body slides and some pretty cool tube slides as well. They've also got some roller coaster slides. If you've never seen a roller coaster slide before, they've get some powerful water jets that can actually blast you uphill, so there's lots of bumps, ups, and downs. Lots of fun, though I've actually been on longer ones in Phoenix. And, of course, there's the giant lazy river, which is always good for relaxing. The most surprising attraction is Shark Reef, a saltwater pool where you can snorkel with a collection of fish, rays, and even some sharks (really small ones). Doesn't compare to a real reef, but it's still pretty neat.
Overall, it's hard to choose a favorite between Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon, they both have their pros and cons. If you're ever thinking of going to one of them, I highly recommend a weekday. Even though Friday was the start of a holiday weekend, the crowds were much smaller than they were on Sunday and I never had to wait more than 10 minutes or so for any of the slides (usually less).

And with that, I'm done with Orlando for a little while. I may do a beach trip in a couple of weeks, but I think I'll save the next water park for later this month or early next month.

Friday (September 16th): St. Augustine
Since coming down here, I heard a few people mention St. Augustine but I didn't really know much about it, other than that it was on the beach. But then I looked it up online, saw a few photos, and decided that I absolutely had to go. And, last Friday, that's just what I did. There's a lot to see, but most of the main attractions are in the same general area and I found a good walking tour so I was set.
St. Augustine was founded by the Spaniards in 1565 (though the area was first explored by Ponce de Leon around 50 years earlier), making it one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in the country. It has a pretty interesting history and was controlled by the Spanish, than the British, than the Spanish again, and finally by the Americans. And Ponce de Leon wasn't the only famous historical figure connected with St. Augustine. Sir Francis Drake, for example, burned it to the ground in 1586.
Further attacks by the British eventually led to the construction of St. Augustine most famous landmark, the Castillo de San Marcos, which was also one of the first stops on my walking tour (after the visitor center). The castillo is an old fort made out of coquina (a cement like rock formed out of crushed seashells). Coquina actually made a really good building material. Instead of cracking and shattering when hit by enemy canon fire, the balls just sunk into it. The castillo was in use for 205 years and in that entire time it was never captured by enemy forces (it did change hands several times, as previously mentioned, but due to politics, not conquest). While there, I watched a reenactment of an old Spanish canon drill. Though they didn't use a real canon ball, they did set off the canon with black powder using the same methods as the Spanish did long ago. The castillo can't compare with the castles I've seen in Europe, it was still a cool building and in excellent shape.
Finishing up in the Castillo, I walked along the bay as I headed to my next destination. I had been thinking about going to the beach for a bit after I finished touring but I happened to spot a few jellyfish floating in the water as I walked past, which really lowered my interest in a swim. And, in the end, I spent the entire day touring so there wasn't time anyway. But I'm getting off topic. I skirted the edge of the historic downtown district as I walked, getting a few early glimpses at some of the places I'd be visiting later, and eventually ended up at the St. Francis barracks. It was originally built in the early 1700's as a monastery but has since become the home of the Florida National Guard. As it so happened, I was there on the anniversary of the first muster (when the Spanish called the civilians to aid their military in conflict over 440 years ago), so they were having an open house and I got to go inside and look through the little museum they had covering the history of the national guard and the barracks themselves.
After that, I came to the Oldest House. While it's undergone a lot of expansions and modifications since it was built in the early 1700's, the basic building is thought to be the oldest one in St. Augustine. Each room is decorated to recreate the time periods of the house's various occupants. They had a pretty interesting tour and it made for a nice look into how people lived in those days.
Leaving the Oldest House, I passed the old Catholic Basilica (which was actually one the least impressive churches I saw that day), then headed down the first part of St. Augustine's most famous shopping streets. There were lots of little stores and restaurants, many occupying old buildings. Interestingly, a lot of the larger buildings had been turned into quirky little mini-malls, which were kind of fun to walk though. I got a quick snack but didn't linger too long since I'd be returning to the area later after seeing a few more sites.
The Government House Museum was a little on the small side, but had an informative series of displays on what life and construction were like during the Spanish, British, and early American portions of St. Augustine's history. And then it was time for me to check out some of St. Augustine's most impressive buildings.
First off, we have the Casa Monica hotel. Which was actually the least impressive hotel I visited. Though, to be fair, the other two aren't used as hotels anymore. The coolest building by far is Flagler College. Well, it's a college now but it was originally the Ponce de Leon hotel, which was built in the late 1800's by Henry Flagler, an industrialist who, among other things, built a bunch of fancy hotels during Florida's first big tourist boom. Ponce de Leon was his flagship hotel for a while and no expense was spared in its construction. I arrived just in to slip into the last tour of the day and wow... Modeled somewhat after Spanish palaces, the building is absolutely amazing. And that's just the outside. Inside, it's filled with elaborate carvings and painted ceilings. According to the tour guide, pretty much everything that looks like gold and silver actually is. It was the second building Thomas Edison ever wired for electricity. Early light bulbs only lasted 6 - 8 hours, so Flagler had a ridiculously large number of employees whose sole job was to go around changing the burnt out bulbs. But for a hotel like this, you could never have too much luxury. To give you an idea of what kind of clientele stayed there, the Ponce de Leon charged $90 a night. Now by modern standards, that's not that bad for a hotel room (not cheap, but not particularly expensive either), but this was back in the days when your average worker made about $1 a day, so it was only for the extremely wealthy. But eventually the rich people decided that St. Augustine got too cold in the winter and moved further south (where Flagler built even more fancy hotels), and the Ponce de Leon eventually became a college. The tour only went through the lobby, dining hall (complete with more painted ceilings), and womens' lounge (which had a cool fire place), but the guide told us that many of the classrooms are just as fancy and the second floor (where all the guest rooms used to be) has been converted into the girls' dorm. Oh, and can you believe that the entire hotel was built and decorated in only 18 months? All in all, I think it was the fanciest building I've ever seen in my life (with the possible exception of Germany's Neuschwanstein castle). I wonder if they want to start a game design program...
Anyway, Flagler had built a slightly less fancy hotel across the street as well, which has since been turned into a museum to hold a very impressive collection of high class stuff (clothing, jewelry, antiques, furniture, you name it), making it another serious contender for the fanciest building ever award. And then there was Villa Zorayda, a former private residence modeled after the Arabic style Alhambra Palace in Spain. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside but it was a very cool building and full of all sorts of old antiques belonging to the owner, including a 2400 year old Egyptian rug. But that wasn't quite the end of the fancy buildings. Turns out Flagler also built a church. And, once again, the entire thing was completed in the impossibly short (at least by modern standards) time of one year.
Pulling myself away from the magnificent architecture, I headed down the rest of the shopping street from before. Along the way I stopped at the Old Spanish Quarter (a living history museum that tries to recreate St. Augustine in the 1700's). I toured another really old house there and spent a bit of time watching and chatting with the blacksmith, carpenter, and leather worker. All of whom were happy to tell me about the techniques and tools used back then.
By the time I finished there, it was starting to get late so I decided to head home. While I managed to complete my walking tour and hit most of the major sites, there are a number of museums, old buildings, and assorted other attractions that I didn't get to so I may head back eventually. I've visited a lot of cool old towns in Japan, but there aren't nearly as many to be found here in the US, which helps makes St. Augustine really stick out. If you're ever in Northern Florida, I highly recommend spending a day there.

Friday (Oct 7th): Jacksonville Zoo
I had plans to spend the night in Jacksonville Friday night to make things simpler for Yom Kippur. Since I don't have to go in to work on Fridays anyway, I decided I might as well go early and spend the whole day in Jacksonville. Thing is, aside from the beach and shopping malls, there really isn't all that much to see in Jacksonville. The two top attractions looked to be the zoo and the art museum so I ended up going to the zoo. While it wasn't one of the best zoos I've ever been to, I have been to quite a lot of zoos and this one was pretty nice. It was divided into several different areas, based on countries. One thing that really stuck out was the aviaries. There were several of them scattered throughout, so I got to get up close to quite a lot of different birds. All your typical animals were there, like giraffes and elephants, but they had some more uncommon ones too like gorillas, giant anteaters, and even an okapi (which I haven't seen since I visited the Yokohama Zoo in Japan). Speaking of anteaters, I got curious and looked up a few things online. Not sure about the giant ones, but apparently small anteaters make pretty good pets. Anyway, since it's Florida, there had to be lots of flamingos. One interesting thing was that all the ponds were absolutely covered in algae. It didn't seem to slow down the animals, but it was kind of funny to see turtles and alligators covered in the stuff, even when out of the water.
The zoo was fun and by the time I got out it was a bit too late to go to the museum (it doesn't stay open very late) so I did a little bit of shopping then went off to find a good restaurant. I ended up at a nice Thai place and had a big last meal before beginning my Yom Kippur fast. The rest of my stay (hotel, services, etc) went well but there isn't much of anything worth writing about. Though I did notice that my moderately priced hotel room was bigger than both of the apartments I had in Japan. It's amazing how little space you get used to over there... Anyway, I may hit up the art museum as some point and, if the weather holds up, I'll probably pay another visit to the beach but when it comes down to it Jacksonville really isn't much of a tourist destination. If I'm taking a day trip, there's a whole lot more to see and do in Orlando or St. Augustine.

Friday (Oct 19th): Aquatica and Busch Gardens Howl-O-Scream
It all started when Jonathan and Fumi, who I know from the local Japan club, invited me to go to Busch Garden's big Halloween event with them. Busch Gardens in down in Tampa which is a couple hour drive from my place, but it's not all that far away from Orlando. And since the Halloween ticket at Busch Gardens doesn't get you in until kinda late in the afternoon, I figured I might as well go down early and visit another water park.
I decided to go to Aquatica, which is Sea World's water park. The price was more or less the same as the Disney ones, though at Disney you can save quite a lot by buying a combo ticket and Aquatica charges you for parking, which the Disney water parks don't. But anyway, Aquatica doesn't really have a theme to it like Blizzard Bay or Typhoon Lagoon. They do, however, have some pretty cool slides, some of which (like these multiple funnel slides) are rather unique as well. They also have a rather strange take on the old lazy river ride (though they had a regular one too), where you float or swim around without a tube in some really fast moving water. It was actually a lot of fun, though since you're moving so fast you do need to watch where you're going or you're bound to crash into someone or something. And since it's part of Sea World there's some Commerson's dolphins (note their black and white coloring) and one of the slides briefly goes underwater through their tank. There were a couple wave pools as well, though they were pretty small compared to the ones as the Disney parks. In the end, I had a lot fun though I think I'd rate Aquatica slightly below Blizzard Bay and Typhoon Lagoon overall.

After I finished riding and re-riding the slides, I got back in my car and headed for Busch Gardens. Their Howl-O-Scream event is a special Halloween version of the park that opens up after their regular hours and requires a completely separate ticket. It does, however, let you get in a bit before things switch from normal to Halloween mode and I had some time before Jonathan and Fumi arrived so I was able to explore the regular version of the park a bit as well. Busch Gardens has a bit of an Africa theme going but the best way to describe it is as a mix between an amusement park and a zoo. The animals were spaced throughout the park and while it couldn't compete with a good regular zoo, they did have a pretty decent variety of animals (mostly from Africa), including some alligators much bigger than any I saw in Jacksonville's zoo the other week. The amusement park stuff included your standard rides and midway games, along with some really good roller coasters. I'm a big roller coaster fan and was pleased with both the coasters themselves and the variety (there was a hanging coaster, a wooden coaster, a normal sitting coaster, a special raised seat coaster, etc). I'd say it was worth the visit for them alone.
Anyway, after the regular day visitors were herded out, things began switching over to Halloween mode. While a lot of the regular attractions closed, many stayed open (including all the coasters) and the lines during the transition period were nearly nonexistent. As for the other changes... First I should probably note that the only other special Halloween event I've ever been to was at Tokyo Disney, which is all pumpkins, cute ghosts, and the like. Howl-O-Scream is aimed at a much older audience and is about zombies, monsters, blood and guts, and scares. That type stuff never really appealed to me, but I was there more to hang out with people and go on the coasters. Some people, however, were really into it. First off, there were a number of "zombies" (costumed employees) roaming around the park. Some just walked around and looked creepy while others were more clever about it and blended into the scenery to scare unsuspecting passersby. Now I know zombies are pretty popular these days (though I'm really not sure why) but I think some people take it a bit too far. I mean, seriously? Oh, as a note, I found the occasional messages warning people not to physically attack the zombies rather amusing.
Now I don't scare easily. Especially when I know that no one is in any real danger (actually, considering how I was during the big earthquake in Japan earlier this year, I suppose I don't scare too easily when their is real danger either) and none of the zombies came anywhere close to scaring me (though I did get slightly surprised a couple of times). Judging from the screams, however, not everyone was as brave as I am.
So I dodged some zombies and checked out the coasters for a bit until Jonathan and Fumi arrived, at which point our main focus switched to the various haunted houses set up throughout the park. While Jonathan didn't seem to scare any more than I did, he's worked in all sorts of haunted houses and the like before so he enjoys checking them out and seeing how they're made. He likes roller coasters as well, which made Fumi a bit of the odd one out as she's scared of both. Oh, I should probably mention that Fumi is Japanese (if you didn't guess from her name) and doesn't speak a whole lot of English, so we were talking Japanese about 90% of the time, which was great practice. But, moving on...
While we couldn't get Fumi on any of the roller coasters she did go in all the haunted houses. I couldn't take pictures inside the houses themselves but they each had a theme (including vampire casino, zombie mortuary, evil sanitarium, etc) and featured lots of creepy decor, crazy lighting, and actors jumping out when you least expect it. Once again, I wasn't even remotely scared (though there were a couple surprising bits) but Fumi was another story entirely. While some of the houses were kind of neat by themselves (the one based on Poe's works was very well done) I would have gotten bored of them pretty quickly on my own. However, I had a lot of fun watching Fumi go through them. She behaved exactly the way I though a scared Japanese girl should (a little surprising since my expectations are based on anime and manga characters). Every time something scared or surprised her (and about 95% of the stuff did), she'd give a little shriek and grab onto Jonathan's arm, which was both cute and amusing. She made such an easy mark that she had a tendency to attract large numbers of zombies when we walked between the houses as well.
It was pretty late by the time I left but I managed to get back to my apartment ok and that's about it. As for final opinions... Busch Gardens is a nice park, though unless you're really into roller coasters it can't compare to the more famous parks in the area. Howl-O-Scream was pretty well done too. Not really my kind of thing, but it ended up being a lot of fun since I was there as part of a group, which was also a pleasant change of pace from all the solo sightseeing trips I've been doing over the last few years. I do like solo sightseeing (there's some definite advantages to it), but hanging out with friends is fun too and it's nice to mix things up from time to time.

Sunday (Oct 23th): Gainesville Asian Festival

Gainesville's yearly Asian Festival was today so I decided to go down and check it out. It reminded me a bit of the Japanese festival back in Phoenix, though smaller and covering multiple countries, instead of one. Anyway, there were a number of booths selling clothes, origami, jewelry, bamboo, koi, and a few other random things. The food booths were mostly Thai, though I really like Thai food so I can't complain too much about that.
There were also displays of bonsai trees and some Indian dolls along with a number of performances. I watched some Filipino dances (one of which involved stepping in and out of rapidly opening and closing bamboo poles), Indian dances (which had a lot of emphasis on head and eye movements), Chinese acrobatics (including plate spinning and unicycle riding), and various martial arts.
Overall, it was nice, though a bit on the small side compared to some of the things I've been to. I walked around, watched some shows, got some food, and was thinking about heading out when I ran into Jonathan and Fumi (the people I went to Howl-O-Scream with) and I ended up staying and going around the festival again with them, which was fun. They also told me about a Japanese festival in Orlando next month, so I'll probably try and go to that too.
Overall, the Gainesville Asian Festival was pretty nice for its size. Not especially impressive if you've been to Asia (or just some bigger festivals), but an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours.


Wednesday (Oct 26th): Random Florida Comment: Florida Drivers
I've been trying to figure out just what it is with drivers down here and I think I've finally got it. It's not the same as Phoenix (where everyone likes to speed and slip through tight gaps on the highway). Instead, people here seem to have a favorite speed and they do their best to always stay at that exact speed, regardless of what the actual speed limit is. Which means that, while they do speed at times, at other times they go way below the speed limit. They don't even change speed when they need to slow down or stop. Normally, in a two lane road, if the person in front of you slows down to make a turn, you need to slow down and/or stop until they've turned. Here, however, I'd had plenty of people swerve into the other lane (in a no passing area) or go off the road entirely just so they don't have to slow down.
And then there's the train tracks. I cross some on my way to work. They've got one of those barriers that lowers when a train is coming, but the way it's setup is kinda weird and you can zig-zag through to drive across the tracks even when the barrier is down. And, so long as they can't actually see the train, that's what everyone does. Sure they look for the train first, but the visibility there isn't especially great and trains go pretty fast. Seems rather dangerous to me...

Friday (Nov 4th): Legoland
As previously mentioned, I ended up going to Tampa last weekend for a conference. However, it didn't start till Friday evening and since I don't have to go in to work on Fridays, I figured I might as well go down early and visit another park. I was originally planning to go to one last water park but weather report wasn't so good so I decided to do something else. Because of when the conference started, I didn't want to go to a Disney park or other place where I'd probably end up wanting to stay late. Legoland Florida recently opened and, in addition to being closer to Tampa than the other parks on my list, it closes at 5, which meant I'd have plenty of time to get to my hotel and go to the conference.
Legoland is around halfway between Tampa and Orlando at the former site of Cypress Gardens (the area's first theme park, some elements of which are incorporated into Legoland). I went to Legoland California once a long time ago and while my memories of it are pretty fuzzy, I still had some idea of what to expect. Like any good theme park, Legoland is divided up into different themed areas. They're based on different types of Lego sets such as city/metro, adventure, castle, Duplo, etc. Wherever you are in the park, there's bound to be lots of giant Lego models around. Some are whimsical, some are recreations of famous characters, and some are very impressive copies of real life items like this full size Ford Explorer.
Aside from the models, there's a number of other attractions. The rides are geared towards younger kids (car and boat driving, laser shooting, etc). There are a few roller coasters, but they're all pretty mild. A couple of the rides, such as the safari, while not all that exciting, make for good photo opportunities. Riding around the safari course while taking photos of the Lego animals as I passed actually reminded me a lot of Pokémon Snap... I didn't go on all the rides (a couple of the coasters had rather long lines) but the ones I did go on were enjoyable, if nothing amazing.
Naturally, there are a lot of stores (containing all sorts of Lego sets, pieces, and merchandise) and restaurants (the apple fries are pretty good). but that's not all. It wouldn't really be a theme park without shows of some kind. Aside from a theater that shows an assortment of "4D" movies about Lego characters (3D plus some fans, air jets, and the like) there's a fireman show (which I didn't end up seeing) and a water show involving Lego men, pirates, wave runners, and water skiing. While the story was a bit corny, the show itself was pretty cool.
After the seeing the water show and getting some of the aforementioned apple fries, I took a leisurely stroll through the original botanical gardens from Cypress Gardens. They've got a bit of a jungle feel to them and are very pretty. I even saw a small alligator hiding in the river (far below the bridge I was on, fortunately).
My last big stop was Mini Land, which is a collection of Lego recreations of famous landmarks. According to the sign, it took a hundred people two years to complete but the end result is utterly amazing. It's divided into sections by city including Las Vegas (featuring many of its most famous hotels), New York, San Francisco, Washington D.C., and more. And, since this is Legoland Florida, there's an entire Florida section too. Remember this place? I visited the real thing a couple months back in St. Augustine.
The buildings themselves are remarkable and look perfect from every side, but that's only half of it. The streets (whether in crowded city scenes or quieter country ones) and even some of the buildings are filled with all sorts of people doing just about anything you can think of. For those with some time to kill, there's a lot of really cool hidden details scattered throughout. I must have spent at least an hour looking around and taking photos. While I haven't done much with them lately (due to a combination of limited time and most of my collection being in Colorado), I was constantly playing with Legos as a kid and got good enough to place in multiple national contests so I had a lot of fun studying how the different models were put together.
Overall, I had a very enjoyable time at Legoland. Though I will note that there's considerably less to do (and fewer operating hours to do it in) there than at Disney or Universal despite them all charging about the same amount for a day pass. Despite that, a strong love of Legos will easily make up for the shortcomings.

Sunday (Nov 6th): The Orlando Japan Festival
So, Friday I went to Legoland and that conference was all day Saturday. It was ok, but not really worth writing about here. As it happened, Sunday was the day of Orlando's Japan festival so I decided to go there. The festival was fairly similar to the Matsuri festival in Phoenix though, surprisingly, a good bit smaller. There were two rows of booths (one primarily shops and one primarily food). The food was really good, but it didn't take very long to check out all the booths. There was also a performance stage. Most of the shows were pretty good. This taiko group, for example, is the biggest one I've ever seen and they put on a very impressive set. There were some other types of musicians as well, along with swordsmen and a couple other types of performers that I didn't get a good look at. After walking around, watching a couple performances, and getting lunch I ran into some people from UF's Japan club and ended up hanging out with Jonathan and Fumi (the couple I went to Howl-o-Scream with). It was fun, but I'm glad I didn't drive all the way to Orlando just for the festival. I find Phoenix Matsuri is considerably less impressive than I used to after spending so much time in Japan and Orlando's festival was, at best, a third of its size.
After that, Jonathan, Fumi, and I went off to a Japanese restaurant...and got lost since it had apparently moved to the other side of the city. So we ended up at a different Japanese restaurant called Hanamizuki. While a bit more expensive than my favorite Japanese restaurants in Phoenix, it was really good, and you know a place is authentic when the whole menu is in both Japanese and English. Not to mention that the staff all spoke Japanese as well. We even ran into more J club people there. All in all, it was a nice way to finish off my weekend trip.

Sunday (Nov 20th): Disney's Animal Kingdom
So, I'd had a pretty busy week and was thinking that it would nice to go do something fun on the weekend. I was originally thinking of going to Wet 'n Wild (the last water park on my list) but quite a lot of the slides there require two or more people. I invited some of my friends from Japan Club, but they were busy so I decided to go to a Disney park instead. Animal Kingdom is the one part of Disney World I've never visited, so that seemed like a good place to start.
Every Disney park has its "centerpiece" of sorts and Animal Kingdom's, which I came across shortly after entering, is the Tree of Life. Looking at the tree is a lot like looking at one of those hidden object pictures. No matter where you look on the tree you'll see some type of animal carved into it. It's kind of fun to take a minute and see how many you can find. Anyway, Animal Kingdom is part zoo and each section has its own set of trails winding through a number of animal habitats.
But moving on, the first thing I did was head towards the tree itself. They've got a 3D show inside based on A Bug's Life. Actually one of the most amusing things was all the bug themed Broadway parody posters inside.
After the show, I made my way to Dino Land USA, which is part dinosaur research center, part dino themed amusement park. It's got a pretty good time travel ride in the research area and you get to see a bunch of cool fossils while waiting in line. Then there's the theme park area which has a roller coaster and a few carnival type rides. Despite it being a Sunday, lines were pretty short all throughout the park. I don't know if Animal Kingdom is usually like that or if I just got lucky, but it all worked well.
Continuing counter-clockwise around the park, I ended up in Asia. Now when I think of Asia the first thing that comes to mind is places like Japan and China, but Animal Kingdom's Asia is based more on places like India and Nepal, though some of the interiors reminded me of the Buddhist temples I saw in Japan. They've even got their own Mt. Everest, which has a cool roller coaster inside. There aren't any loops, but it's got a lot of twists and turns and keeps changing directions on you. There's also a white water rafting ride. I think I got hit with more water than anyone else in my raft, but unlike some similar rides I've been on, it doesn't completely drench you. Still fun though. There was also a neat animal walk with monkeys, tigers, and lots of birds, to name a few. One of my favorites though, was the giant flying fox bats. Although they only eat fruit, they're pretty big, with wing spans of up to six feet. Unlike a lot of bats, they're not nocturnal so I caught them at a fairly good time and it's interesting to watch them move across the ropes and branches, especially since they stay upside down whenever possible.
At this point, I was thinking about going to see a show but decided that, since the lines were short, it would be a good time to skip ahead a little and stop by the park's biggest attraction, or at least grab a fast pass. So I made the long (well, five minute) journey from Asia to Africa. The wait time for the safari was only twenty minutes, so I decided I didn't need a fast pass after all. Besides, some of the animal habitats were right next to the line so I had things to watch. The safari is part ride but mostly it's an actual drive through a recreation African savannah with real animals roaming around. All the usual African animals were there, plus some that you don't see so often. There were trenches to keep a few of the more dangerous animals isolated but, for the most people, they're allowed to roam free so you never know exactly what you will or won't see. While I was riding, we actually had to stop for several minutes because an ostrich had decided it wanted to sit in the middle of the road. Riding around and snapping pictures of animals is a lot of fun and the scenery was great. That little Lego safari ride I did a few weeks back made for good practice, but I still feel like Professor Oak should have been waiting at the end to rate my pictures...
I liked the safari so much that I decided to grab a fast pass and do it again after lunch. For lunch, I made my way back to Asia. There's a pretty awesome restaurant there and I ended up getting crispy duck over rice with a orange wasabi dipping sauce. Yes, eating at Disney is a lot of fun.
Back to the safari, I ended up sitting on the other side of the vehicle, which let me snag pictures of some different animals. Then it was on to Africa's animal walk. They had a lot of gorillas, some hippos that didn't seem to be getting along, and lots more. I finished the walk just in time to catch the bird show back in Asia, which was easily the best I've ever seen. They even had a singing parrot.
I made it back to Africa for the big Christmas Safari parade and then went to check out Rafiki's Planet Watch, which has a lot of behind the scenes displays about how they care for all the different animals.
At this point, it was starting to get dark (the sun is setting pretty early now) so I went to see the most popular show in the park, The Festival of the Lion King. I had been expecting something based on The Lion King Broadway show but it ended up being more like The Lion King meets Cirque du Soleil, with elaborate costumes, dances, and acrobatics. Well, at least I think it's kind of like what Cirque du Soleil would be like, I've never been to one of their shows. Though, they actually do have one in Orlando so maybe I will sometime. But anyway, the show was really well done and they did all the major songs from The Lion King, along with one other that, while not in the movie, is very fitting. They even had a fire dancer during Be Prepared. He was really good, but the whole thing was a little funny since, soon after he started, a little boy sitting near me yelled out "Don't play with fire!"
Once the show was over, I took a quick look at the nearby area, which is mainly for getting photos and autographs from Disney characters, then headed back to Africa for a bit and enjoyed a mango smoothie while listening to some live African music before heading out shortly before closing time.
In the end, I saw just about everything in the park, except for one show, which I could have fit in if I'd done a little more planning ahead of time. From what I remember of the other parks in Disney World, Animal Kingdom is the smallest, but there's still plenty to do and it strikes a great balance between theme park and zoo. Even if you stripped out the rides and shows, it would still beat out most of the regular zoos I've been to, and the rides and shows were great. Not to mention Disney's usual attention to detail. I enjoyed just looking at all the buildings and environments. So, all in all, it was a great day and I'm looking forward to visiting the other Disney parks over the coming months.

Sunday (January 15th): Disney's Magic Kingdom
I still have a lot of of theme parks I want to visit before the end of the school year and, with a long weekend thanks to Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I figured Sunday would make a good day to knock another one off the list. After some thought, I decided to save Universal and Sea World for later and do another Disney park. I was originally thinking of going to Disney's Hollywood Studios (formally Disney MGM Studios) but, at the last minute, I heard that Evanescence was doing a concert in Tampa Monday night. More on that later, but I managed to get a ticket and, in the end, decided I might as well save myself several hours of driving and just spend Sunday night in Orlando. Since I was going to be doing that, it seemed like a good time to go to the Magic Kingdom, since it stays open until midnight a lot of days and, with a hotel nearby, staying up late wouldn't be a problem. Any hey, all the driving was a good test for my new car (yes, I ended up getting a new Civic last week).
Anyway, this is my third visit to the Magic Kingdom, though the others were many, many years ago. It hasn't changed all that much since my last visit, though there were some new attractions. Unlike the other Disney World parks, you can't park right at the Magic Kingdom, you have to take either a monorail or a ferry from the parking lot to the park. I don't think I ever took the ferry before, so I hopped on for a nice ride across the bay. If you've never been to the Magic Kingdom before, the first area after the entrance is Main St. USA. And, of course, it has a great view of Cinderella's Castle. It has a lot of shops and restaurants, but I wanted to save the browsing for later and try to hit some rides before the lines got too long so I quickly moved on to Tomorrowland, the futuristic area of the park. The main attraction there is Space Mountain, which is also one of the most popular rides in the park. I've been on a lot of roller coasters and, while Space Mountain isn't one of the most intense (no loops or anything like that), it's still one of my favorites. The star field effect is awesome and also makes it impossible to tell where you're going, which keeps the ride nice and unpredictable. While in Tomorrowland, I also swung by the Carousel of Progress (which really makes you think about how much things have changed over the last hundred years), Buzz Lightyear's Star Command (a laser shooting ride), Stitch's Escape (more of a show than a ride), and The Monster's Inc. comedy show (which had a lot of audience participation and was surprisingly funny).
Next up was Fantasyland. They're actually in the middle of a pretty major expansion there, which will be swallowing up the old Toon Town that used to be nearby. I couldn't see too much of the new rides they're building but Beast's Castle was pretty hard to miss. What I could see looks pretty cool (though it would be even better if they'd gone with Hollow Bastion instead of Beast's Castle) and, if I'm still here in the fall (when the expansion opens) I'll definitely have to head back and check it out. Most of Fantasyland is still open though. In addition to a nice 3D show, it has several classic rides including It's a Small World and Peter Pan (which, going by wait times throughout the day, seemed to be in very close competition with Space Mountain for "most popular ride in the park"). I know a lot of people tend to discount those rides since they're pretty mild but I like them. They're very impressively done, despite their age, and the attention to detail is amazing. I even re-rode It's a Small World later on when the line was shorter. However, Disney's fast pass system came in really handy in Fantasyland. As cool as the Peter Pan ride was, the wait time was ridiculous. Even the fast pass I got wasn't good until very late in the day.
Since some of the lines were pretty long, and I've been to the park before, I decided to jump around a bit at that point and take some pictures while the light was good. Here's the bell in Liberty Square and the steamboat that goes around Tom Sawyer Island and the the Haunted Mansion. Frontierland comes next and has Splash Mountain, the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and the Country Bear show. And then there's Adventureland, which is best known for the awesome Pirates of the Caribbean ride, though the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House sticks out the most. You know, I vaguely remember watching that movie a long time ago. I should see if they have it on Netflix...
After my whirlwind tour of the second half of the park, it was just about time for the big parade, so I found a good spot and watched as Mickey, Mary Poppins, and many others sang and danced their way past. It was a nice parade, but I would have really loved to see a Kingdom Hearts float in there somewhere (for that matter, I would have really loved to see a Kingdom Hearts anything somewhere in the park, but that's a minr complaint). I went to Tom Sawyer Island next, since it closes at dusk. There isn't a whole lot to do their other than walk around, but it's pretty cool if you're familiar with the book and there's lots of things for kids to explore and climb on. Then it was back to the rides. The lines had shortened a bit so I returned to Fantasyland to go on some of the rides I'd passed up earlier. And, while it looks like I won't be the next king of England, I had to try. I also fit in a visit to the Haunted Mansion (better than anything at Howl-O-Scream, in my opinion) before supper.
I decided not to get anything too fancy to eat and finished up just in time for the Electric Parade, which is a really cool parade of lights. Unfortunately, right about then my camera batteries died and I'd left my spares in the car. Fortunately, I was able to get most of the photos I wanted earlier.
Once the parade had passed, I ran over to Splash Mountain to grab a fast pass but, since there was absolutely no line, I ended up riding it instead. Then it was off to Cinderella's Castle for the night time fireworks show. Speaking of which, Disney puts on great fireworks shows. They had a whole lot of fancy ones that you don't see very often.
Even though the park wouldn't be closing for a few more hours, the lines really thinned out after the fireworks. I went straight to Pirates of the Caribbean, followed by the Jungle Cruise (you know you've got a good guide when he introduces himself as your lion tamer, snake charmer, and pokémon master). I also ended up passing by the Country Bear show and the Enchanted Tiki Room show (a whole lot of singing animatronic birds) just as they were about to start so I watched them before heading back to Main Street to browse the shops for a bit.
I ended up leaving around 11. I could have stayed a bit longer but I was pretty exhausted (it was a long week) and, with the exception of a handful of kiddie rides and the Hall of Presidents, I'd pretty much done everything. Overall, it was a lot of fun. I can't really imagine myself not having fun at Disney. The settings, the rides, the shows, the food, the attention to detail... Disney Parks are just extremely well designed. But anyway, after that it was one quick drive to the hotel and a good night's sleep before starting on my plans for the second day...

Monday (January 16th): Taking in a Concert
The Evanescence concert wasn't until the evening but I naturally wanted to arrive early and it was around an 80 minute drive so didn't want to spend money on another theme park only to leave early. If I'd known how warm it was going to be (the weather report was a bit on the low side), I may have considered a water park. But anyway, since it was nearby (and free) I ended up going to Downtown Disney, Disney World's shopping area. It's a nice area, right on the lake, with lots of shops and restaurants. Unsurprisingly, quite a lot of the stores were selling Disney merchandise of some kind, though there were other things, like a very large Lego store (and, unlike the stores at Legoland, there's no need to get a park ticket to get in). Speaking of Legos, of all the giant Lego models I've seen, this is one of my favorites. And check out this restaurant, it's like a Rain Forest Cafe, only with dinosaurs. Disney Quest (a super arcade / mini theme park) is there too, as is a Cirque du Soliel show. My Disney pass can get me into Disney Quest, so I'll probably go there sooner or later. Maybe try and combine with with Cirque du Soliel, though tickets for that are kind of expensive.
Away, I walked around for a while, looked in the stores, and got some food. They've got a restaurant there called The Earl of Sandwich, which is part of a small chain that was actually founded by the current Earl of Sandwich (descendant of the man credited with the creation of the sandwich). I don't know how much the history matters, but they do make a really good sandwich. I wouldn't mind having one closer to my apartment...
After I finished looking around, I swung by the nearby Whole Foods (another thing that is, unfortunately, nowhere near my apartment) then headed to Tampa. I arrived fairly early so, after parking and picking up my ticket, I walked around downtown Tampa a bit. My past visits to Tampa didn't give me a particularly good impression of the city, but the downtown was fairly nice. It's got a walking path along the river, which passes by several museums and a library. And then there's this building... I spotted it from a distance and had to take a closer look. Turns out it's a former luxury hotel that eventually shut down and was converted into the University of Tampa, much like Flagler University back in St. Augustine. This hotel isn't quite as fancy, but it's still a very cool building. Part of it is also used as a plant museum, but it's not open on Mondays so I just walked around for a bit before heading back to the performing arts center to wait for the concert.
Impressively, it started right on time. However, there were two opening bands and, between their sets and the time taken to re-arrange the stage inbetween, it was about two hours before Evanescence came on stage (as a note, I didn't particularly like or dislike the opening bands). Once it started, the concert was excellent. Cameras weren't allowed (though considering how many people were recording with their cellphones, they probably wouldn't have cared if I'd brought mine in). Amy's voice is just as amazing in person and they did some pretty cool stuff with the lights. The concert went for around an hour and a half. They played most of the songs from Evanescence (the self-titled new album), about half from Fallen, and a couple from Open Door. It made for a good mix and they played all my favorite songs (I never liked Open Door all that much). Amy even played the piano (a real piano, not a keyboard) for a few of the songs, like My Heart is Broken and My Immortal. I had a great time and would definitely see them in concert again.
After that, there was nothing left to do except drive back to my place and get ready to return to work in the morning.

Sunday (February 5th): The Hoggetowne Medieval Faire
In the past, I've had a lot of fun at the Renaissance festival in Phoenix. I even did a travelogue style write-up for it one year. I can't remember how I heard about the one in Gainesville but with how hard I've been working lately I really needed a break and it was the last day of the fair so I decidedit was now or never.
I wasn't really expecting too much. The festival in Phoenix has the size and production values of a small theme park so I really doubted Hoggetowne would live up to it. However, I was pleasantly surprised. While it wasn't anywhere near as large or fancy as the one in Phoenix, it was still well done and I enjoyed myself quite a bit.
There were a couple of fairly long rows of tents filled with the usual Renaissance fair assortment of stores and food stands, along with a number of Renaissance themed carnival games (archery, axe throwing, etc.). While the stalls didn't have anything I haven't seen before, there were some very nice handmade items for sale including a collection of impressive glass figurines and quite a lot of leather clothing and accessories (cool but out of my budget, as always). I spent a while looking around and stopped for a bit to watch a local medieval fighting group put on a demonstration. I don't know if I ever mentioned it here, but I took fencing for a couple of years awhile back. This, however, looks like a lot more fun. Mainly since it's more like real fighting instead of a very strictly structured sport. I kind of want to look into meeting times and costs, but considering how busy I've been lately (and how many other things I need to do even after I'm completely finished with Car Washer) I doubt I'd have time.
Anyway, there was also a large number of stages scattered throughout the area. There were a surprising number of jugglers, acrobats, comedians, and singers performing throughout the day and, while I'd say that the overall quality level wasn't as high as that of the performers in Phoenix, they were still fairly entertaining.
When I'd finished exploring, it was nearly time for the fair's main event. In Phoenix, the main event is a jousting tournament. Hoggetowne did have jousting (though not nearly as good), but its big event was something very different, a living chess game. Whenever one piece went to capture another, the two faced off in some very nicely choreographed battles. There were some pretty unusual characters filling in for the chess pieces, including a blind woman, a gardener, and a very drunk knight, which made things all the more entertaining. That said, it still followed the rules of chess with the capturing piece always being the eventual winner. At least until the whole thing devolved into a giant melee. But anyway, all the actors did an excellent job and the whole thing was a lot of fun to watch.
I wandered around for a little bit longer after that (mainly to get some lunch) before heading out to get some shopping done in the early afternoon. Unlike Phoenix, there wasn't enough to keep me occupied all day (at least not by myself) but it was a lot of fun and a very good Renaissance fair overall. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone in the area at the right time of year.

Monday (February 22nd): Universal Islands of Adventure
I've been working hard lately and over weekends but, with Car Washer finally up for sale, it was time for a break. And with Presidents' day off of work, this seemed like a good time. I thought about going on Sunday but Monday had a much better weather report and I figured that, despite it being a holiday, the crowds probably wouldn't be as bad as on a weekend. Since my last couple of theme park trips were to Disney parks, I decided to go somewhere different this time. That left the two Universal parks and Seaworld. Due to my plans for the coming weekend (more on that later) a Universal park made more sense since I could save some money by getting a multi-day ticket. Like with Disney, the more days you buy, the cheaper the ticket. Unlike Disney, however, you can't purchase a ticket with an unlimited duration so you have to use all your days within a two week span. Anyway, I decided to save regular Universal Studios for next time and go to Islands of Adventure.
As a note for anyone planning a visit to Islands or Universal Studios, there's only one parking area for both of them and Universal City Walk (Universal's fancy shopping street) so you can hit a lot of traffic trying to get in (more than I've ever seen at Disney, which has separate parking lots for each area). Speaking of City Walk, you have to walk through it to pass between the parking area and the parks and it stays open for quite a while after the parks close, so if you want to browse I recommend doing so at the end of the day.
Between the traffic jam outside of the parking area and passing through City Walk, it took me a good 30 minutes to get to Islands of Adventure. It's Universal's newer park and, from what I can tell, is the more popular of the two. Like the Disney parks, it's broken into several themed areas spread out around a central hub (a lake in this case). Unlike the Disney parks, it doesn't have some sort of central structure that really sticks out (like Cinderella's Castle or the Tree of Life).
The first area, the rather generically named Port of Entry, has a sort of mid-eastern bazaar look to it and is all stores and restaurants. I passed through pretty quickly and, going counter clockwise, arrived in Suess Landing. The Dr. Suess theme is very well done with everything from the restaurants to the fencing having a Suess appropriate look and name. There are a few rides based on books like The Cat in the Hat and The Sneetches and some themed play areas, like this one from The Lorax. The whole area is quite clearly geared towards younger kids but anyone who likes Dr. Suess should get a kick out of the aesthetics and the rides which, while simple, are worth a go if the lines aren't too long. All in all, I spent about an hour there before heading on to the next area...
The Lost Continent is themed after... Well, kind of a mix of things. Greek Mythology plays a major part, but there are a few other things (like Arabian Nights) tossed in there as well. The first thing you run into is Mythos Restaurant. It's the fanciest restaurant in the park though, for a fancy restaurant, the prices are pretty reasonable. I ended up eating supper there. The food is good and the interior is pretty cool (like you're in a cave with lots of carvings of mythological figures). Right after Mythos, I came across Poisiden's Fury. It's more of a show than a ride, but you move from room to room through the ancient temple as the show progresses, which makes it feel a bit different than the usual sit down and watch type shows. The story is about helping Poisiden (Greek god of the ocean) reclaim his trident and defeat some fire guy. It's nothing amazing but the temple is cool and there's some nice effects and amusing dialogue. Plus, unlike the normal shows, it runs almost constantly so there's no need to come back at a specific time of day. Other than a few shops, the only other thing in the Lost Continent worth noting is the Sinbad's Eighth Voyage stunt show. Since there are only several shows a day, I passed by it and returned at six to catch the last performance but, since I've already mentioned it I may as well finish up. It's a more traditional show with Sinbad and one of his sailors rescuing a princess from a witch. It had some fairly funny parts but I've seen better stunts at Legoland and Disney. It's not bad, but something that can easily be skipped if you're pressed for time.
Leaving the Lost Continent behind, I came upon the coolest and most popular area of the park, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Now I absolutely love the Harry Potter books (it's my favorite series) but I have a very long list of complains about the movies. So many that I still haven't watched the last few. That said, even though it was model after the movies, I really enjoyed the area. You start out by passing the Hogwarts Express and entering the village of Hogsmeade (though there's a bit of Diagon Alley mixed in there as well). It's packed full of stores that any Potter fan will recognize like Honeydukes and Zonko's. One of the first things I did was get a butterbeer, though not from the stand in that picture. The Hog's Head Tavern, which is indoors and off to the side a little bit, consistently had much shorter lines throughout the day. As for the butterbeer itself, I always imagined it being a warm drink but here they serve it cool or frozen (like a frappuccino). It's good both ways. I heard some people compare it to cream soda and it made me think of a root beer mixed with cream (which, I suppose, is pretty close to a cream soda). They also had pumpkin juice, which I tried later in the day. It was a bit on the sweet side for my tastes, but with a strong taste of pumpkin pie spice. The first ride I came across was the Dragon Challenge, the twin roller coasters you can see in the background of that photo with the butterbeer stand. The line moved fairly quickly though it wound through a seemingly endless stretch of twisty underground tunnels. The coaster itself was a really good one (lots of loops, twists, turns, and the like) though, and worth the wait. There's also a much tamer Hippogrif themed coaster nearby, but I ended up skipping that one to save time. Since it was nearing lunch time, I spent some time in the stores (wizard robes were way out of my budget, but I couldn't resist getting a wand) then headed to The Three Broomsticks. Aside from its awesome interior, it has some pretty good food as well (I got Cornish pastries!), though there was a 15 - 20 minute line for seating during the lunch period. Not surprising, really. If you couldn't tell from my pictures, the entire Harry Potter area was very crowded, far more than any other part of the park. Finally, I came to Hogwarts castle which, aside from looking awesome, is home to the area's main attraction, the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride. Unfortunately, it averaged 90 minute wait times throughout most of the day and Universal doesn't have a fast pass system like Disney does. They do have an express pass you can buy to skip lines but, aside from costing extra, it doesn't work on the Forbidden Journey anyway. Since I was determined to go on that ride, I decided there was no point in putting it off. On the bright side, the lines winds all through the castle and you'll get to see lots of familiar areas and objects like the greenhouse, the Mirror of the Erised, the portrait hall (speaking of which, the paintings did move and talk and looked very convincing), and the hourglasses that track the points for each house. There's even a very good recreation of Dumbledore's office. There's a single rider line, if you're looking to shorten the wait time a bit but, unless the line is already fairly short, you'll have to wait for quite a while before reaching the turn off and, while it does save time, it skips past most of the best parts of the castle so I wouldn't recommend it for your first time. While I loved the castle, I was quite happy to discover that the ride itself was worth the wait. You're strapped into a flying "bench" though it twists and jerks you around almost as much as some roller coasters I've been on as you fly through a mix of animatronics and wall sized video screens (since they cover your entire field of vision, it feels like you're flying along with them). Even if you're not a Harry Potter fan, it's a really good ride.
All in all I ended up spending around five hours in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter before moving on to Jurassic Park. It's got a rather large kids' play area, a visitor center modeled after the one in the movie (complete with dinosaur hatching demonstrations), and a raft ride which takes you past some nice looking dinosaurs before dropping your down a long slope. Having been on rides like this before, I was half expecting to get soaked but it doesn't drop nearly as much water on you as many of the others I've seen and, while my jacket got a bit damp, that was about it (though the people in the front couple of rows got hit harder). At the end of the ride, they had something I've never seen before. Basically you pay $5 to get blasted with hot air for a minute or so. Kinda weird, but I suppose it would work fairly well and, despite the price, there were a lot of people lined up for it.
Next stop, Toon Lagoon. It wasn't quite what I was expecting since, instead of being themed around some recent kids shows, it was based mostly on long running newspaper comics with a couple of really old cartoons thrown in for good measure. I didn't mind, though I wouldn't know who half the characters were if I hadn't used to watch old cartoon marathons on TNT as a kid so I suspect most people my age or younger won't recognize half the characters. Anyone remember Dudley Do-Right, for example? Well, he's got pretty nice water ride. I managed to avoid getting too wet until the end, when there's a long line of very powerful water guns people can shoot for a quarter. Then I got soaked... Which wouldn't have been so bad if there was more than half an hour or so of daylight left. Since I was already wet, I went on the Popeye raft ride as well, and get even wetter.
At that point, I ran back to the Lost Continent to see the Sinbad show and eat supper before making my way back to explore the final area of the park, Marvel Super Hero Island (note that it was dark at this point, the following pictures were taken when I passed through on my way to the show). I thought the design of the area was fairly unimpressive (then again, most super hero comics are set in modern cities so there's only so much you can do) but it has the excellent Incredible Hulk Coaster, Dr. Doom's Tower (one of those rides that lifts you up really high then drops you down), and some sort of spinning teacup style ride (which I skipped, since those things tend to make me sick). And check out this cool life sized Iron Man figure I found in one of the shops (if you're rich, they actually have it for sale).
By the time I finished there, I had about an hour left before the park closed. Since all the lines had thinned out a bit after six or so, I managed to get in one more ride on Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, which was just as awesome as before (although they paused the ride for a minute or two when my seat was tilted back at a rather sharp angle).
And then it was time to start heading back. I had a lot of fun and Islands of Adventure is a good theme park though, if you're not particularly into roller coasters or Harry Potter, I'd probably recommend going to one of the Disney parks instead.

Saturday (February 25th): Diana Ross
It seems that Universal Studios has yearly Mardi Gras events on Saturdays and some Sundays in February and March. The main highlight is their concert series. Each day of the event they have a different singer or group perform. They're all big names but the only one that really interested me was Diana Ross (if you've been reading my news posts for a while, you may know that I like 60's music a lot more than most modern stuff). Going to that concert was the reason I got that three day Universal ticket and visited both parks in such a short span of time. But anyway...
The concert was Saturday night but, for religious reasons, I don't go to theme parks or anything like that before sunset on Saturdays so I ended up driving down to Orlando in the morning, going to services there, and then getting to Universal shortly after sun down. I didn't really look around the park much until the following day so for now I'll focus on the Mardi Gras related events. One section of the park had been converted into the Mardi Gras area. There were costumed performers walking around on stilts and a bunch of stalls selling various drinks and New Orleans style foods (gumbo, jambalaya, etc.). Not nearly as expansive a transformation as some special events, but it was well done. Since I was mainly there for the concert, after getting some food I made a beeline to the stage to grab a spot. The concerts are outdoors and there's no seating so you really just need to go and stake out an area. I got there around 1 1/2 hours before the show and was able to grab a spot somewhere near the middle. If you want to be right in front of the stage though, you'll probably have to get there an hour or so earlier than I did.
Around eight the Mardi Gras parade started. I wasn't in the best spot for that, but I was able to get a bit of a look. There were quite a lot of elaborate floats and dancers, along with lots of people throwing strings of beads to the crowd. Unfortunately, it was pretty dark by then and the parade wasn't lit up enough for me to get any good pictures of it, at least not from my position.
The concert started soon after the parade ended. It was a little on the short side (around an hour) but Diana Ross sounded great (as did the rest of the band) and I had an excellent view. There were a couple songs I didn't recognize but she sang quite a lot of her big hits. The crowd really got into it and the whole thing was a lot of fun.
As a note, I wouldn't recommend going to Universal Studios just for the Mardi Gras celebration, there really isn't enough to it for that. But if you want to see a particular concert or spend the day enjoying the park's normal rides and shows, the Mardia Gras stuff makes for a nice addition.
The park closed as soon as the concert ended and with that I was off to my hotel to rest up for my return to Universal the next day...

Sunday (February 26th): Universal Studios
While I was in Universal Studios for the concert, I didn't really have time to check out the park itself. That's what today was for.
Like most Orlando theme parks, Universal is broken up into several themed areas. Most of them are themed after various cities, but there's a few odd ones thrown in. The entry area, for example, is called Production Central. It doesn't seem to have much of a theme in particular but it does have a couple of attractions in addition to the usual shops and restaurants. First up, Shrek 4D. It's a 3D movie that takes place shortly after the end of the first Shrek movie. The 4F part refers to moving seats, some air blasts, water spray, and the like. It was mildly amusing and I only had to wait in line for a couple of minutes. Actually, I don't know if it was the lousy weather report (it was threatening rain all day but, fortunately, it didn't start until I was already driving home) or if Universal just isn't as popular as Islands of Adventure and the Disney parks (probably a mix of both), but I never had to wait in line for more than 15 minutes or so, usually less. The other big ride in Production Central, and one of the best ones in the park (at least in my opinion) is the Rip Ride Rockit roller coaster. It's a pretty good coaster and, in a rather interesting twist, you can choose one of 20 or 30 songs to listen to while you ride.
Moving on, I ended up in New York City. It was the most impressive of the areas in terms of design and the Delorean and train from Back to the Future were there as well. Anyone remember the movie Twister? I vaguely remember seeing it years back but, other than that it involved a tornado, I can't recall the details. But anyway, there's a Twister themed show of sorts. You start out walking through the ruins of a house while watching some video clips from the movie narrated by the actors. Eventually you reach the final area which is a movie set of sorts where they whip up a mini tornado to wreck things. It's fairly impressive looking but, from where I stood, the wind never rose above what I'd come to expect from a moderately powerful thunderstorm. Next up, Revenge of the Mummy. Now the Mummy is a move I remember pretty well. I wasn't especially fond of it but my brother and some friends loved it so we ended up watching it way too many times. Regardless, I'd say it was tied with the Rip Ride Rockit for best ride in the park. You ride through a trapped Egyptian tomb to try and escape from the mummy. It looks good, jerks you around a lot, and is an all around fun ride. New York also has a Blues Brothers show. Not the original guys, of course, but they still put on a pretty good mini-concert. I also got lunch in New York a bit later in the day at an Irish bar and restaurant. Universal doesn't have the variety of restaurants that the Disney parks or even Islands of Adventure do, but that place was pretty good.
Next up, San Francisco. It's a bit smaller than New York and has two shows (which I didn't see until later in the day, so I'll talk about them then) and Disaster! A sort of show / ride hybrid. Basically you're cast as extras in a big disaster movie. They grab a few people from the audience and have them flail around in front of a green screen then you all hop on a fake subway that gets torn apart by a combination earthquake, flood, and fire. Finally, you get to watch a goofy trailer for the fake movie with everyone edited into it. It's not much of a ride, but it's fairly amusing and the effects on the subway are cool. On a side note, they had a bunch of fake movie posters for corny looking disaster films in the waiting area and I figured my dad would like this one.
After that I passed by an area that was under construction and came to the World Expo. It starts off with Men in Black, which is one of those rides where you go around in a car and shoot at targets with a laser gun. In fact, it's the longest and best ride of that type I've been on since you're going through a fairly impressive set and shooting at animatronic aliens rather than flat cutouts. Nearby is the impossible to miss Simpsons Ride. It's one of those simulator rides where car twists and tilts in sync with a video screen without actually moving anywhere. Fun, though not spectacular, but it does have a lot of nice touches for Simpsons fans to spot.
Pretty much every theme park has a kids area and Woody Woodpecker's Kidzone, where I arrived next, is Universal's. It had a couple of large play areas, an animal show that I didn't end up seeing, and a Barney show which I also skipped. If you don't have a little kid in tow, the only thing worth seeing in the area is the E.T. Adventure ride. Classic or not, I was never especially fond of the movie, but it's a very well done ride and you get to fly with E.T. through a large forest, up into space, and then across the surface of his home planet. In a nice touch, when you get in line you give you name to an attendant who gives you a card which you scan at the start of the ride. Then, when you near the end, E.T. thanks everyone in your group by name. It's not a very intense ride but, when it comes to atmosphere, it's the best one in the park.
I had one more area left to see but, before that, I made my way back to San Francisco to take in the Fear Factor Live show. You can actually visit the area early to register to become a contestant. I considered that when I first arrived but eventually decided not to. I used to watch Fear Factor in its earlier days on TV and, while I love the stunts, the eating challenges would present a problem. Not so much because you have to eat a lot of gross stuff (something that the show started focusing way too much on), but because I can't eat a lot of those things for religious reasons. As it turned out, the main contestants didn't have to eat anything, it was all stunts. Some other people who were brought up between rounds, however, did have a pretty disgusting eating challenge.
When the show was over I was off for Hollywood. It has a cool looking 50's style diner, some shops, a horror movie make-up show (another one I didn't get around to seeing), and a small museum dedicated to Lucille Ball. But the main attraction is the Terminator 2 3D show. It's half 3D movie and half live actors. Like Shrek 4D, it was a good show but it didn't blow me away or anything.
By the time I got out of Terminator, it was starting to get late. Universal isn't an especially big park and the lines weren't long but it also closes at 6 on a lot of days this time of year so time was a little tight, especially with all the fairly long shows I'd been watching. But I had enough time to run back to San Francisco and catch one last show, Beetlejuice's Graveyard Revue. What do you think would happen if a bunch of classic movie monsters formed a cover band? As it turns out, they'd be pretty good. I really wasn't expecting much at the start but they were good singers and dancers and the whole thing was surprisingly entertaining. I had about an hour left after that but I decided to call it a day so I could get a bit of shopping done in Orlando before heading home.
So, overall opinion of Universal Studios? It's not a bad park by any means and it's got quite a lot of fun shows (though their start times could be staggered a bit better). However, all their best licenses are used in Islands of Adventure so there's less of an attraction in that regard. Universal is also a decent bit smaller than Islands and the Disney parks and doesn't have the same variety of attractions, shops, and restaurants that they do. So, while it is fun, if your time in Orlando is limited I wouldn't bother going unless you've already visited all the Disney Parks and Islands of Adventure (possibly Sea World as well, though I can't really make a call on that until I go there for myself).

Wednesday (April 4th): Disney's Hollywood Studios
Thanks to my GDC trip and a whole bunch of assorted tasks it'd been a while since my last theme park trip. But I couldn't let my long awaited spring break slip by without going somewhere. In the end, I decided on Disney's Hollywood Studios (formally known as Disney MGM Studios).
Much like Universal Studios, Disney's Hollywood is themed after movies and movie creation. The entry area is based on famous streets from the real Hollywood. It's also got the park's centerpiece, the hat from The Sorcerer's Apprentice (the Mickey Mouse short from Fantasia, not the more recent live action movie). I was here once years ago (back when it was still MGM) so, from past experience, I made a beeline for two of the most popular rides in the park. First up, the Tower of Terror. If you've read my write-up of Tokyo Disneysea, you may remember that they've got a Tower of Terror there as well. The ride itself is the same (an elevator carries you way up and drops you repeatedly) but this one is themed after the Twilight Zone while Disneysea's is an evil tiki thing. Regardless, it's a really fun ride. Probably the best free fall ride you'll find short of actual bungee jumping (I should try that sometime...).
After riding the tower, I grabbed a fast pass for a nearby ride (more on that in a minute) then headed back to the central area for The Great Movie Ride. It takes you through some recreated moments from classic movies. And by classic, I mean stuff like Casablanca and The Wizard of Oz. Even if you don't know old movies, the sets are pretty cool and there's a bit of live action stuff mixed in.
I finished in time to catch a showing of Beauty and the Beast on Stage, a very well done abbreviated version of one of my favorite Disney movies. It was the first of many shows I'd see over the course of the day. That's another thing Disney's Hollywood has in common with Universal, lots of shows.
By the time the show was over, it was time to use my fast pass and ride The Rock n Roller Coaster. It's themed around Aerosmith and, while they're not one of my favorite bands, it's a pretty cool coaster (the fact that it's pitch dark helps) and one of the most intense rides in any of the Disney parks.
The next area is based on Disney's animation studios. You can learn a bit about how characters are designed, watch some artists at work, view original background panels from various Disney movies, and even try your hand at drawing and voicing some famous Disney characters. Not exactly "exciting" but I thought it was interesting. As was the nearby Walt Disney museum, which chronicled his history and the history of Disney as a whole. Walt Disney really was an amazing person. He repeatedly bet everything he had on projects that no one thought would work, eventually creating one of the largest and best loved entertainment companies in the world. He created the first cartoon with synchronized sound (Steamboat Willy), the first color cartoons, the first feature length animated movie (Snow White and the Seven Dwarves), and a number of innovative art and filming techniques. Not to mention creating the modern "theme park" and so many other things. He won more academy awards than any other person in history and inspired key figures in many other fields, and not just in the US. For example, Shigeru Miyamoto (one of the most famous and important figures in video game history) was heavily influenced by early Disney movies, as were many pioneers in Japanese anime and manga. It's hard to imagine what modern entertainment would be like without Walt Disney...
Next was a Little Mermaid show. It was a mix of puppets and live action and, as with Beauty and the Beast, very well done, though I liked the style of Tokyo Disneysea's Little Mermaid show a bit better. I passed through a small Pixar themed area on my way to another show. They've got some sort of Toy Story laser shooting ride but the fast passes for the entire day were gone before I got there and the line never seemed to drop below two hours so it ended up being the one ride in the park I didn't get to do. So, if you're going to Disney's Hollywood, I recommend heading there first as it's apparently the most popular ride in the park by a decent margin.
At this point, I was getting kind of hungry so I grabbed some popcorn (in the coolest popcorn bucket ever) and headed for Lights, Motors, Action! a vehicle based stunt show. If you want to learn a bit about how all those movie car chase scenes are made, or just want to see some fancy driving and explosions, it's worth watching.
After the show, I took a look around the Streets of America area, which is designed like a movie set for various major cities (like this New York City area). Then it was time for the parade, which was all characters from various Pixar movies. It was a nice parade, though not quite as elaborate as the ones at the other Disney parks I've visited.
I decided to do the backlot tour next, which is a big mix of things. You get to see some special effects sets in action, a check out a whole lot of old movie props and costumes, and even get a peak into actual Disney costume and props departments in action. Once again, not especially exciting but very interesting.
The Muppets 3D show was next (which I especially enjoyed after the recent Muppets movie) and then Star Tours. Star Tours is a motion simulator (one of those rides where you get in a car with a video screen and watch the screen as the car tilts and turns along with the action. The whole ride was recently revamped. The video is all new and in 3D, which is a nice touch. And, while I didn't have a chance to confirm this, I head that there's actually a whole bunch of different videos that can play so the ride is different each time, which is pretty cool.
Oh, while I didn't see it myself, I should probably mention that they also have an American Idol show. You can swing by throughout the day to audition, with the best people getting the chance to go on stage in front of the audience, who votes for their favorite. The winners of the regular shows then get to return in the evening for the final championship show. Looks about as close as you can get to the real thing.
But anyway, after Star Tours I started looking for a place to eat supper but ran into a bit of difficulty. Since it was the middle of the week, I wasn't expecting the park to be especially crowded but it was and all the nicer restaurants had stopped seating anyone who didn't have a reservation. I've never seen that happen before at any of the theme parks I've been to. I did get a decent meal eventually, but I may want to plan ahead a bit more on my next theme park visit, just in case...
I wrapped up the day with two more shows. First was the Indiana Jones Stunt Show. Which, as you might expect from something based on Indiana Jones, had lots of traps, fights, and explosions. Finally, I went to get in line for their big night time show, Fantasmic. While the big finale shows at most Disney parks are out in the open where everyone can see, Fantasmic is set off to the side in its own stadium. That means there's limited seating (and standing) room so it's a good idea to show up early. I seemed to be there on a fairly crowded day but, even so, by the time I arrived (a good half hour early) it was already standing room only, so getting there an hour or more before the start time is probably a good idea. The show is a mix of live action, water jets, and video (projected on walls of water). It's a really cool show (one of the best I've seen at any theme park) and worth the wait.
All in all, it was another fun day at a Disney Park. Disney's Hollywood is a bit of an unusual mix seeing as it combines a whole lot of shows with a couple of the most intense rides in all of Disney World. If I had to rank the four Disney World parks, I'd probably put it in the lowest slot, but that really comes down to personal preference, it's an excellent park and has some of the best shows around.

Sunday (April 15th): A Day of Festivals
Since I was trying to catch up on some work, going out somewhere for an entire day wouldn't have been a good idea. However, Alachua, the town where I live, was having some sort of spring festival and there was an art festival going on in Gainesville, where I had to go for errands anyway, so I figured I'd check it out as well.
Alachua is a small town, but it has a very nice old fashioned Main Street which was lined with booths. Most of the booths were for various arts and crafts type things. Carvings, knitted caps, and the like. There was a bit of food as well, though nothing too special in that regard. While I probably wouldn't come to the festival from out of town, it was a lot bigger than I expected and it was fun to walk around for a little while.
After returning to my apartment, I headed off to Gainesville. I was originally planning on going straight to the art festival but I ended up stopping at a book store on the way. In a bit of incredibly good luck, it turned out that D.J. MacHale, author of the Pendragon and Morpheus Road series (both of which I really like), was going to be having a book signing there a little later in the afternoon so hung around for that. While I actually have books autographed by a number of my favorite authors, they're all generic signed copies I happened to get at various stores, this was the first time I actually got one signed in person. As it turns out, Mr. MacHale is a really nice guy. He was very friendly and took the time to chat with everyone when their turn came in line. It made for a really awesome surprise addition to my day.
I eventually made it to the art festival, which was hosted by Santa Fe College. I've been to one or two art festivals in the past, so I had an idea of what to expect. Lots of lots of little booths filled all types of art. Paintings, sculpture, jewelry, photography... I'm not a huge patron of the arts or anything, but some of the stuff was really cool to look at, especially the photographs. It made me want to make giant high quality prints of some of my best pictures. I wonder how much that would cost... There was food as well and I had a lot of fun looking around before finally forcing myself to head out and get back to work.

Tuesday (April 17th): Disney Quest and Cirque du Soleil
Something came up rather suddenly last week, with the result being that I had to go to Orlando for a meeting. The weekend wouldn't work so, in the end, I had to take a personal day to get it done. It felt like a waste to take an entire day off of work and drive two hours only to return to my apartment right after the meeting ended, so I decided I might as well make the most of things and do something fun afterwards. The meeting was late morning and I wasn't sure how long it was going to go, so it wasn't the best day to go to a full theme park. However, I'd been wanting to see La Nouba, Disney's Cirque Du Soleil show, and that wasn't until the evening. Plus, it was right by Disney Quest in Downtown Disney, which is one of the of the places I can get into using my Disney pass, so that fit the bill perfectly.
The meeting ended up going fairly quickly and I arrived up at Downtown Disney right around lunch time. I wrote about Downtown Disney before but, in case you don't remember, it's a fancy shopping and dining area inside Disney World, with the biggest attractions being the aforementioned Disney Quest and La Nouba. Since the meeting didn't take as long as I'd though it would, I had quite a lot of time to spare before the show. I thought about getting some lunch but the restaurants were crowded and I wasn't all that hungry anyway so I skipped it and headed straight to Disney Quest. It's an indoor mini theme park of sorts with a focus on video games and virtual rides. There were several virtual reality rides (complete with head sets) which involved tasks like fighting off super villains with a laser sword and flying around on a magic carpet. They were rather cool but sometime I'd like to see a VR system with graphics that don't look like they came out of an early generation PS2 game. Some high end graphics would go a long way towards making the experience feel more real. Anyway, it was the other rides that I found the most interesting. They had one completely non virtual ride, which can best be summed up as bumper cars with ball shooting canons and several where, while you weren't wearing VR goggles, there were video screens all around to make it look like you were in another place. All of those were pretty cool. For example, there's a jungle cruise where you sit in a raft and have to physically paddle your way down a dangerous river. It's the one ride without seat belts and it's pretty rough. I near fell over a few times, but it was fun. The Pirates of the Caribbean ride, on the other hand, has you running all around the deck of a ship shooting canons at attacking ships. And then there's one of those motion simulator roller coasters, except that you can to design your own track (mixing and matching various pieces) before you ride. I've been in motion simulators before and wasn't expecting much other than a bit of tilting. However, the one they have there can actually rotate a full 360 degrees, making for a much more fun and intense ride. Sorry for the lack of pictures, by the way. While I had my camera with me, the inside of Disney Quest is rather dimly lit and most of the lights that are there are odd colors, which is a horrible condition for photography unless you have a fancy tripod setup or something.
In addition to the main attractions, Disney Quest is also full of arcade games ranging from the new to the old. They had a really impressive selection with my favorites being DDR X2 and an original Asteroids machine from 1979. Even better, all the games (with the exception of a couple that give out actual prizes) are on free play, so there's no need to worry about running through huge stacks of quarters.
I could have stayed there all evening moving between various arcade games but after a few hours I decided that, as long as I had the free time, I might as well go and see the Three Stooges movie, which was playing in the theater next door. I wasn't really sure what to expect. I really like the original Three Stooges but trying to recreate them now just seemed like a bad idea. However, I was pleasantly surprised. Though not as good as the original Three Stooges skits, the movie was actually very well done and the actors did an excellent job portraying Moe, Larry, and Curly in looks, voice, and mannerisms. On a side note, it was also the fanciest movie theater I've ever been in, complete with a mini food court, leather seats, and an unusually large screen.
When the movie let out, I had just enough time to get something to eat before going to La Nouba. I ended up at a Cuban restaurant (they're pretty popular in Florida). Cuban food tends to involve a lot of pulled meat, beans, and rice. It's not one of my favorite types of cuisine, but it can be pretty good if done right, especially when fried plantains are involved.
Then, at long last, it was off to the show! La Nouba is the only Cirque du Soleil show in Orlando and it's got its own theater at the far end of Downtown Disney. Tickets (which it's best to get in advance) are a bit on the expensive side, but I'd never seen a Cirque du Soleil performance before and don't know when I'll get the chance to see another so I figured it'd be worth it. And, in my opinion, it totally was. How to describe it... La Nouba features a wide variety of acts including tight rope walking, trapeze artists, ribbon dancing, trampolines, bikes, juggling, several cute little Asian girls with an extremely impressive diabolo act, and more. It was all tied together with abstract costumes, a sweeping musical score, and hilarious clowns. Every single act featured some of the most impressive feats of acrobatics I've ever seen. Doing a handstand on the head of a person walking across a tightrope? Turning a trampoline jump into a wall run into an open window? Juggling diabolos back and forth while doing flips? And that wasn't the half of it.
La Nouba brought back a lot of memories of Kaleido Star, an anime centered around a place called Kaleido Stage were a group of multi-talented acrobats designed and puts on spectacular shows filled with amazing stunts and elaborate sets and costumes. Back when I was watching it, I kept thinking how awesome it would be if there was something like that in real life. Well, La Nouba came pretty close. Cameras weren't allowed, but there's a nice teaser video on youtube, though it's nothing compared to seeing the show in person. I didn't get one of the highest tier tickets, but I somehow ended up in the front row, though way on the side. Being a bit more centered would have been nice but overall it was a really good seat. However, looking at the theater, it didn't really look like there was a single bad seat in there. As a warning, if you're in the front row, be careful not freak out during the bicycle act, as they like to stop just short of hitting you in the face. Anyway, long story short, the show was amazing and I highly recommend it. Now I really want to see more Cirque du Soleil shows...

Sunday (April 29th): Epcot
I wanted to get in one last theme park visit before summer break. There were still two major ones I hadn't visited yet, Epcot and Seaworld, along with one water park (Wet 'n Wild). I decided to do Epcot for several reasons. For one thing, it's always been one of my favorites (I was there several times before, though my most recent visit was years ago). Plus, I've got that Disney pass which means I don't have to pay for admission.
Anyway, the first thing you notice when entering Epcot is the big sphere that houses the Spaceship Earth ride. You may also notice the topiary Mickey. Epcot's yearly Flower and Garden festival is currently taking place which, among other things, means that there are cool topiary figures all over the place.
Once you get inside, Epcot is divided up into two sections, Future World and the World Showcase. I planned to spend most of my time in the World Showcase but it generally opens a couple hours later than the rest of the park, so I had some time to spend in Future World. As a side note, while most other parks can be completely covered in a day with a little planning and bit of luck with the lines, seeing everything in Epcot in a single day is difficult, if not impossible, so I had to skip some things here and there.
My first stop, The Land. Soarin, the park's most popular ride, is there and I wanted to grab a fast pass before it got too busy. I had some time to kill before I could use the pass, so I hopped on the The Land's other ride, Living With the Land. It's a boat ride that starts out with some little displays about different types of climates. The second half of the ride is the cool part. The Land has a greenhouse where they research a bunch of different agriculture techniques and you get to go through the middle of it. Quite a lot of their experiments involve growing things with minimal soil, like this tomato "tree". The hanging melons and pumpkins, however, have me a little worried. You can actually sign up to take a more in-depth tour of the greenhouse but it's rather long and costs extra so I passed it up. I may give it a try next time though. As an interesting side note, they actually use the fruits and vegetables they grow in the restaurants there. I still had some time to kill so I watched a little movie about the importance of taking care of the Earth, narrated by characters from The Lion King. Getting back to Soarin, it's essentially a simulated hang glider ride. You get in a chair that's lifted off the ground over a huge screen. The screen fills pretty much your entire field of vision and, thanks to some very well done wind and motion, it really does feel like you're gliding across California. Very cool.
Moving on, I swung by Imagination! It's mostly comprised of a collection of light and sound based play areas for kids. It's also got a theater for 3D movies. The last couple of times I visited Epcot they played Honey I Shrunk the Audience there. Now though, they switched back to the movie they had before it, Captain EO. It's one of the earliest 3D movies and was a collaboration between several famous people including George Lucas and Michael Jackson. Take Star Wars, combine it with Michael Jackson music videos, and add in a heavy dose of the 80's. It's weird, to say the least.
Next stop is the counterpart to The Land, The Sea. It's got a Finding Nemo ride, a decent aquarium (see the frog fish?) and...a fish restaurant? I'm not sure I'd really want to eat fish while watching them swim around, but anyway...
To save time, I decided to skip Spaceship Earth for now (though I did get back there later in the day). I also skipped the Innovations buildings. The first time I went to Epcot, the Innovations buildings had a bunch of arcade games and virtual reality stuff. That later moved to Disney Quest and they had a robot building attraction instead. Not sure what exactly is in there now though the guide map says something about designing your own thrill ride. Maybe like that motion simulator in Disney Quest then... As long as we're talking about things I skipped, I also passed on Universe of Energy, a rather lengthy ride and movie about the origins of various types of energy that takes you back to the dinosaur era. From what I remember, it's not a bad ride but, like I said, you really can't see all of Epcot in a day and it's pretty long.
Instead, I headed to Mission: SPACE (spotted a bit more topiary on the way). Mission Space is a ride that simulates a flight to Mars. There's two versions, green and orange (with orange being more intense). It doesn't flip you around or anything like that, but it does a rather remarkable job of simulating g-forces, making it unlike anything else I've ever ridden.
There's two other buildings in Future World. One is the test track ride, which is based on car safety tests. It's currently closed for renovations. And the other building, which I remember housing some attractions and shows based on the body. Right now though, it was being used for some presentations related to the Flower and Garden Festival.
At this point, the World Showcase was open and I was starving (I skipped breakfast) so it was time to move on.
On my past visits to Epcot, I already went around counter clockwise. This time, I decided to do the opposite which means that I started out in Mexico.
Mexico is rather unique compared to the other countries because it's all indoors. You enter a giant pyramid, pass by some neat wooden animal carvings, and suddenly it's night time in Mexico. Like all the countries, Mexico is primarily shops (little street stalls in this case) and restaurants. While the restaurants looked pretty awesome, I didn't want to eat too much in Mexico (Mexican food is really easy to find, after all) but since I was so hungry, I did grab some churros. I've only had churros once before and I wasn't overly fond of them but these were really good. Mexico also has a boat ride showing off various parts of the country and culture through a mix of videos and animatronics. It's a smooth and slow ride, but I enjoyed it. Definately brings out the best of Mexico (as opposed to what you tend to hear about on the news).
Leaving Mexico behind, I came to Norway. Like the rest of Scandenavia, Norway is a former viking country. Note the fancy wooden church (I would love to see a real one of those). It's got a boat ride as well (slightly more intense than the one in Mexico, but still pretty mild), which focuses on Norway's culture and seafaring history. While there, I decided to get something a bit more substational to eat. If you can't tell, that's a traditional Norwegian sandwhich (sprouted bread, smoked salmon, egg, and onion, and a pastry made with cloudberries.
China came next. It's a fun country with some cool shops and, of course, restaurants. I was pretty thirsty so I stopped by a tea stand to get something. While I'm not normally a fan of anything alcoholic, they had a green tea and plum wine slush that I couldn't resist trying. As a side note, umeshu (Japanese plum wine) is the only alcohol I've tried that I've come anywhere close to liking. The slush didn't have much of a alcohol taste to it and, as such, was quite good. While enjoying my drink, I took at a look at this neat topiary dragon (in honor of the year of the dragon). They had a small museum inside. I think the display changes periodically. The current one is on the thousands of terra cotta statues found in one of the emperor's tombs. I finished looking around just in time to catch a 360 degree movie (the screen circles the entire room) about China. It re-affirmed my desire to visit China some day. On the list of countries I've never been to but want to visit, it's up near the top along with Australia and Greece. Finally, I caught an acrobatics show. While the acrobats couldn't match what I saw in La Nouba a couple weeks back, they were still good.
After China there's a little outpost area which isn't really based on any country (though it's got a vague African theme to it) before you get to Germany. It's one of the couple of countries that doesn't have a ride or presentation of any kind, but the buildings are pretty cool. I stopped long enough to get a pretzel and admire the buildings and topiary before continuing.
Italy immediately brought back memories of Assassin's Creed 2 (in which I climbed the tower in that photo). Once again, the buildings were awesome. There wasn't a ride, display, or movie there either, but there was a street performer doing a juggling routine, who I stopped to watch.
My next destination was America. They've got a movie there about American history but it's a bit longer than the other countries' movies and I was a little presssed for time so I skipped it. As with everywhere else, America has restaurants and a store as well. The restaurant looked pretty good but, if you ask me, unless you're a foreign tourist (and even then), going to Epcot and eating in America is kind of lame. I only stayed long enough to take a quick look around and snap a picture of some Toy Story inspired topiary before moving on.
Now this looks familiar... Epcot's Japan certainly isn't the same as going to the actual country, but short of the Japan Towns in San Francisco and LA, it's the closest you're going to get in the US. And hey, check out their version of the otorii gate from Itsukushima. You may remember that I saw the real one my last time in Japan. This one is a bit smaller and more red than orange, but it's otherwise a very impressive reproduction. I grabbed another snack (the Japanese equivalent of shaved ice) and took a look through the huge store. While going in to Epcot to do your shopping probably isn't very practical, they had a pretty good selection of Japanese snacks, wines, and teas, along with a bunch of anime and manga related items and more. If I wasn't planning to actually go to Japan this summer, I probably would have picked a few things up. There was changing museum display nearby, much like in China. This one was all about Japanese mythological creatues (oni, tengu, kitsune, etc.) and their appearances in art and legends both old and new (including anime and video games). That was a lot of fun and I caught the very end of a taiko performance on my way out. Oh, since I haven't mentioned it before, the employees in each country in Epcot are actually from the country in question and fully bilingual, so if you want to practice your Japanese, Chinese, German, or whatever, Epcot is a pretty good place to do so.
At this point, I backtracked to America. As part of the Flower and Garden Festival, they have various singers from the 60's and 70's doing mini concerts on the weekends. This particular weekend featured Chuck Negron, formally of Three Dog Night (Joy to the World, Old Fashioned Love Song, etc.) The concert was only about 40 minutes long, but it was fun and he sang most of Three Dog Night's big hits. I did notice that I looked to be one of the only people in the audience under age 40, which was a little sad. Three Dog Night is way better than most new music.
After the concert, it was back to my world tour. I had made a dinner reservation in Morocco for a bit later, so I passed it by and headed to France. I looked around, checked out some more topiary, and watch a movie about France (another country I'd love to visit someday, mainly to see Paris. I also happened across an unscheduled performance. Some girls, who must have been part of a school choir or something similar, had been talking to one of the employees about some French songs they knew and get talked them into singing some for him. It may not have been an official show, but they were great singers.
Then it was back to Morocco. It's a pretty cool country with covered alleys full of little stores. I ate in Morocco my last time at Epcot (a number of years ago). It was my first time eating Moroccan food, which turned out to be delicious. Since then, I've learned how to cook some Moroccan dishes, but I've only been to one other Moroccan restaurant (they just aren't very common in the US) so I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity. As a note, if you want to eat in one of the fanciest restaurants in any given country, it's probably a good idea to make a reservation a bit ahead of time as they can get pretty busy around meal times (most countries have a big fancy restaurant, a smaller cheaper restaurant, and snack stand or two). Making reservations is pretty easy. You can do it in person, over the phone (using the number in the guide map), or via the free Disney app for iPhone and Android (which is what I used). Moroccan food is rather hard to describe if you've never had it, but spices are extremely important, especially ones like saffron and paprika, and there's quite a lot of tagines (meat and veggie dishes cooked in a special pot). It's very different and very good. They also have an great mint tea. I got an awesome full course meal. It was a decent bit more expensive than what I usually spend when I eat out, but I had already decided that Epcot would be a bit of a splurge day when it came to food. I love trying foods from other countries and you'll be hard pressed to find a place with more diverse cuisine than Epcot, and all extremely high quality at that. They even had a belly dancer come out during the meal, along with some musicians. I wish I had a video for you but I wasn't able to get a clear shot from my table.
After dinner, I passed by France to reach the UK. I looked around a bit (no blue police boxes, unfortunately). The highlite for me was the tea garden, which contained a lot of the plants used to make traditional English teas, along with sign boards describing the differences between the teas.
The final country was Canada. I looked through the shop and checked out the totems but didn't stay too long. They've got a 360 degree movie, which would have been cool to see, but there wasn't a whole lot of time left before the big end of the day fireworks show and I wanted to try and get a ride on Spaceship Earth before then. Fortunately, there wasn't a line anymore so I was able to walk right on. Spaceship Earth is inside the big sphere at the entrance of the park. As a rather nifty feature, it lets you choose the language of your narration. Japanese was one of the options so I chose that for a little extra practice. It starts out going through some animatronic recreations of various points from ancient history. The second half seems to be different every time I've visited the park. This time, they asked a bunch of questions (via a touch screen built into the car) and showed a humerous movie about what life may be like in the future (from the look of things, there's quite a lot of different movies, depending on you answers).
When the ride was over, I hurried to secure a good spot near the lake to watch the fireworks. The show was called IllumiNations and was a mix of lights, water jets, and fireworks. Like all Disney's end of the day shows, it was great and more impressive than a lot of the 4th of July shows I've seen. It was an excellent finish to a great day and I'm looking forward to returning to Epcot (hopefully sooner rather than later), checking out the things I skipped, and visiting some different restaurants.





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