Robot Claw

The weather today was dangerous to human life, so we avoided the parks for some R&R.

We hit some of the local souvenir shops looking for one of my favorite travel experiences – the tacky postcard! And we were successful, so watch your mailboxes since 10 were sent today alone 🙂

Speaking of souvenir stores, this was one we went to:

They sold oranges and tacky souvenirs! I’ll spare you most of the details (beside, I may have purchased some…) but this photo should give an idea of the caliber of many of the shops we visited today:

Note particularly that the two shirts are stocked right next to each other 🙂

We also went to Downtown Disney, the Disney outdoor mall, where KLS had a cake…

I wore a hat…

And we saw the best Lego sculpture in the world!

In the afternoon I visited the hotel game room (rare these days) and sunk a few dollars into two pinball machines.

Tron Legacy is such a cheap game! Very often the ball just comes out of the launcher and is lost immediately! But I couldn’t stop playing because of Olivia Wilde’s pretty face on the board:

Yes, I’m simple like that 🙂

Today’s wildlife shots include one showing better how good our view is:

And two through-the-monocular shots of exotic beasts:

In the evening, we lazed in the pool and spa for a while:

Before I ended this relaxing day by blogging, which itself concluded with a photo of a Disney squirrel…

I remember back when I was about 15 – back during the time I wanted my own copy of Michael Jackson’s red jacket – how much I wanted to see the created-for-Disney MJ ‘movie’ Captain EO. Today, for the first time, I did. And it was terrible 🙂

We saw it at Epcot, which was today’s destination. In no particular order, today we…

…drunk soda from all over the world. My favorite was beloved by Genghis Khan apparently!

…saw a $37,500 Swarovski crystal copy of the castle in Magic Kingdom.

…saw a great exhibit linking Japanese traditional spirits to anime/manga heroes of today.

…made funny faces during the Spaceship Earth ride, and..,

…watched some fireworks!

We were at Epcot for over 12 hours in total, with highs today in the mid 90’s (Fahrenheit). To say we’re tired now is an understatement.

I’ll end with another shot taken from our hotel balcony, through the monocular:

Our hotel room is amazing, with a corner view of the Safari! Here’s a shot of some of what we can see:

Can you see the giraffes and zebras in that shot? Here’s another shot of a Roan Antelope, taken through an ocular:

Ok, let me rewind a bit. The flight was short, smooth and seemed to go very quickly. We breezed through the airport and happily chose our rental car, a tiny little Fiat 500!

A bit of lunch (Jesus chicken) was followed by a siesta and then we headed to the Magic Kingdom.

The crowds were impressive, but arriving after 5 was a smart idea since lines were shortening and the heat had diminished a bit. We stayed until closing at 10, riding many rides including most of the big ones.

That’s the castle of course, and a new attraction at the park is an astonishing show where a series of animations are projected (from multiple projectors) directly onto the castle.

It was incredibly impressive and the animations included such things as making the castle seem to breathe (which was very effective) or melt. Amazing stuff!

Now it’s time to sleep 🙂