Plans to head to Epcot formulated, we made sure to have the map, and stepped outside of Tokelau.
"So, which way do we go?"
www.exploreorlandoflorida.com
Wingnut consulted the map, while I looked around and attempted to figure out what direction we had come from originally.
"I think we go left" Wingnut said, just as I suggested we try right.
Alright, let's try right.
Around 5 steps later, we saw the lake. Wrong way.
Wingnut only gloated a little.
We turned around and started making our way along the winding (and often seemingly superfluous) paths, guessing at every turn.
"Let's just keep heading...that way." I pointed arbitrarily towards some foliage and identical-looking buildings.
Where's Russell when you need him?
(images.wikia.com/disney)
We kept picking and choosing directions, attempting to make educated guesses based on the map, but truly, we may as well have just picked at random. Eventually this led us to an area outside of a longhouse (looking at the map now, my best guess is we were outside Tahiti) where there happened to be two other intrepid travelers...I mean guests...standing and looking much more confident in their navigational skills than us.
I went over to them, and asked how to get to the TTC from there. One responded that we were (amazingly) going the right way, keep going the way we are, hang a left or a right at some point, and we'll see it.
She patted my shoulder reassuringly, we thanked them, and we went on our way.
And eventually...
Amazingly...
We found the TTC!!!
(No picture as evidence, unfortunately.)
(Sorry for the lack of photos during this adventure, I was honestly concentrating on our whereabouts too much to take pictures. Obviously, that doesn't happen too often.
)
Anyways, once we got to the TTC, it was easy to find the Epcot monorail. And finally take pictures!
Magic Kingdom sign, as seen from the monorail.
I love you, Epcot.
Just monorailing past the geodesic sphere made me SO happy. It finally, FINALLY felt like we were in Disney!
Oooooohhh...oh. Um. Uh-oh.
Somehow, without looking it up at all, I had convinced myself that the WDW Marathon was the day before (Saturday). Nope. Today. Here. Now.
Seriously?
1 hour at Disney and I am seriously not living up to my overplanning reputation!
I turned to Wingnut. "Alright, we're here now. We'll make the best of it," he reassured me.
We made our way into the park (of course I messed up putting my card into the reader and smacked into the turnstyle rotating thing. Ow.) and noticed that the paths were divided in half and one side was blocked off for the race. A good amount of people were still running by. We decided to go into World Showcase, where here, pretty much all of the main walkway was designated for the runners, and passerby skirted around the edges.
Also, the Christmas tree was still up!
We slowly made our way to Mexico, and ducked inside the temple, which was NOT a part of the race route, and seemed wonderfully crowd-free in comparison.
I love the Mexico pavilion, I love the perpetual twilight, and I think that the theme is exceptionally well done here. While it isn't my favorite ride anymore (the pre-Donald version will forever be the better of the two incarnations of this ride), El Rio del Tiempo (The River of Time) was our first ride of the trip!
Bad shot of the fireworks scene at the end.
I remember being entranced by "fake" fireworks at Disney when I was younger, I also loved the ones on the ceiling at Muppets 3D.
(I'm easily amused, what can I say?)
We had an ADR at Sanaa that night, and it was around 1pm or so by then, so we figured we'd have a little snack to tide us over until then.
"Where should we go to eat?" I asked Wingnut.
"School bread!!!" He suggested, to my agreement. Before we had left, we agreed to attempt to try as many different snacks and restaurants as we could that we hadn't before. School bread was one of the ones at the top of the list.
We made our way to Norway, where by that point, the race was seemingly coming to a close, and the cones were being gathered up from the pathways. Immediately, the congested feeling we had had getting to Mexico was gone. We went into Kringla Bakeri og Kafe, where Wingnut selected the school bread, and I picked the cloudberry cream horn (we had agreed to share our selections).
(Yes, these will make my 3rd and 4th pastries of the day.
)
Cloudberry horn in the front, school bread in the middle, Wingnut in the back.
While both pastries were awesome, the school bread was clearly the winner for us. It was unexpectedly spiced and not-too-sweet, filled with a delicious pastry cream, and topped with toasted coconut. We both loved it. Wingnut: "The school bread was refreshing in that it was savory when most things like that are sweet. The cream with it completed the package."
The cloudberry horn was also very good, it was sugar-crusted flaky pastry filled with a berry cream. (I should have turned it around in the photo above, sorry!) I really enjoyed the berry flavor here. Wingnut thought that the horn was a little too crispy, but the cream was very tasty.
We quickly devoured these treats, and started strolling along into World Showcase until Wingnut immediately stopped at the next country, China.
"I want to try the pork buns here. Where's the roasted pork buns?"
(He had done his menu research, as we both had.)
I steered him towards the Joy of Tea stand (right along the lagoon), reminding him of our dinner at Sanaa in a few hours.
FYI, at $4.50, the roasted pork buns are NOT available for a snack credit.
(Wingnut claimed he helpfully was showing everyone a cross-section of the bun. I think we was just impatient.
)
As lovely and shiny as these looked, I gave them a "meh". They were a dry, didn't have a lot of filling, and had an unexpected almost-crisp texture to the outer shell. This was disappointing, as roasted pork buns tend to be my favorite dim sum item. Wingnut's take was that the pork bun was way too dry and the bread was flaky, making it fall apart. He thought the pork was ok, but there was too little of it in the bun.
Snacks eaten, we were back to wandering around World Showcase!
'Hi there! We're on vacation, too. In Disney World. At Poly. We're cool.
See ya in the parks or maybe scarfin' down some skewers at 'Ohana after while. Life is good. Maybe better than good.'
at you guys getting a little lost at the Poly! It is really confusing at first! We drove there for the first time in October and tried to find the GCH from the parking lot and we were so lost! We were like "seriously, are we that stupid, we can't find our way around a Disney resort?" 
And getting to take the monorail over there is awesome! I love how it loops your around Spaceship Earth!
I don't know if it's a permanent change or if it's one of those things that it just depends on who makes it....
)
You're not late, we just got there! 
