Danny is at a softball tournament, Sean & Mark are in Chicago for a Cubs game (that 2 hours after starting time had yet to start, and Ryne is at Youth group so I thought I would try to sneak in a quick update!
Initial sketchy plans.
Thurs - DH is going over to the Children's Miracle Network Golf Tourny. How long he stays will depend on the weather. Last year when we came it was cold and windy that day and he didn't stay very long. I spent my morning hopping from one long indoor attraction to another (Country Bears, Presidents, Philharmagic.....). No plans for that evening yet since we don't know when he will come back. Don't know if I will go back to Epcot or somewhere else - depends on how hectic the Food & Wine festival is, and if I have any luck finding anything I like.
I will try to make this a pretty short update. One I am trying to get this thing finished, because the trip I originally started never got past the airport parking lot. Two there are no, zero, nada pictures for this day. And Three all I have to go by are receipts, and frankly they arent too helpful. Hopefully as I go along things will come back to me.
The morning started basically as it always does. This day Danny may have gotten up before me and showered first. I wont swear to it, but since he had somewhere to be, and I didnt, I can see that happening. Coffee and toast were made and consumed, Danny would have taken one to go we brought those Dixie disposable insulated coffee cups with lids very handy! You can take your coffee with you in the morning but dont have to haul your mug around with you the rest of the day. He was headed off to the Golf Tournament with hopes that he would have better luck than last year. He would have cut through Epcot and taken the monorail over to the Ticket Center then walked from there to the golf courses.
I piddled around in the room a little the next day was check out day, so I was trying to make sure that everything was clean, and was trying to condense things a little to make packing easier.
Food & Wine was still going on, so it was another Epcot day for me. When I finally got around and went over there I went to Imagination first and went to the gift shop. I think this is the day that as I was coming in, one of the foreign cast members asked me if I wanted to ride Journey to Imagination. I didnt quite understand her with her accent and she had to repeat the question. I declined. She must not have expected someone to come straight through the shop since the ride dumps you out there. But I was on a mission. We had finally decided what souvenirs we were getting the boys a Tshirt!

Arent we terribly original??
For Sean it was a Figment shirt. Actually, for Sean it was two. I got him this long sleeve shirt for a Christmas present,
Front
Back
and a Tshirt for his souvenir.
This is actually brown even though it looks kinda grey. These pictures were taken earlier in the week on my phone so I could send to Sean.
This was an exercise in patience. Finding the shirts was simple I knew what I wanted, I just had to grab the right size and head for the counter. That was the hard part! There was a lady ahead of me a grandmother traveling with her children and grandchildren. Some of her group had left and some were still wandering around the shop. And even though she was checking out she wasnt done shopping. And once she was finally all rung up THEN she asked if she could have some (not all) of it sent to their room. That meant they had to re-ring her, because only the stuff being sent could be on the receipt. So the cashier not quite knowing how to handle that had to enlist the aid of the only other CM working the registers. Of course, that meant she had to wait until that CM was done with her customer.
Eventually they got that all resolved and it was finally my turn, I asked to have mine sent to the International Gateway since tomorrow was check-out day. They did up all the paperwork and gave me my receipt and I was on my way. For some reason I do not have a receipt for this anymore, and my room charge print-out does not list the time.
From there I went to Mouse Gears to get the shirt I wanted for Mark
yes, he is 17, and yes, he approved this purchase! I had actually sent him the picture as a bit of a joke he likes Buzz, but I figured he would think he was too cool to wear something like that. Nope not my son! His reply was Cool! Get it! I had that one also sent to the International Gateway.
Chores done and I was off!
I headed back to the World Showcase with the intent of going left towards Mexico this time. My last visit had started at the UK so this time I was going to work around the other way. There wasnt a lot more that I was terribly interested in. But I started with, I think Argentina and a corn and cheese empanada. Again I could be lying to you I dont have a receipt for it
.I tried to keep them all, but sometimes the CM dont give them back to you when you pick up your food. I did my food & wine purchases on a gift card instead of the room charge. But there was a purchase made after I loaded it up and before my next receipt and I do remember getting something at the entranceway before actually going into the countries, and since I still have the map, and the empanada is the only thing that catches my eye now, I am going to assume it is what caught my eye then. And if it is wrong well, you wouldnt know anyway, since none of you were there.

Whatever it was that I ate, I made the mistake of parking my
scooter in what I didnt realize at the time was the smoking area. I went and got my food and came back to eat it and while I was gone a family of smokers came. I totally get that I was in their area and that if I had a problem with it I could move. But it was also in the shade, and its a hassle trying to renegotiate the scooter with food, so I stayed put and had a little 2nd hand smoke with my snack.

Since I cant even remember for sure what it was that I ate, I cant really tell you whether it was any good. I am going to assume it was ok. If it was outstanding or awful I would have remembered.
From there my next stop was South Korea (located in China). I had the barbecue short rib with steamed rice and cucumber kimchi. I enjoyed this. Didnt enjoy the frat boys behind me in line that were drinking there way around the world at 12:07 but Im sure between the heat and the booze, karma caught up with them eventually.
Speaking of heat, next stop was the African outpost for a lemonade slush. I went ahead and used my card there since I had close to $60 on it and I knew I wouldnt use it up at the booths. My lemonade slush was more what I thought the Grey Goose Slushie was going to be like. So I guess instead of $9.50 for a Grey Goose I would be more satisfied with $4 for a lemonade slush.
Next stop Hops & barley. At 12:07 I was in China, it is only 12:49 now and I am at Hops and Barley which is on the far side of the America pavilion. So obviously I wasnt spending any time exploring the countries. I did relax and people watch as I had my snacks, but other than that I didnt do much. At Hops & Barley I had the Pecan Bread Pudding. I remember that it was hot and that it was good but until I just looked up the official name, I didnt remember that there were any pecans involved. And that my friends, was the end of my lunch. An empanada appetizer, ribs for an entrée, frozen lemonade for a beverage and bread pudding for dessert.
I am not exactly sure what I did at this point. I may very well have gone back to the room. I think I had intended to go to the pool, but I believe that by the time I got there Danny was either back, or on his way back. I do know that at some point between going to the room and going out for the evening he suggested that I go ahead and go back and pick up the packages at the Gateway. They werent there when I left to go to the room. They werent due to be there yet, but I rolled through and checked. I dont know what he was doing that he stayed behind because he didnt have pictures to download.
Regardless, I left the room around 2:45-ish and stopped first at Dundys Sundries. Its the little giftshop in Boardwalk near the elevators. They had a keychain there that I wanted and this was souvenir shopping day. It is a dangly key chain with the letters D V - C that are individual charms hanging vertically, and at the bottom is an oval charm with the DVC logo. I picked that up and headed back to Epcot.
In addition to picking up my packages, Danny wanted me to pick up the Vinylmations gorilla that we had seen earlier in the week. I thought I had seen it at the Gateway shop so I rolled through there first, I was wrong. And since I had insisted to him that I knew I had seen it there I had to do the right thing and let him know that I was mistaken. Of course, I had to preface it with Since this very rarely happens, I thought I would let you know that on this once in a lifetime occasion, you were right and I was wrong.

I realized later that the place I had actually seen it was over at the Image Works at Imagination when I was standing there for sooooo long waiting on the lady ahead of me. But since I didnt remember that until later, I headed to Mouse Gears, where I knew they had the animals. While I was there, I also picked up a scarf for me. Its a lightweight black scarf with brighthidden Mickeys and other designs on it. Wasnt terribly warm this winter, but since my winter coat is open at the neck it did keep the chill off mission accomplished.
From there it was back to the Gateway once again. By now it was after 3:30 and past time for my packages to be there. Supposedly.
I waited patiently for my turn at the register and told the CM I had 2 packages from this morning, I gave her my name and zip code (?). And she went in the back. After a short while she came back. Now remember, I purchased two shirts at one store and one shirt at another. She is carrying a huge sack that has a box of some sort in it. At first I wasnt too concerned because I thought maybe for some reason she grabbed one for someone else while she was back there. But nope she brings them over, starts to hand them to me and says here you are. I said uh, thats not mine. She looks at the receipt on it again and the last names were similar (theirs was Thompson maybe) and the zip code was somewhat similar. But I had a T shirt and I think this was a monorail set. Granted, I would have come out ahead money wise, but I had no use for a monorail set, it wouldnt fit in my suitcase, and some kid would be really ticked if they thought thats what they were getting and they wound up with an adult t shirt. So back to the back room she went
.and she stayed
..and stayed
..and stayed.

She finally came back out and my Figment shirts, which I had purchase before the Buzz shirt, which was there, hadnt been delivered yet. She got on the phone to somebody, and within about 10-15 minutes the delivery guy came in with it. She said a busy store like Mouse Gears delivers frequently, but Image works not so much.
T shirts collected and back to the room, yet again, I went.
I'll pause hear, and rewind to Danny's golf outing. Apparently the tourny got started late due to fog, so the schedule that showed who was teeing off where and when was off. There was nobody in the tournament that he was particularly interested in. So he watched some come through at one hole for awhile, then I think followed a group for a little bit. But he wasn't too enthused by it. He stopped and bought a cap, a ball marker hat clip and a Childrens Miracle Network golf ball around noon. I am assuming he probably worked his way back to the room after that. He wouldn't have wnated to carry that around with him. After two years of somewhat disappointing Golf Tourny trips, it looks like he is throwing in the towel. Not that we won't come down in the fall, but that we won't have to worry about scheduling a trip around the Tourny.