We used today to round out our trips to the various parks. Our first stop was the MGM Studios. MGM Studios offers a few of the best attractions in the entire complex.

Firstly, it offers the Muppet 3D Experience. It's great. The whole thing is set in a theatre that matches the original Muppet Show. The story is great, and it's very funny. I highly recommend it.



Another highlight of the park is the 'Tower of Terror' ride. It's a large hotel structure with a twilight zone theme. Although a lot of plot and buildup happens in the ride; it's really a drop-straight-down ride. A very good one at that.

In retrospect, I'd skip the Drew Carey attraction. As much as I think Drew is hilarious, I thought the attraction sucked. Sorry, but even Drew couldn't save this one.

The Aerosmith 'Rockin Roller Coaster' was excellent. The whole thing is themed after a late-night limo ride with the band. It's very fast, and very similar to 'Space Mountain'. I got some good pictures of it. They did a lot of work on the building.



The last thing we saw before leaving the park was the 'Indiana Jones Stunt Show'. It was a good show, but felt somewhat tired. Then again, they do perform it every 30 minutes for eternity. I got some great pictures of the show though.



We returned to EPCOT for some of the attractions we missed earlier. 'The Land' is wonderful. In fact, we scheduled a behind-the-scenes tour of the greenhouses for tomorrow afternoon. Some of their experimental techniques are pretty interesting, such as aeroponic (hanging root) farming.



Dinner was at the Teppanyaki restaurant. It's a Beni-Hana style (cooking while you watch) place. I rather liked the food (and the show), but Jessawick was indifferent. We had to get reservations two days in advance. Tomorrow we have reservations at the 'Nemo' seafood restaurant.

Later in the evening, we ventured out to the Downtown section one more time. I stumbled onto something quite amazing. A Lego Store. This wasn't just a place selling some kits. This was the big one. They had tubes containing every part imaginable. They had every set in production. It was incredible.



I took some close pictures also, just to show the sheer volume of plastic that they have on hand.



We returned once more to the Adventurers' Club in Pleasure Island. It's great. This time, it was much later at night, and the humor was much less censored. The comedians / actors switched roles, and the show was totally different. Easily the best thing in Pleasure Island.

Today's travels started later than usual. We didn't wake until 9:30 in the morning. Once we finally got moving, we departed for the Animal Kingdom. The Animal Kingdom is quite large, with a very educational focus.

The real highlights of the Animal Kingdom were the African Safari and the Expedition Everest coaster. The 'Tree of Life' is also quite amazing.





The Safari was a very long ride through large savannahs. Each one was designed specifically for it's inhabitants. I got some great pictures. My best was probably this giraffe:



We also encountered Disney's signature blue-assed monkey. I feel bad for not remembering his name. However, there aren't that many animated blue-assed monkeys, so I'm sure you know what I mean.



We were in line for the Everest ride for most of an hour, but it was worth it. It works both forwards and backwards in addition to the several animations and transitions. It was great. The mountain itself also makes for a great picture.



After we concluded our trip to the Animal Kingdom, we went back to the international section of EPCOT. We explored more of the countries, including the super-creepy Mexican 'River of Time'. It's like 'A Small World', but Mexican. We've got reservations for the Coral Reef restaurant tomorrow.

We ended up having dinner at 'Les Chefs de France'. We ended up getting in without reservations. The food was excellent, as was the service.

It's late now, and we hope to be ready for MGM tomorrow.

We've done a bit more exploring today. We started our day with breakfast at our resort. It was profoundly adequate. Our next stop was the Magic Kingdom.

Brief Tirade: The security checkpoints at Disney are a sad commentary on our society. They diligently dig through anything that you carry into the park. They have no metal detectors or explosive detection systems. I'm sorry, but when the end-time comes; it's not going to be comming in my camera bag. Tirade concludes.

For no particular reason, our first stop was FrontierLand. It was pretty good. We spent some time exploring the caves on Tom Sawyer Island. I tried to get some pictures in the very low light. Some worked, others did not.



However, I also got some great pictures on the topside of the island as well.



Apparently we've chosen to visit during the slowest time of the year. We really didn't have trouble getting onto any of the rides or attractions. Space Mountain was great. I have been to Disney once before, as a child; but this was my first trip to Space Mountain. (It previously has been under construction).

The Haunted Mansion was my favorite of the attractions. We ran through the Haunted Mansion twice. There was only a 10 minute wait. I took some pictures when we were inside, but the light was too low to get any good results.

On our way to Pirates of the Caribbean we were rudely interrupted by a random Disney parade. At first I was fairly peeved at the interruption, but the parade turned out to be pretty impressive. I got a number of good pictures.

Pirates was great. As was the Jack Sparrow performance that was running nearby. Pirates seems to have a greatly revived interest because of the recent movies.



After a fairly long day at the Magic Kingdom, we realized that EPCOT was offering extended hours (until Midnight). We took 1/2 hour to regroup and headed out to EPCOT.

Our first stop was Spaceship Earth (the golf ball). It's been updated a lot since the last time. The new version of the ending includes a lot about our great global network.



We also managed to visit Mission Space and Test Track. We had dinner in England. We made a whirlwind lap around the countries, and returned for the night. It's been a lot of walking.

It's been a long day. A very, very long day.

Today started out much as expected. We woke up in the morning, had some breakfast, and checked out of our hotel. Since we were only three miles from the Florida border, we reached Florida in no time. We continued our trip for roughly two more hours. Our problems didn't manifest until we hopped onto I-4 West towards Orlando.

I have a new grudge for the list. NAPA Auto Parts. My damned alternator crapped out at the 124 Mile Marker on I-4. That's precisely 20 miles from ANYWHERE. If you're interested, the GPS Coordinates for the middle of nowhere are precisely recorded as: N029 04.810 W081 10.369. Google Maps Link.



Once again, the AAA membership that my mother gives me every Christmas became useful. NAPA is the villian of the day. Kelly's Automotive is the hero. We had the Focus towed to their shop. They stopped what they were doing to examine it. They needed to get the part from 20 miles away, but they got it alright. They got the Focus repaired and we were on our way, a mere 5 hours after the initial failure. It took us nearly two hours to make it to their shop, as we were in the geographical center of nowhere.

After a bit more driving and a bit more traffic, we finally arrived at Disney. If anybody is interested, we're staying in room 5146 of the Caribbean Island Resorts. GPS N028 21.770 W081 32.660. We arrived somewhere near 6 PM.

Since it was so far into the evening, we decided to head towards Downtown and Pleasure Island.

Side Note: The dining plan is cool. I bought it on the advice of the trip planners at AAA. It's worth it. See below.

On the advice of the concierge, we went to Raglan Road (the Irish Pub restraunt). The food was excellent, as was the entertainment. We recommend it.

We continued on to the Comedy Warehouse. Their show was excellent. It ran for about 1/2 hour.



Next was the Adventurers Club. They featured several independent (but connected) acts. They were excellent. We spent at least an hour in there. It was great.


It's after midnight now. We're tired. I'd post this immediately, but Disney wants $10 for internet access. I have not yet capitulated.

We've completed our first day of travel. We haven't made it the entire way to Disney, but we're about 12 hours into the journey. We stopped for the night on the Georgia-Florida border.



Jessawick encountered her first cotton field today. We were driving south on I-95, and she urgently needed me to pull over, so we could investigate. She was so happy.



My best research indicates that we have about 3 hours left to our destination. We'll take off tomorrow and see how it goes.

We're about to start our trip to Disney...

Jessawick wanted to visit Disney World for our vacation this year. I found us a great package through AAA. This may sound odd, but we've decided to drive down rather than fly. We decided to drive for two reasons...

Firstly, we both tend to get sick when we fly. Too many people in too little space. It's hard to avoid getting sick.

Secondly, the TSA annoys me. I feel that the poorly administered security adds enough hassle as to discourage using commercial air travel. It's a shame, but that's how it works. Speaking of the TSA, I have a humorous story to re-tell. A friend was recently stopped at an airport checkpoint over the "all liquids must be in a Ziplok bag" rule. The fools actually stopped him because he used a "Hefty" brand bag over an official "ZipLok". He has to escalate to a supervisor in order to pass. I've never met anyone at airport security who was either intelligent or helpful. Tax dollars at work.

Ok, back to the point. We're hitting the road early on the morning of 11/01/2006. The entire trip should take in the order of 14 hours (or so our maps predict). We plan on stopping somewhere between here and Disney for the night.

Here's a plan for our trip. Yes, we plan on driving directly. Water be damned.

One last bit of trip news...

I acquired two extra souveniers while in China.  An ear infection and a sinus infection.  I won't be returning to work until Friday.  We find out about Jessa's extra surprises tomorrow.

Our final day was more subdued than the rest of the trip. We visited the Shanghai Art Museum in the morning. Then did some final shopping in order to avoid a currency exchange. We have Christmas presents. Lots of them.

As I sit here, on a plane going from Shanghai to Chicago, I opt to end this rather long-winded log.  Hopefully, the transition back to EST will not be too bad.

We ditched the tour early. We immediately set out for the Jade Buddah Temple. Although I am not a Buddhist, I find their temples to be tranquil and refreshing. The Jade Buddah Temple is a very active site, and there were hundreds of people throughout the temple. This temple gets its name from the enormous jade statue that it contains. I would have loved to have gotten pictures, but I did not want to disrespect their wishes. For no reason whatsoever, a shop within the temple grounds happened to have the paints and brushes that Jessa wanted. Fate perhaps. We spent three hours at the temple with our friend Alison. Her friend Jen had already departed for Tibet. It always is nice to have companions who understand. As usual, I took down the coordinates. They are: N031 14.594 E121 26.450. Google Maps Link.

(Jade Buddah Temple, Shanghai)

We then returned to the street markets to acquire tea, silk, and Christmas gifts. The locals were very friendly, and I'm quite certain that we made a certain family's day, as we purchased almost a kilogram of tea. We could not bring ourselves to haggle over silk prices. Our ethics prevented us from paying less than the opening offer of 20 yuan / meter. That's about $2 / yard for pure silk.

In the evening, Jessa attended the Shanghai Acrobat show, but I was far too ill. I caught a nasty sore throat, and was quite exhausted. I felt bad that I could not go with her, but I would have felt much worse, should she not have gone.

Our morning destination was the Xi 'An city wall. The original city limits are enclosed within a massive wall that is roughly 50 feet in height. It is quite enormous. The wall is mostly intact, with a few exceptions made to allow greater vehicle traffic in and out of the city.

I have never seen so many bicycles before. This country really has some interesting transportation. Many of the bicycles have been converted into trikes, to allow a pickup bed on the back. Most of the bicycles appear to be over 15+ years old.

It is also common here to see people selling home cooked food on the sidewalk. They simply have a steaming pot and serve with a spoon. I doubt there is any type of food safety standards. No one seems to mind.

Also, the amount of pollution is quite visible. It appears foggy much of the time. It is also extremely common to carry water, as water is not as accessible as in the US. Free water is rare (I have only seen it at the airport). American restaurants never charge for water. Chinese restaurants always do.  'Bottomless' drinks do not exist.

We have boarded our flight to Shanghai. I am again impressed with the efficiency of Chinese air travel.

We have a limited amount ot time here in Shanghai, so we set out immediately for the 'old city' and the Bund waterfront. The markets are just like in the movies. Millions of people, billions of tiny business deals. I got some wonderful pictures. We ate random food on a stick.  It turned out to be sugar-coated crab apples.  They were pretty good.

(Tourist Ship, Shanghai Bund)

This city is huge. Much larger than NYC. From what I've been told, Shanghai is almost as large as the entire state of Delaware.  Yes, I said state.

The concept of a single family home is almost unknown here in China. To afford one, a person would need to have an unthinkable amount of money. Something in the ballpark of several million US.