Epcot Wednesday Morning

Wednesday the 16th.

Today I had a large chunk of time by myself at the Epcot Center. I specifically wanted to visit Morocco, to photograph tile design; Norway, to photograph the Stave church carving of a dragon; and Mexico, to get a photo of the Mayan carving. My feet are still throbbing and sore.

We went into the future world exhibit in the giant geodesic globe. I love the globe, and could happily spend an entire day and camera memory card photographing it in different lights, angles and distances.  The Future World Ride was an interesting review of the history of communications. I liked the way that flames were projected onto a fine mist in ancient Egypt and Rome.  I'll have to see if I can do that at home--perhaps we could have a flaming goblet or something for Halloween.

I rode with Mary, and as we were progressing backwards and down to disembarking, the ride generated a cartoon using our faces. In the future, Mary and I went skiing and I broke my arm. But nanites healed the bone while we sipped cocoa in the futuristic ski chalet.  (Oddly enough, the video that I e-mailed to myself has Mary braking her arm instead of me.  I'm not sure if they switched things or if my memories are from an alternate universe.)

I entered the Display of Nations right as it opened at 11. It was interesting to see it before it filled with tourist families.

Morocco was fun. I almost bought some Moroccan tile to take home. I had hoped that they had something that wasn't so heavily octagonal; and the clerk there tried hard to invent new systems of counting to six, but he still kept coming up with eight-fold designs. I almost bought an articulated snake bracelet (jewel studded) but it was kind of expensive, and I thought, "Where would I wear this?" I did grab a light lunch of a falafel roll.   I avoided the deadly red pepper someone slipped into my couscous (Mark doesn't believe me, but I'm pretty sure that calendula was in the couscous), and I was harassed by a live duck (not named Donald) who waddled into the restaurant.

Then I sketched out the basic design of the tilework done on the cafe table.

The Stave Church was disappointing. Seven years ago, I tried to photograph a dragon sculpture. This time, the sculpture had been removed (apparently they'd removed a lot of things to make way for a Kim Possible feature, which is in the process of being paved over for a Phineas and Ferb ride).  It's possible the carving was only on loan and was returned to Oslo or something.

In the Italian Pavilion, I struck up a conversation about clocks with a mask maker. He used a plaster mould to make cat masks he was working on.

At the Japan Pavilion, the torii gate there reminded me of my Second Life friend, Pomona, so I had to take a photograph of it.  This proved difficult, as there were topiary characters from "Cars" there.  I wanted to enter the pagoda, but it was closed.

In China, I overhead someone saying how cool the temple there was during a hot day, so I went inside.  At the top of the temple was a medallion of a dragon and phoenix.  A little further on, there was an exhibit of terracotta tomb soldiers.

I stuck my head into various shops (especially in Germany) thinking that I might find a nice Christmas orniment for my Mom, but nothing really jumped out and said, "Buy Me!"