August 22, 2008 by Tiffany.

If it seems as though I’ve been neglecting my blog, I have, mostly because I’ve been obsessed with the Olympics and traveled to Walt Disney World with Jason and his family last week.  We had a great time despite the exhausting schedule.  Here’s a brief rundown of each day.

Day 1: Arrived in Orlando and ate at Raglan Road, a nice Irish meal to kick off the week.

Day 2:

We headed out nice and early to visit Disney’s Animal Kingdom park.  My personal favorite is Expedition Everest at this particular park, although it might even come in second behind Space Mountain amongst all the Disney parks.  It’s way up there as one of my favorites.  Sadly, we were unable to watch Nemo: The Musical, Jason’s favorite masterpiece, (wink wink), due to its insane popularity.  We later ate a delicious dinner at Jiko at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and proceeded to play a round of miniature golf at Winter Summerland, fortunately finishing before a deluge of rain.

Day 3:

We took a break from Disney for a day and instead explored Universal’s Islands of Adventure.

I was skeptical but we really enjoyed this park.  It was a nice balance of creativity and thrill rides like The Hulk and Dueling Dragons, both of which are pretty hard-core and are not the type of ride one would find at any Disney Park.  It was raining like crazy for the first half of the day, and being die-hards, we were forced to make our way around the park like giant Saran-wrapped hot dogs wearing ponchos.  Fortunately, they came in handy on the drenching water rides.

That night we ate at Artist Point at Fort Wilderness Lodge.  It proved to be a carnivore highlight for Jason, as he consumed both deer and buffalo.

Day 4:

The beginning of our two super-duper jam packed days, we explored both Disney Studios and Epcot.

Jason attempted to ‘drink around the world’ in the World Pavillion in Epcot, but he only reached drink #6 in Italy before the park closed and his valiant attempt was foiled.  Here he and Tom commemorate #3 in China.

Day 5:

Since Epcot is enormous we spent the entire following day there as well, finishing off the countries and checking out all the innoventions stuff.

That night we watched Cirque du Soliel’s La Nouba at Downtown Disney.  As usual, it was both strange and fascinating.  After these two days, I think we all pretty much wanted to cut our feet off.

Day 6:

On our last full day we finally visited the Magic Kingdom for a half day.  At this point we were exhausted, plus the fact that it was sweltering and beyond crowded.  We were there long enough to check it out, observe differences, and get the heck out of there.  It’s a beautiful park, but we were over it at that point.

To wrap up our week of indulgent and sumptuous eating experiences, we dined at California Grill on top of the Contemporary Hotel.  The food was great, but being able to watch the fireworks from the roof was even better.

Day 7:

Adios Orlando.  We left just as Tropical Storm Fay arrived.  Lucky us.  Home safe and sound, it’s time to get back to work.

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August 2, 2008 by Tiffany.

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated the blog with the useless goings on of my summer vacation, but there are a few things to share.

For starters, Jason and I paid a visit to the Orange County Fair, which is actually the only time I’ve ever been to a county fair that isn’t in Fresno.  Needless to say, a lot of things are the same, but some things were different.  Both have plenty of access to ridiculous foods such as fried Snickers and Krispy Kreme fried chicken sandwiches.  Admittedly, Jason and I ate our way through the fair, feasting on corn dogs, tri-tip sandiwches, Slurpees, cheese bread and mini donuts with bavarian creme.  Totally absurd but it sure was tasty!  The Fresno and OC fairs have some noticeable differences, however.  The OC fairgrounds, being on the cusp of Newport and only a few miles from the beach, attracted a noticeably different demographic than I’m used to at the Fresno Fair, which takes place in a much older and less desireable part of town.  That’s not to slam the fair-goers of Fresno, mind you, but only to say that considering it was a night-time visit to the fair, (as a disclaimer, I always limit Fresno Fair visits to daylight hours),  I wasn’t afraid of being shot, mugged or stabbed.  There wasn’t even a metal detector check at the front entrance.  However, the OC Fair was sorely lacking in the Livestock section, where Fresno and the local 4H clubs rule.  I always looks forward to walking through the manure-laden stalls and seeing all of the livestock that will soon be sold to slaughterhouses, (my tone is snarky, but I’m not being sarcastic), and the OC fair’s animal selection was limited to perhaps three pigs and four cows total.  There were a couple of goats involved as well.  Simply pathetic.

Last week, my mom visited me here in SoCal from Monday through Friday.  We had a blast, and it was great to see her.  We visited Newport and other various OC coastal towns, saw the Body Worlds 3 exhibit at the California Science Center, (yes, I admit, I think it’s fascinating.  Anyone should go, despite the obvious creep factor of seeing skinned dead bodies).  We also shopped in Chinatown and were able to eat some great meals in between.  Mom traveled via Amtrakon this trip, (you may recall my previous Amtrak experience a couple of weeks ago), and made it to and from in one piece.  She was initially terrified but found that it was easy, and hopefully will further utilize the train for more visits.

Last night we went bowling at Lucky Strike and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  Really nothing to report about that, other than I took pictures and thought I’d post a few of them here.

We played two games and I sucked both times.  I actually almost won the last game, (in the last round I came in third but previously had been winning), which says less about my actual bowling skills and more about the people I was bowling with.

Posted in Ramblings | 2 Comments »