EPCOT: Part 7 - World Showcase: Canada

One of the prettier pavilions in the EPCOT World Showcase is the first one you come across if you turn right upon leaving Future World: Canada.

Featuring a beautiful garden, a mountain, waterfall, rapids/creek, Quebecian castle, Yukon lodge, totem poles... all sorts of treats for the eyes.

And for many it would not be Canada without Moosehead lager.  I just liked the way the sunlight was shining through it, though I have had it in cheddar cheese soup at the Canadian restaurant "Le Cellier" it is gooooooooooood stuff. 

Sky Watch Friday

French performers balancing on a tall tower of chairs, giant wine bottles, etc. in EPCOT at Disney World in Florida:

Head over to the Skywatch Blog for all the straight up fun.

EPCOT: Part 6 - Water-rise

EPCOT: Part 5 - Spaceship Earth the Ride

One of our favorite rides in EPCOT is inside the giant golf ball, Spaceship Earth.  A history of communication from the cave men up to modern interactive computers.  Slow, relaxing, interesting, informative, and a great way to stretch the back a little (on the way back down) after walking around all day! :)

EPCOT: Part 4 - The Seas with Nemo and Friends: 3

Some scenes from inside the Seas giant fish tanks:

EPCOT: Part 3 - The Seas with Nemo and Friends: 2

Inside the Seas pavilion can be found Turtle Talk with Crush, an interactive show featuring a CGI Crush the turtle from Finding Nemo, who talks and interacts with the audience live - very cool technology.  He asks questions and fields questions from the crowd and answers them in real time and the mouth moves with his speech, etc.  Seamless.  And usually pretty funny, too.

The first shot is from the waiting area outside the doors to the show where Mr. Ray's Lagoon houses - what else? - rays and ray relatives in small tanks to keep kids occupied while waiting for Crush.  

Everyone's favorite scatter brained blue tang Dory even shows up for some comedic relief and gets squished against the glass by a whale - but she's ok, no damage done (she was already drain bamaged to begin with, ha). :)

EPCOT: Part 2 - The Seas with Nemo and Friends: 1

Exterior shots of the Seas with Nemo and Friends:

EPCOT: Part 1 - Spaceship Earth

The first sight upon entering EPCOT - the ubiquitous giant golf ball aka Spaceship Earth.

ABC Wednesday: "W" is for Water-rise

I imagine there will be at least a few waterfalls this week, but how about the more rarely seen water-rise?  This one is found in EPCOT at Disney World - many jets shoot the water up into a pool at the higher level instead of the other way around.

I like it better at night, when it is illuminated by colored lights.

Rise or fall to the ABC Wednesday Anthology for all the weekly fun.

ABC Wednesday: "S" is for Spaceship Earth

"S" is for Spaceship Earth - the instantly recognizable "giant golf ball" that is the icon of EPCOT at Walt Disney World.  

This 18-story high geodesic sphere is a pentakis dodecahedron, with each of the 60 isosceles triangle faces divided into 16 smaller equilateral triangles (with a bit of fudging to make it rounder). Each of those 960 flat panels is sub-divided into four triangles, each of which is divided into three isosceles triangles to form each point. In theory, there are 11,520 total isosceles triangles forming 3840 points. In reality, some of those triangles are partially or fully nonexistent due to supports and doors; there are actually only 11,324 of them, with 954 partial or full flat panels.

The cladding was designed so that when it rains, no water pours off the sides onto the ground. (All water is "absorbed" through one inch gaps in the facets and is collected in a gutter system - and finally channeled into the World Showcase Lagoon.)

Construction took 26 months and 40,800 labor hours to build.

You can see more about Spaceship Earth here.

You can see more ABC Wednesday here. 

Sky Watch Friday

Clouds reflected in a pond at EPCOT center, with a duck butt in the top right corner (cover the kiddie's eyes parents).

Visit the Skywatch link blog for other great exposures.  Bottoms up! 

ABC Wednesday: "J" is for Japanese Drummers

A somewhat abbreviated ABC Wednesday this week as we have just switched over from our old, dying PC to a new shiny iMac by Apple and I just got our pictures transferred over tonight but have a long way to go to get it fully setup and then getting used to the differences - but we love it so far!  

Anyway, in keeping with my Disney theme lately I bring you shots of some Japanese Drummers this week for ABC Wednesday.  There are three players than beat out their rhythms on giant drums with big sticks.  It is quite impressive and inspiring.

Visit http://wednesdayabc.blogspot.com to see what everyone else has drummed up. :)

(And apologies if I cannot visit much this week - getting the new Mac setup and all and I don't have my bookmarks from the PC over in the Mac yet so I only remember my own blog and the few I have linked to in the past on my blog page... might have to rebuild all my bookmarked favorites all over again, but we'll see...)

Beauty and the Beast Window

A nice stained glass window depicting scenes from the Beauty & the Beast, illuminated at night. This can also be found in the France section of EPCOT.