Happy Halloween - with our ghost host

BWHA HA HA HA HA HA........ (insert Disney safe comedic evil laugh here)

I know next to nothing about Halloween. I am completely dependent upon Wikipedia. So I didn't really approach 31 October with any sense of history or warm childhood emotional connection. In fact I didn't really even what was going on until I sat to write this post afterwards.

(And really I think that sums up the whole of quality approach of this blog. Brought to you from my business corporation: Dewey, Cheatem & Howe )

According to wikipedia, Halloween is a combination of pagan, celtic and Christian elements from down through history from ancient Rome. The melting pot of halloween is continually fed including more modern influences such as gothic horror, trick or treating and haunted houses.

Halloween means different things to different people and it pulls in All Hallows Day, Reformation Day, All Saints Day, Celtic Samhain, along with the pagan features.

As it is apparent I could start a religious war on this, I think I will cut my losses now and just say places like Disney with their Christian family values are way comfortable celebrating Halloween because it is so inclusive and almost every feature of the event can be interpreted with either a Christian or pagan perspective. e.g. apparently the carved pumpkins comes from ye olde Christians and All Souls Day - honouring the souls of the recently departed.

So what was my experience of Halloween in Orlando?

First - IT'S HUGE. This thing has to rival Christmas (well - a Christmas in Canberra anyway). Everywhere is decorated, there are special foods, parties, trick or treating, costumes, carved pumpkins. It was in full swing when I arrived and there was no escape.

Disney puts on Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. Selling tickets at $60 a pop, the party runs from 7pm - midnight in the Magic Kingdom.

And it was REALLY GREAT!! I so enjoyed myself, doing stuff I don't normally do and interacting in the park in a different way. Let me take you through my experience of the night.

Front entrance with a hint of autumn coloured banners and pumpkins. I took this shot from Tallahassee (who knows what I was thinking - probably that I didn't want their ugly family dominating my shot)

Follow me after the jump to actually enter the park

Food Porn: what you sick people come here for.

Most people when they think of theme parks think junk food and Orlando certainly has plenty, some of which I have previously covered. 

WDW is driven by an underlying principle of being a destination for anyone, and they also want to keep improving and keep pace as one of the world's most frequented tourist destination. ( with more than 47 million tourists going to Orlando each year they are valid competition against Paris).

Ohh - the decisions! Do I go to France and eat at the Paul Bocuse restaurant? Or do I go to Epcot and eat at the Paul Bocuse restaurant (Bistro de Paris)?

On this trip I went to WDW to eat and certainly did consume vast amounts of delicious comestibles representing most areas of the globe (allegedly). ( I say 'allegedly' because the travesty of the Disney version of a lamington leaves me wondering a bit about the other nations represented.).

"I'll have the meercat - not raw, a few chips, bit of broccoli"

Two major elements were in play:

1. I was on free dining at Disney (which, frankly, only sets up the temptation to pretend that I am taking Disney for a ride, by jamming as much as possible in my cake hole) and 
2. the Epcot Food and Wine Festival was underway for my entire stay.

With some strange belief that you, my sole reader from Poland, may be vaguely interested, I have photographed every dish, every drink and have chronicled the festival and my restaurant visits.It will take me several - numerous - posts to get it all out and through these coming posts I will lay out the culinary offerings awaiting you for your trip to the World.

So let's not waste any time and get started. Join me after the jump for my first dining report.

Mrs Banks HATES blogging on the tab

Arrgghh..... the tab is so tedious for blogging. It is slow, it crashes, it freezes, it just straight up ignores commands. It is not variable voltage so I am having trouble keeping up the juice supply. It takes 24 hours to charge.

Trip reports are not going to be as frequent as I envisaged.

Day 1 - Harry Potter Land

After not sleeping, I was up in plenty of time to get to gate opening for early entry to Harryworld. There must have been only 60 of us at most but we were all going to the same place!

oh - and it was pouring rain - but doen't that just add to the atmosphere?

First stop was Olivander's wand shop. I got into the first group of about 20 (no queuing for me!). Ollie picked a delightful young woman of about 12 and she went through the motions of waving twigs around until (insert angelic music) she found her wand ! Very quick and nicely done with everyone in role.

 Then I was first customer of the day in the store with a wand for my niece according to her birthday. She scored an ivy wand. And none of the characters in the book used ivy (I suppose we can't all be holly like Harry!). Don't worry - she's 16 - she couldn't be bothered reading this.

brussellus sproutus extinctium!

Then it was straight to Forbidden Journey , which was fantastic from the gates all the waythrough. A showstopper of a ride, so technically wonderful and exhilarating! Again - no queue, the ride was a walk on. This ride would have to be one of the most advanced available. It looks great, has incredible range of movement  - think of it like a moving simulator - and of course the theming from the Hogworts Castle through the 'flying a broom' effects were excellent.

Next up was brekkie at the 3 Broomsticks. I had the Trad English bfast - which wasn't completely trad - wrong beans and potatoes?? A nod in the right direction though with blood pudding and english bacon (a strange thing, of which Disney has no experience)

What??? just tilt the screen. Geez you people are demanding.

"Trad English Breakfast"contains: sauteed potatoes, sauceless baked beans and a croissant. The English have obviously been holding out on the rest of us.

 BTW: I had a 'Darth Vader in the Deathstar canteen' moment

I like it so much. I had to use it again.

"This tray is wet, this tray is wet, this tray is wet - what is this? a traditional english canteen breakfast experience?"

Honeydukes sweet shop and Zonko's joke shop contained lots of referred items, like every flavour beans, fanged frisbee,  exploding bon bons and chocolate frogs. The butterbeer is good fun somewhat reminiscent of a creaming soda float without the scoop of icecream.

Continuous Puking Pastilles - replicate the emotional experience of a life in middle management

Honeydukes amazing supply

More Disney than Hogsmead

Shelves and shelves of sugary goodness

Ahhh - the miracle of modern chemical engineering

Oak brewed for precision baterial develoment and fine beading

Ill thought through games that actually cannot be played - and questionable aerodynamics

Embiggen to look at all the fireworks! YEAH! EXPLOSIONS! (Unlike Canberra where we've had fireworks available forever)

After that thre was lots of wandering around enjoying the space and shopping. The fake snow works in photos but looks very fake in real life. The shops and the whole design look fantastic. easily one of the most well done pieces of theme parkery I've seen.

Given the very low crowds I did WWoHP in only a couple of hours, and the whole park by 1pm! I don't think many others have the same luck.

Many of the shop fronts had animatronic displays in them - this one had moving and squeeling plants

The famous castle - and location of the Forbidden Journey ride

Embiggen to see the owls in the owlery - with real fake owl poo and everything

Rich, Dumb and Fat

I take no credit for the title of this post.

20 years ago UK broadcaster/author/TV dude Johnathon Ross coined the phrase for a documentary he made. His wry look at the USA fascinated me and has long provided another lens through which I view the place. I admit after so many trips to WDW I now add the word "fake" to the list.

The first signs of this perspective are, for me at least, when I board a US domestic flight and there snuggled in he seat pocket will be the latest issue of Skymall - the bastion of all American (made in China) ingenuity.

The Japanese have a concept known as 'chindogu'. Chindogu describes products that appear inventive and useful ... at first ... then reality sets in. But that's the point with chindogu - to invent something that fits that concept. Chindogu is never for sale.

Somehow in America they make chindogu type products but they take them seriously. Entrepreneurship is the great American dream and perhaps in the mass of products there are a couple that pay for someone's retirement. Like Shamwow Guy! I suspect there are many that fade into obscurity.

Australian sensibilities are a tad different and I certainly find all this stuff deeply curious. I sit there wondering "do people really buy and use this?" The catalogs on this trip didn't fail to dissappoint, or maybe the fail is so epic that everything is fantastic! So herewe go on a taste of Americana, and all the products about which I was wondering "retirement or bankruptcy?".

Pets
Apparently it's not good enough to send Mr Fluffy McFluffersons out into the yard to "do his business". You can't even just supply a litter box in the laundry. No! Kitteh has to have a special place in the family with you all nearby. With this delightful tray hidden inside a fake planter (with fake palm - hey, don't judge! - they can go in the dishwasher!) fluffy can keep his toes in the warm with the rest of the family

The plastic and polypropelene blends into any decor.

VOTING TIME: Glorious Retirement? or Sad Bankruptcy?

But you still have to clean it and perhaps this is a bit too manual for you. How about this automatic litter tray?!

I have no idea how it works. but it looks spacey so it must be good.
(from what I can gather there is a bag lined bin in the base and when kitty leaves something goes in the bag somehow. I don't know how the litter gets refreshed)

VOTING: Glorious Retirement? or Lonely Bankruptcy?

 Finally, here's a product for Fluffy which I post solely for the catalogue description:

"A hilarious conversation starter and pet pleaser, this unique water bowl keeps your pet well hydrated and your home cleverly decorated" (emphasis mine)

VOTING: Retirement? Bankruptcy? Launch of a new interior design trend?

Let's go out in the garden and see how we can beautify nature even more.

First up: Plastic ivy covered fences

Cause it's not like ivy is some vicious uncontrollable noxious invasive weed that grows widely unfettered.

Would it frighten you to know it also comes in fake bamboo? Which also is notorious difficult for getting to grow into a think bushy fence? (not)

Do I need to tell you that also available are plastic toparies?

VOTING : I'm going for Glorious Retirement on the basis of selling these to the beer gardens of bars and clubs
 
Not to leave the plastic alone:  giant 8ft plastic palm trees

These won't fit in the dishwasher

VOTING: Drinking pina coladas on the beach or serving pina coladas at the local Sheraton?

Now you are gonna need one of these palm trees onto which to hammer your fake yeti.

He looks like one of those bad photoshop disasters where someone digitally amputated his legs

VOTING: Holidaying in Nepal? or loading guests onto Expedition Everest? 

When you're finished outside you'll want to wash off all that plastic dirt - in your wonderful coloured shower

LED lights provide wonderful colours to choose from and you don't have to take any drugs to go on this trip.

VOTING: Awash with cash? or taking a bath?

Don't forget to clean your teeth ...

are you willing to put this in your mouth?

...with your 4  headed toothbrush that apparently cleans all sides of your teeth at the same time and only takes 30 secs to do your entire mouth. 

VOTING: Million dollar smiles? or English dentistry?

Unfortunately it won't fit inside your new toothbrush sanitiser.

zaps more bugs than those living in your mouth

VOTING: Clean as a whistle? or sinking in the mire?

Finally you can relax. Put your feet up and read a good book.

....with your special, lying down, mirrored glasses.

VOTING: Magical mystery tour? vs The opti-grab from The Jerk

I know what you're all getting for Christmas this year.

all pictures copied from skymall catalog

The Final Countdown

I've leaving on a jet plane ........

only one more sleep before I set off on my grand journey!

Watch this blog for trip reports  - I hope all my internet connectivity plans work!

Please remind The Ken Man to feed the cat and cuddle him occasionally.

Before I can take that sleep though, I still have to clean all my crap off the bed.

International Pink Ribbon Day for Breast Cancer Awareness

October 24 was International Pink Ribbon Day, a major focus point in Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

We've already looked at an upcoming film that has one perspective as to how pink ribbon day came about, and we've discovered the Zonta Breast Cancer Care Cushions. Today I want to share the work of a fantastic Canberra based group providing a simple but extraordinarily useful service.

Bosom Buddies

BB was commenced in 1995 and today they have over 300 members. Today BB has a fairly strong model and vision and it does a couple of main things:

• provides support for a woman who has been diagnosed with breast cancer, helping as much as needed through hospital and doctor visits and post operative care.
• Awareness raising in the community and advocating to improve treatment
• The BB Fellowship provides support funds for individual and community based projects that are focused on breast cancer.

At my October club meeting we were fortunate to have Marilyn Brookes, a BB member and organiser, visit and tell us about her experiences and the services provided by BB.

Women, such as Marilyn, are not medical officers or counsellors - they are volunteers who have survived breast cancer and are willing to share their knowledge and provide a shoulder to lean on when needed. They are different from family and friends in that they bring their own story with breast cancer and sometimes are the only experienced support a woman has.

The ways the BB women show practical support include:

• hospital visits - catching up with women whilst they are under treatment, answering questions, getting supplies.
• running a help phone line - they frequently have women who have just had their diagnosis and are still in shock and scared and want to talk immediately. 
• disseminate information - they give out flyers and run a website - and they have a nifty little "check yourself" door hanger card. They have materials and contacts for diet, exercise, wigs, hats etc.
• run workshops several months a year
• run an informal drop in at a coffee shop
• release a newsletter
• undertake advocacy (e.g. increasing the govt allowances for breast prothestics)
• donate money to other groups also related to breast cancer issues (e.g. unlike in other states, ACT breast cancer nurses are not supported by the McGrath Foundation)
• and do lots of networking - like coming to our breakfast - and mixing with many other groups

Finally, Marilyn left us with some local facts and hints

• 14,000 women per year are diagnosised with breast cancer in Australia, and the number is increasing. The increase is driven by the large volume of baby boomers moving into the higher risk age groups and also by improved screen techniques and women taking more notice.
• The biggest risk factors are if you are female, and over 50 years old. 
• 50% of lumps are found by the women themselves 
• 9 / 10 lumps found are not breast cancer.
• In Canberra, the survival rate is 93% - as the medical profession are increasing their knowledge of the different types of breast cancer, they are also improving the variety and effectiveness of treatments.

Marilyn also passed on all the positive feedback she had received about our Zonta Breast Cancer Care Cushions - lovely to get feedback from someone who is directly in touch with the cushion users.

Finally we were left with the direction to "give our breasts TLC: touch, look and check"

go and check out their website - and then go and check out your boobs