Ichi Ramune Kudasai

I know I'm in the minority, but EPCOT truly is my favorite park.  I'm a Soarin' freak, I love "Living with the Land" probably more then anybody should, and I could spend hours touring the World Showcase, but my heart belongs to the Japan Pavilion.  It has the coolest store in probably all of the World Showcase with the most fun, obscure things you never knew you always needed.  Silly snacks, sake samples, fun toys...  Honestly, I'm there so much that if by the end of the trip I'm not on a first name basis with some of the employees, I've done something wrong (shoutout to Madoka, the most enthusiastic, over-the-top and engaging pearl picker there is!).  

The Mitsukoshi Department Store in the Japan Pavilion at EPCOT

 One of the passions that the Japan Pavilion fueled for me was a love of Japanese food and a willingness to try all sorts of Japanese snacks.  Some were amazing (Pocky, YanYan, Panda Cookies), some were not (shrimp-flavored french fry chips).  It was this drive to try all snacks Japanese that led me to Ramune.

Melon flavored Ramune

 Ramune is a Japanese carbonated drink that is as much fun to open as it is to drink.  Instead of the conventional twist cap, it's sealed with a marble that you push through with a wacky little plunger.  I won't lie, it takes a great deal of "oomph" to mash it through.  Once it does finally break through, the fizz of the carbonation, the sound of the marble rattling around in the neck of the bottle, and that smell of the flavored soda just hits me and reminds me of sitting on a bench by the World Showcase, excitedly anxious to get that first sip of a new flavor...

Pushing through the marble...

 It's sweet, and when I say sweet, I mean it's SWEET.  Toothache inducing, 100 Pixie Stick-strong sweet.  Don't get me wrong, it's not bad, but it sure is a shock to the mouth for the beginner, and that first swig is always like a jolt of caffeine.  Of the flavors I've tried, Strawberry is by far the sweetest, and original (which tastes vaguely like Sprite and is my favorite) is the most reasonable.  There are dozens of flavors out there, melon, cola, banana, yuzu, even wasabi and green tea.  It seems there's a different flavor for every mood and season.  I'd say I'd want to try every flavor, but there's 35 of them and, for some reason, I know I could never get up the courage to try the curry or Korean beef flavor...

That first fizz after the marble breaks through...

The fun fact about Ramune is that when you push the marble through and it sits in the bottle's neck, it sits in just a way so that the bottle looks like a big-eyed alien.  Apparently, the look of the "alien soda" is as recognizable as the Coke logo to Japanese children.  I'm so ashamed to say that, in spite of what I'd like to think of is a really active imagination on my part, I didn't see it until a woman at the Japan Pavilion pointed it out to me.

See the alien?

The best thing about trying new foods at the Japan Pavilion is that they're mostly widely available at Asian markets outside of EPCOT, so whenever I feel truly lonely for Disney, I'm one snack away from pretending I'm waiting for Illuminations in front of the torii of the Itsukushima Shrine or killing time by walking to "Captain Eo" for a quick show before our Test Track FastPass window to open.  

Sigh...   

Now all I can think about is how, right now, somebody is walking into Soarin', sitting down, getting ready to smell orange groves and pine trees, and that person isn't me.  Where's my Ramune?

Oh, EPCOT, I miss you...