Walkabout The World - A Disney Podcast - Epcot Walkabout To Japan Pavilion With Host Ivonne

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Hello Travelers! This week, join host Ivonne as she travels from Epcot's Land pavilion and around the World Showcase on a mission for a fun prize in the Japan pavilion. In this slice of life walkabout, you'll hear vintage 80's Epcot Center background music, the Imagination fountains, World Showcase ambience, and a brief trip through the Mitsukoshi store before enjoying a special prize at the new gashapon machines.    Walkabout the World is now on TikTok! Come follow our visual companion to the audio podcast at Walkabout.the.world.pod on TikTok   Visit us at walkabouttheworld.com - find links to all the things - attraction episodes, Insta accounts of all the hosts, and even how to buy your own Walkabout shirt!   Look us up at @WalkaboutWDW on Instagram and drop us a note to say hi.   You can also drop us at line at [e-mail]. Say hi, tell us how you found us, and give us some suggestions on things you'd love to hear. Please consider giving us a rating and review wherever you listen - it really helps!

Travelers. This is Yvonne. And if you couldn't tell already, I'm at Epcot, of course, which is my personal favorite part. But I'm here for a very good reason. And number one is that I'm actually here on a mission to get one thing.

And I'm not going to say what it is yet, but it's going to entail us taking a journey around the world to get this. thing but I figure I start at the land because it's my personal favorite pavilion and it's got the best music of any of the pavilions especially since the old background music is back but I'm going to start walking from here to our destination begin our sojourn to the back of world showcase it's an absolutely beautiful day here at Epcot we're finally getting our first taste of fall here in Florida,

which means that it's about 80 degrees with no humidity. That sort of signals the beginning of fall for us here. So once the weather starts changing, I immediately start getting out to the parks even more because I feel like through August, I basically lock myself in the house because it's so oppressively hot. And then the minute that the weather starts turning, and becoming beautiful, then I'm like, I gotta get out of the house, I gotta enjoy this weather.

So right now I'm passing, journeying into imagination, which notoriously the bathroom in there used to have. Used to be the one place you could still hear the old imagination loop. They switched it off. I don't remember how long ago, but what a tragedy. If not, I would take you in the bathroom through right now, like, I'm not even lying, but since it's not even playing. Actually, I'm going to walk up here to where the fountains are because I love this area. Next to the upside down waterfall, which recently got fixed. It looks really pretty at night right now.

A little while back, like, some of the jets were not working, the lights were off, so it looks really nice right now. And here we come to the jumping fountains, which the jumping fountains walked. so the Moana Journey Water could run. And honestly, I still like this area better than Moana, sorry. But, you know, this back corner area with the fountains is one of my favorite places and Epcot to just relax. And, you know, sometimes I'll bring a coffee up here and just sit in the back corner and just, you know, relax for a bit. You also get really pretty views of the monorail going by. So I'm going to continue walking.

We're going to try and make our way to World Showcase here. On my left right now I'm passing up Communicore Hall in the sort of like little dance area they have Communicor Hall. Personal favorite of mine, it's the best place on property to play solitaire. If you want to play a board game, you know, go crazy. right now because it is Diet Communicore Hall. They had some, you know, activities for the kids during the summer,

but now it has been reclaimed as a liminal space once again. So that's what you're waiting for. It is now your time. Monoril Blue is gliding by. She looks beautiful. Actually, you know, those like little side sort of pathways that can take you to World Showcase. I'm actually going to go down the middle

because those side pathways, to me at least, they're a little claustrophobic. And right now I'd rather just go down the middle because it's so beautiful outside. I don't know how you all feel about the dance party, but I think it's kind of a bummer because the new Epcot loop is not my favorite, but it's still better than that. And, you know, Epcot for me is a certain vibe. That's not the vibe to me. So we're going to quickly make our way down to World Showcase to get away from that. Going down the middle, that big pathway that runs straight to World Showcase.

The sun is going down behind journey into imagination currently. And like I said, the weather is actually really nice right now. And of course, it is still food and wine. It's been food and wine for what feels like six months. I enjoy it, but sometimes I miss Diet Epcot, but I understand the festivals are a way of life here, so I'll just have to wait until next summer for Diet Epcot to return. So I've decided I'm going to take the long way. where I'm going is almost right in the middle of World Showcase all the way in the very back,

but I'm going to go left to kind of take the long way over there. I know a lot of people when they come to Epcot and they come into World Showcase, they have like a particular way that they go. They either go, you know, people, some people are like hardcore, like we have to go right and people go left. I tend to go left more because my family, every time we come here, We would go left because that's just what we did. And also because my family, everything's my grandma,

loved watching Mariacei, Cobra. So we would always try and go to Mexico first so that she could see him because that was her favorite thing to do here. So we are in Mexico, passing up the Chosa de Margarita on the left side. And then the Mexico quick serve on the right. And I am passing by the Mexico Pavilion right now.

I think the thing I love the most about the Mexico Pavilion is that you don't even have to go inside. But if you want that like musty water smell, you just have to walk by. It'll waft out. It's beautiful. I love that smell. I don't know if that's like a theme park person thing because I also love the smell inside parts, the Caribbean. It's like any water rides, basically. I love that smell.

All right, so I'm leaving Mexico, and now I'm going into Norway. Currently, there are walls up around here. I think they're just doing refurbishing, but I'm not really sure. But also, FYI, the Norway bathrooms and the America bathrooms are my two favorite bathrooms in World Showcase, because at least from the ladies' perspective, there are tons of stalls. I've never had to wait in a line at either of those bathrooms. So if that is information that is valuable to you, I'm telling you right now, Norway and America. Crossing into China, and I think I might make a quick pit stop here.

I love the China Pavilion. It's just so pretty. Oh, there's like a, I think it's a heron. He's sitting on the middle, like this little island that's in the middle of the two ponds that are on either side of the bridge. that lead up to the entrance of reflections of China. See, I'm trying to take a picture. Let me see if he's going to fly away before I get... I don't know.

I think he's just... I think he's just maybe like just... Fixing his feathers. He's huge, I have to say. He's like looking around. I think he can tell people who are taking pictures of him. But you're just that cool-looking, bud. I'm actually going to walk around to the other side

and see if I can get a better picture of him. There's like... such a nice breeze right now. The sun's going down, so it's getting nice and cool. And, uh, yeah, this is the stuff I live for at Epcut. You're going over the little bridge here. All right, let's see if I can get a better picture of him. All right, I got a picture of him. Everybody's taking a picture of him because he's so cool looking. I think I'm going to keep going now, so goodbye China. If you can't tell, I am passing by the refreshment outpost right now. I'm sure you can tell all from the banging drums.

So we're now going into Germany, and I will say that lately, Germany has become one of my favorite quick service places in World Showcase, because I found out that they have this amazing dish that it is... Oh man, I totally am blanking on the name of it now, but it's kind of like this onion,

almost like an onion quiche, you know what I want to say, which is a funny way to describe it, considering I'm talking about something they're serving in Germany, but it's delicious, it's $9, it's pretty big, and they sell it at Summerfest, so like if you go into the pavilion all the way in the back, where beer garden is, there's like this little kind of stand that's hidden in the back.

Like, I think probably I've eaten there a total of five times in my entire life, and now I've gone there a bunch of times because of this new dish that I am not discovered. I think it's been around for a while. So they also have a really good pretzel bread pudding. It's awesome. One of my favorite parts of any pavilion, which is in Germany, the train model set. Oh, and it's running tonight. It's funny too because for the longest time I was like, I guess Germany is just super into train set

because I don't know any other reason this would be here. And then I learned maybe a few years ago, there is this place in Germany called Miniature Wonderland that it is the biggest, like, train model in the world. And during the pandemic, they actually took one of the trains and put a camera on the front and ran it through the whole model and it took it like an hour. So ever since I saw that, because I love miniatures too, I have a dream of going to Germany just to go to that place. But in the meantime, I have the train set here. Germany pavilion, which is not the same, but, you know.

Let's keep going. The line looks about this. Going into Italy now. Italy is one of my favorite places to drink in World Showcase, because I love Prosecco. And the little stand out here in the front, hardly ever has a line, which is always, like, a big factor in me where I'm going to drink. Because honestly, I don't want to wait that long to pay, like, $15 for a drink. and the one here in Italy is a Prosecco and it's $12 and I never have to wait so that is sort of my happy place right there I'm sure you can already hear it but since it is um

food and wine right now eat to the beat is going on and so they have like cover bands that come in on the nights where uh you know they don't have you know acts like smash mouth or handsome come in So this one is Hayfire, I think is what it says here. We have a guitar solo anywhere. We have a guitar solo in there. It just sounds a lot like that song. Let's see what happens with them. We all count the poor with each other.

You know, he's playing that snowmone. You can never stop me. We wouldn't know you a lot? Got any 90s country fans out there? We're my people. We're gonna take you back. to Japan and I'm up here a warehouse I think that's what you call it I'm so bad at this the Katsura Grill that's what it is but I love this little seating area it's so pretty

the landscaping here is just gorgeous and you know you have like the little streams kind of running throughout here I love the levels of it it's just beautiful and also the food at at Katsura Grill is pretty good too that's one of my favorite quick services here in World showcase. So I'm going to make my way to Mitsukoshi, which is actually not what I'm here for. But you know what? I'm actually going to take a peek to see if the thing if I'm looking for is that it is actually still here. Yep, it's still here. Wait. But that's going to be the grand finale, but we're going to go into Mitsukoshi and take a quick look because I always look at Mitsukoshi. Mitsukoshi is my favorite store in World Showcase by far,

just because the variety of stuff in here is amazing. I actually have Hello Kitty toilet paper here, which is hilarious, because I literally just bought Hello Kitty toilet paper. In Orlando, they opened up the first H-Mart in our state, and it's actually the biggest H-Mart in the world, apparently. It's built inside an old target, and they had Hello Kitty toilet paper, and I was like, I love Hello Kitty, and I'm always going to need toilet. paper so I bought it. I just love looking in here even though I really don't buy anything because honestly

it's expensive and I get it because it's from Japan. So I remember for the longest time this was literally like the only place that you could really find Sanrio stuff. The only other place that I remember being able to get it was in the Florida Mall there used to be a Sanrio gift gate and I used to go all the time there with my family and it closed probably 20, 25 years ago. And I feel like they did really well now considering how popular things like, you know, lububus and little plushy keychains are. Like there's tons of them here in Tukoshi and I always want to get them, but they're always so expensive. Of course, there's tons of Pikachu stuff, Pokemon. Oh, this is new. They like some cute, like, shirts here in the back, and it says Kauai over it, which Kauai is cute in Japanese.

Oh, they also have just have a shirt that says, yes, Kauai is art. And yes, I agree. Kauai is art. Okay, so the thing I'm here for is recently Abcott installed Gashapant machines, which if you don't know what they are, you're like these little capsule toys that they're available all across Japan, and you'll literally go into storefronts, and there will be hundreds of these machines. and they have all kinds of different things, like miniatures, like little toys of Sanrio characters,

Nintendo, animas, mini food, like little miniatures that have to do with trains and cars, like basically anything that you can think of, they've probably made a miniature of these, and they just installed these maybe four or five months ago. And so I've already bought some of them previously. They have San Ria right now, Kirby, anime. They have a couple of, that time I got reincarnated as a slime, little miniatures.

And they've been switching them out, which is we hope that we'll get a really good variety of Gashapon here. And Gashapon, the name comes from the sound. The Gatchapart comes from the sound that the crank makes, and the pawn is supposed to be the sound that the capsule makes when it actually comes down. So you'll hear it in a minute because I'm going to get one. because they have this little character called Smitsky. I've seen him before. I don't know what he is, but he's like this little man,

and he's adorable, and they have a ring of him, and I love these, like, fun novelty rings, and he glows in the dark. I love anything that glows in the dark. So I have, previously when I went to L.A.,

I got a Tamagachi, goshapon ring, and it's one of my most prized possessions. It's adorable, so that's what I'm going to do right now. but I'm going to look around Hero Pic. Yeah, there's Sanrio. There is, like, some random, like, there's some fish ones.

These fish ones are crazy. There's a whale. Hello Kitty. There is Naruto. I'm definitely going to get one. So, here we go. You'll hear the sound in a minute. All right.

So we will go see which one we got. So there is five different ones you can get. There is an element of gambling with this. So that's just a warning, because you can get addicted to these. I'm addicted to them, and there's really not any here in Florida, except for this in Epcot. And then there's, like, two other ones, but they're two Bandai Namco storefronts or hours away. So, yeah, like, that is what I came here for specifically. and now I have completed this quest for this ring, which I will open in a second, and I will tell you which one I got.

And I think later probably on the Instagram, we'll actually post a picture so you can see what it looks like. But just give me a second. Okay, so we are back. I am sitting here outside Katsura Grill, like the little sort of bench seating that runs its way around the edge of the building. and I'm going to open my smisky gashapon and see what we got and what I love to about this capsule most of the time the capsules when you get them they are just um you know just like clear blue you know pink green they're just like color capsules this one actually has a little like a face of him on the capsule and it's really cool so here I go I'm going to open him up the capsule

let's see oh my god I got the one I wanted that's amazing there's one. There's one. where he's like bent over and he's like looking through his legs and that's the one I ended up getting that's amazing it's so funny so I will definitely take a picture and I'm sure we'll post it to the walkabout we'll lose the world account but yes that's the end of my journey I have a new ring so I'm very excited. And this one actually fits on my ring finger because the Tamagotchi ring that I got a while back is so small.

I can only fit it on my pinky finger, and even then it's kind of loose. But this one's a lot better, and I can't wait to see it glow in the dark. I think I'm going to go on Spaceship Earth just so I can see it glow in the dark because, yeah, this is so funny. I am actually tempted to get

another one, but we'll see. But anyways, as always, I thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode. It was kind of low-key. Just thought it would be fun to take you with me on this little quest of mind, and maybe it has sparked an interest in you regarding gashapans. Like, there's tons of gash upon videos on YouTube, I know, because I watch them a lot. But it's a lot of fun, and I'm hoping that they'll get switched out often here at Epcot, and we'll get more weird ones. like food and stationary, that kind of thing. So, but as always, thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoyed this, and we'll see you next time.