To your left is Hercules' villa. Next stop, the Pecs and Flex gift shop, where you can buy the great hero's new 30-minute workout scroll, "Buns of Bronze." - Tour Guide, from "Hercules"

Hi all,

Tan here.  Apologies for the lack of updates recently.  I was busily studying for my FINAL EXAM in my uni course.  That's right, after four years of going to class, writing assignments, studying for and sitting exams, I've finished!!

At least I hope I've finished.  Nothing is certain until I get my results, but I'm quite confident that I passed with flying colours.  Then I will be able to graduate, and not have to think about assignments for a long time.

Woo Hoo?

I will now also have more time to help Jennie with the wedding planning and of course, write blog entries!

I hope to have some help from my dog with future blogs (kinda looks like my dog, Merlin)

I think the Disney quote that I've used for the title of this blog entry captures what I am planning to do both short term and long term.

The, "Buns of Bronze", part of it is what I'm trying to accomplish short term so I can look great in a wedding dress, er I mean suit.  I am currently about eight kilos overweight since I haven't really exercised (or gotten out of my chair) since I started my course.

If I took a selfie right now, this is what it'd look like

That's me on the right (number 4).  I'm trying to be as active as I can!

Okay enough about my battle with books and flab.  The "shop", part is really what this entry is about.  Our last entry was about the places we like to eat when visiting Orlando.  This time, I'm writing about the places we like to shop at when in Orlando because let's face it...  I love to shop.  I blame my mother, who used to take me shopping every Friday after school as our family activity because we didn't live near anything fun.

I used to do this.  Jack still does it.

Up until early 2007, Jennie and I used to buy our clothes from Australia.  This was mainly because we live here.  We did this for all of our adult lives until we went to the US in 2007/08.  That's when we realised that clothes over in the US are about half the price of the EXACT SAME ITEM in Australia.

It costs a bit more in Australia (sorry about the formatting, the text was too small)

So now we don't bother buying any clothes in Australia (aside from the bare essentials and some bits and pieces here and there).  We prefer to wait until we're in the US or order stuff online.

There are three places we generally go to in the US.

1. The Orlando Premium Outlets (on Vineland) - This is where we get all of our clothes.  If you click on the link, you'll see the store listing.

My favourites are Nike (so much basketball gear, so little time), Adidas (I prefer their tracksuit pants), Burberry (last time Jennie picked up a beautiful coat for 10% of the ticketed price.  That's 90% off!!), Hugo Boss (so many suits, so little cost) and Coach (because we love getting people handbags).  The last time we were there, we had to buy additional suitcases just so we could carry home our purchases.

This is me outside the outlet malls

2. Walmart - Now our US based readers are probably reading this wondering why on earth we would list Walmart as a place of interest.  Well...

First and foremost, we don't have Walmart in Australia.  Secondly, it is very convenient.  It's a one-stop shop for everything from breakfast cereals to gaming consoles.  Whenever we're in the US and staying in a city for longer than a few days, we'll go there first to stock up on food and booze.  It's also very well priced as their business model is all about lean operations so they can pass on the savings to their customers (I wrote a paper on this and got a very good mark, so shut up).

Lastly, YOU CAN BUY FREAKING GUNS THERE!!  Us Australians aren't used to seeing guns apart from little handguns that our police carry around (and when I wear a sleeveless top).  Not that I condone firearms, it is more the novelty factor of being able to pick up some milk, cereal and a high powered rifle without having to move your vehicle.  VERY CONVENIENT!!

Two tickets to the gun show, baby!

Pampers? Check
Bread? Check
Shotgun...?

3. The Florida Mall - Okay, I'll admit it.  The only reason we decided to go here was because they have an M&M's shop there.  One of the fun things that Jennie and I like to do whenever we go overseas is get an M&M's dispenser.  It really is not practical given how fragile they are and how we need to be very careful when transporting them back home!  We've been quite lucky thus far - all of our dispensers are in tact!!

We love M&Ms.  This was taken in Vegas.
Jennie is trying to feed the poor M&M a packet of its friends.  That's really sick.

We quickly found that Florida Mall was more than just a place to get chocolate covered in a candy shell that melts in your mouth, not in your hand.  Florida Mall has more places to shop than the outlets and has more variety given that they're not trying to sell factory seconds.

It might be a little on the expensive side to our US readers, but the prices are still so much cheaper than that of Australia!

Jennie and I will be taking a day or two to go shopping when we're in Orlando in February and maybe (if time permits) after our wedding.

Speaking of our wedding, we've gone a little off-topic recently, but next week, we'll be writing about our latest trip to a bridal salon.  This time, it wasn't a complete fail!

Thanks for reading!!

If you are what you eat, then I only want to eat the good stuff. - Remy, from "Ratatoullie"

Hi guys, it's Jennie again this time!

Last week in Tan's blog update he started discussing the many, many, many things there are to do in Orlando besides going to Walt Disney World.  In the coming weeks we'll be expanding on that, and today I'll be discussing the best part.. FOOD!

Anyone that knows Tan and I well know that we both love our food... sometimes a little too much.  There are plenty of great places to eat in and around WDW, that are in short "AMAZING"!  But we'll get to that soon.  Firstly I want to share some of our experiences on eating "off property", for a couple of reasons but mainly because it's so gosh darn expensive to eat within the park.

One of our favourite places to go and let me be clear on this.. it's not because the food is good, it's not because it's cheap, it's not because it's even clean or unhealthy.  It's for all of those reasons and so much more.. it's IHOP!

True story.  Sure the pancakes are great, but so is everything else!  Grab a steak!

The place also known as the "International House of Pancakes" is most likely well known among our US readers.  It's where you go to get cheap decent food, your money buys you huge servings and you can get it any time of the day or night.  Want a 2am steak?  IHOP will provide!  Want a 4am breakfast?  IHOP is your answer!

It's disgustingly decadent, heart-stoppingly good, wholesome western cuisine at it's best (or worst).  It's one of those places where you're either greeted by someone that had their soul sucked out of them working there for the past 5 years or someone that reminds you of an old family friend.

I'm not kidding.  IHOP quite possibly boasts the title for the most "wrong" food ever with its "Horton Hears a Who pancakes".

The last time we went to Orlando and stopped there for breakfast right after getting off the plane we were lucky enough to have a lovely old "very southern" lady greet us with the warmth that only a southerner could!  She loved the fact we were Australian, and it seemed to make her even more passionate about making our experience a memorable one!

We ordered ridiculous amounts of food and ate almost all of it!  We both ordered a Breakfast Sampler each, not only does it come with two eggs, two crispy bacon strips, two pork sausages, two pieces of ham, and two hash browns, it also comes with two buttermilk pancakes!  We also had two bottomless orange juices and something else, I don't remember because I have food amnesia.. after all that we walked out with food babies.

After searching for IHOP images, I'm kinda hungry again and I only just ate dinner!

What is a food baby?  A food baby is when you eat so much food in one sitting that you have a baby bump that wasn't there before you started eating.  You start going rosy in the cheeks and get that "expecting" look about you.  Sometimes you get so emotional you even start coming up with names for the little one.

This guy clearly has a food baby.  He probably ate at IHOP.

One of our personal favourite places to eat while in Orlando is a place we fell in love with first in Australia, the place I'm talking about is Lone Star Steakhouse & Saloon!  Why do we love Lone Star so much?  Mainly because of the steak!  The steak there is pretty good and they generally cook it to your likeness, but we don't only love it because of the steak I'm sure you can get much better steak elsewhere.

At Lone Star they serve all round good wholesome "home-style" food, you can get side servings of good backyard style garden salads, baked sweet potatoes or beer chips.  I personally love to have a mudslide (so yummy!) before my meal is served while munching on the famous Lone Star peanuts and watching the line dancing done by the waiters every half-hour.

Steak glorious, steak!  Hot potatoes and peanuts!

The main reason we eat Lone Star in the US rather than Australia is because even though we supported Lone Star, apparently no one else in Australia did and they shut their doors about 10 years ago, and we miss it so very much.. :'(

There are so many places to eat outside the park area, and so many various cuisines as well!  If you're after some good ideas on eating out I'd suggest trying TripAdvisor or Urbanspoon.  If you're more interested in cooking your own food, probably one of the better places to buy your produce from is the Whole Foods Market, which is a little more expensive than your regular supermarket but the quality is fantastic!

At the Whole Foods Market, you can put your diet back on track.  Such good looking and healthy food!

While I'm sure there are some great places to eat around the Orlando area, traveling outside the park to eat every day can take quite a while, so we didn't get to explore as much as we really wanted to.  We love eating at Downtown Disney because it's close to where we stay and we can generally find a good meal at Planet Hollywood, Rainforest Cafe or T-Rex.

Rainforest Cafe is so awesome for kids!  Even better for the slightly larger, more immature kids..

There are so many food options at DTD it's nuts!  DTD and other Disney food options as well as saving time and money are something I want to expand on, but there is so much tell you its really something that will have to wait until another time.

One place we've been meaning to go to each time we go to Orlando is the Medieval Times Dinner Show, which apparently is pretty fun!  I mean, how can you go wrong with Medieval style dining and jousting and swordplay?!  You can't, that's how!!  The camp value alone makes this place a clear winner!

Medieval Times is your standard dinner show, you get fed and while you eat you watch a show.  It's apparently hugely popular among tourists, and a great place to take a big crowd of people.  Which brings me to an idea I had, I want to know how many of our guests would be interested in coming with us to Medieval Times as one of our nights out???  It would be fun, we get fed, we get a show and we can have a chat and a few drinks!

If you're interested in Medieval Times, please go ahead and let Tan or myself know so we can add as part of our optional itinerary!

How awesome does this place look?!  I can't believe we haven't been here yet...

I hope that gives you some ideas on where to eat if you're outside the Disney area and you have the munchies.  Next week, shopping!