T-Shirt: UNIQLO フロリダ Tシャーツ | Shorts: Dorothy Perkins Bright Blue Boy Shorts (£10.00) | Sneakers: Vans AUTHENTIC ($50.00) | Socks: 靴下屋 リボン付き風ドットスニーカー用ソックス (¥385) | Backpack: anello ≪REPREVE≫anello / CROSS BOTTLE 口金リュック (S) (¥4,950) | Cap: Keio Coop ベースボールキャップ (1,676円)
Today’s theme for Color Me Park Hopper (hosted by colormemagic on IG) is “Cast Member Magic”. Now, you may be wondering what my outfit has to do with Disney Cast Members. Technically, nothing and everything all at once.
See, this outfit is the kind of outfit I wear when I’m at Walt Disney World. It’s comfy and perfect for the hot Florida weather, which is very much present when I go around the time of my birthday. This brings me to the time a cast member made my day magical.
It was actually the last time I celebrated my birthday at Walt Disney World, back in 2019. I wanted to celebrate my birthday at Tokyo Dining, one of the restaurants at the Japanese pavilion at EPCOT. I was wearing the t-shirt you see in the set, so I obviously was noticed by the staff at the restaurant, especially since I knew what was written on my t-shirt (”Florida” in Japanese). Anyway, when the waitress at our table found out I had spent a year in Japan studying at Keio University (慶應義塾大学), she was very impressed. After it was established that, while I speak a little Japanese but don’t really understand it when someone speaks to me (something that all the languages I have learned besides English have in common), we talked about my time in Japan and it was overall a very pleasant meal.
As it was my birthday, when came the time for dessert, part of the staff came out to sing “Happy Birthday” in Japanese. They also noticed my t-shirt, and said how cute it was. Then, when the bill came, the waitress gave me a little piece of origami with a birthday message written on it in Japanese and English.
She wrote “Happy birthday” in Japanese (otanjoubi omedetou) as well as to have a nice year, not to mention the little Mickeys and the little Baymax she drew. It really made my day!
Now, you may think anyone who celebrates their birthday there gets a similar piece of paper. Nope! We celebrated my father’s birthday a few days later and he got a piece of origami, but no message. And members of the staff recognized me as the girl with cute t-shirts (I was wearing a Tokyo t-shirt with Mickey Mouse on it). I’ve always loved the Japanese pavilion at Epcot, but that experience made it even better.
Now, the outfit. I actually own the t-shirt, as I’ve said, as well as the baseball cap (the K is for Keio), and the socks. The backpack is actually one I thought of buying while I lived in Japan, but went with another one instead, from a brand that doesn’t exist anymore. I have those Vans sneakers in a colour that’s not available anymore, so I decided white would go well with the outfit. And the shorts are just because I was wearing a short with that t-shirt, but I don’t remember what colour it was, so I opted for a neutral denim short for this outfit.