Do you know Sacramento? It is the state capital of California. (or California’s State capital) It is located in the middle of California. We went there today.
California State Railroad Museum is famous, so we went there first. We learned the history of how they built the Central Pacific Railroad. It was authorized by the Congress in 1862. It was financed and built by “The Big Four” : California business men: Stanford, Huntington, Crocker and Hopkins. The western labor teams were mostly made up of Chinese emigrant workers which totaled around to 12,000. These laborers were employed by the Central Pacific Railroad and represented 90% of the entire work force.
Finally, the Central Pacific Railroad tracks were laid in Utah in 1869. It went through Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California where the scenery was beautiful. This inspired me to take a short ride from Berkeley to Reno by Amtrak.
Next, we went to the State Automobile Museum, which looked ugly from the outside, but the cars inside it were surprisingly nice. Most cars there were Mercedes-Benz, but there were some other kinds of cars as well, such as Porsche and some car companies I haven’t ever heard before.
I liked one red Porsche car best. It was incredibly tidy and seemed without any tiny dust or glittering under the dim light in the museum. It was not very big, but cool--because it used to be a race car. My mom also appreciated it.
The State Capital was our last destination. We entered it, and it was like a museum inside: it displayed all the counties in California. It introduced some information about them. I enjoyed it.
作者: 网站工作室 时间: 2012-5-7 09:40
6, Sequoia National Park
Do you know what the largest tree in the world is? No? Then let me tell you the answer: it is General Sherman, and it is in the Sequoia National Park.
After we went to Monterey, we went all the way south, until we arrived in Los Angeles. Then, we went to Sequoia National Park.
Sequoia National Park’s best features were its sequoias and beautiful scenery. While we drove along the Zigzag Road, we saw the snow mountain, and the clean stream ran happily.
Finally, the 20 miles of Zigzagged Road ended and we were 2000 meters above sea level, which means we would see the giant trees soon! After about 1 mile the giant trees appeared, suddenly.
Snow! Snow! Trees! Trees! The snow was completely white, glittered in the golden sun, covered the trees, covered the small wooden house in the forest, and covered nearly anything. Everything here was in white, totally white, just like a white-colored world.
Trees, tall and huge, as if they had spread over the whole earth! They were brown, and didn’t have many branches and leaves except the top of the tree, like a crown of a king. We saw the General Sherman at about 5:00. It is so tall and enormous! Its height is 80 meters; its diameter is almost 3 meters, and it needs twenty people to embrace it.
作者: 网站工作室 时间: 2012-5-7 09:40
5, Monterey Bay Aquarium
Monterey Bay Aquarium is located in center Monterey, just 10 meters distance to the Pacific Ocean. It is one of the best aquariums in the USA.
We entered at 10 o’ clock. There were many sea animals in it. We went to see the sea otters first. Unfortunately, they like to sleep, and they were in a deep sleep when we visited them.
Because of this, we went to our second place: the jellyfish. They were beautiful: their bodies were soft, white and blue; all the things were just likely to happen in a dream. Suddenly, one jellyfish among them drew my attention: it was eating! Their eating ways were really strange: they used long tentacles to catch tiny living things, then passed them to their mouths, after that they digested them.
The next place was the Seahorses Heaven. There were many seahorses in it. Some of them were swimming; some of them were using their tails to wound around one branch to sleep. And there was one pagurid in the display area! I discovered that Seahorses Heaven had a sea dragon, too! It was my first time seeing the sea dragons: they were a little bigger than seahorses, they could swim, but very slowly, and their heads were the most dragon-like organs.
The sharks were really fun, too: don’t be scared, they were baby sharks. They could swim really fast, and they had the ability to catch a fish swiftly. They would be a good hunter when they grow up, I thought.
Sardines were the most amazing things in this aquarium: they swam altogether, never lost even once. “How can they make it?” I wondered. Anyway, sardines were the nicest things in this aquarium in my opinion.
I really enjoyed the aquarium because I had seen many things I hadn’t seen before.
作者: 网站工作室 时间: 2012-5-7 09:40
4, Jan.25th
Monterey’s beach
Yesterday my dad came to visit us from China, and we were planning for a California trip, including Monterey, Big Sur, Hearst Castle, Los Angeles, and Sequoia National Park.
Our first destination was Monterey. Maybe you don’t know it, but it is really famous in California even in America because it has many beautiful beaches.
It took just hours to drive from Berkeley to Monterey by CA Hwy. No. 1. CA Hwy. No.1 is a highway that goes along the Pacific Ocean. You can see beautiful scenery along the coast.
It was beautiful, very very beautiful. The sea was as blue as the sky, completely pure. It was light blue up close, and it turned into deep blue, gradually, until it touched the horizon, as if the sea was stuck to the sky.
The waves were incredibly high, I seemed to be eaten easily by it while it rose to 2 meters high: it made me very scared.
作者: 网站工作室 时间: 2012-5-7 09:40
Many sea gulls flew above the sea, and some of them stood there, sometimes with their tiny heads lowered so they could use their tall, slender mouth to catch crabs and crayfish swiftly.
We felt funny, so we got out of our car, and ran straight to the coast, tried to find some shells on the sand. Unfortunately, there was not even one shell on the beach, my dad and I “robbed” a headless crayfish (eaten by the gulls, while it was still moving! It was really interesting, and we were sad while we left the coast and got in the car again.
We arrived in Monterey in the afternoon. We found a hotel close to the beach where I slept well that night; I thought this while I was lying on the bed.
SCHOOL STORIES
作者: 网站工作室 时间: 2012-5-7 09:40
1, Jan. 17th Tuesday
I had butterflies in my stomach while I was getting up today. Why? Because today is my first day of school in America. I would attend the Ocean View Elementary School.
While I took my first step in my school, I knew that I had become a new student in America. I was very nervous, but at least I knew that I would be good in math, because I’ve heard that many American’s students are not good at it.
But things turned out to be totally different from that.
Our first class was math, and our first exercise was a spelling test. My teacher said a lot of words I didn’t understand, such as denominator, numerator, fraction, Least Common Multiple etc. What bad luck! I’ve never heard these math terms in English before!
But, at least, I have learned all of these words, finally. I really enjoyed the classes in this American school.
2, Jan 20th
Ocean View’s Food Drive
Yesterday at school, our teacher, Ms. Sinclair, said that we have to finish our OV’s Food Drive poster. As I was new, I felt strange, so I asked her “What is the OV’s Food Drive poster?” .
She said: “There are many homeless in Alameda County (that is our county), and there is one child among each six of them. They don’t have anything to eat, but we have plenty of it, so we can help them. So we’re supposed to take the poster to the second graders, to let them donate some food.”
Today, we would take our finished poster to the second graders’ rooms. I was put in my classmate Molly’s group. And the first room we entered was No. 8. There were about 25 students sitting there silently.
Molly cleared her throat, and began a long speech about why we should make a donation,and how to do it. All the people, including room 8’s teacher, were sitting there and stared at us without saying even a word. Everyone was so quiet.
In this serious atmosphere, I was nervous again, just like the first day I came to school.
Finally, Molly ended up her endless speech. The teacher nodded, and responded: “All right. We will bring some food. You guys can come back next week to take it.”
That’s how the OV’s Food Drive began. I felt it was a good thing. We were educated by our teacher, and the second graders were taught by us. In China, things like this seldom happen: Who cares about the homeless? This special activity had given me a valuable, unforgettable lesson: we have to pay attention to the homeless.
3, Jan. 23rd
Typing
“Now you may stand in a line for typing, guys!”
We would learn how to type at the school library by using a website called BBC (British Broadcast Company) Dance Mat Typing.
This website has four levels, and we’re going to start at the first level and stage one. There was a goat at stage one: a cartoon goat. It would teach us how to learn the basic skills of typing: the Home Row. The Home Row included 10 letters: a,s,d,f,g,h,j,k,l. You have to practice it many times if you want to type fast.
I became familiar with the Home Row soon. And then I entered stage two. Stage two was an octopus. It taught me how to type the letter E and I. The octopus said a lot of jokes, it was really funny. Just like: one teacher asked Ben: “how many feet are there in a snake?” and Ben answered: “Snakes don’t have any foot.” I enjoyed it.
I really like the Dance Mat Typing. It has taught me how to use the correct fingers to type faster. And I felt happy, because I could type some easy words like “he” today. I am typing and writing now. Maybe I could learn how to type all the letters and all the levels soon, I thought.