Milpitas and San Jose

I had a very good time in California. We only visited Northern California around the Bay area though. First, we went to San Jose. It was pretty cool and there were a lot of Chinese restaurants. We stayed in the Embassy Suites near Milpitas. The hotel was pretty cool as well. There was an atrium and it had a pool with living fish. There was also bamboo in the atrium. The coolest part was the glass elevators. They stuck out from the wall so you could see who was in the other one. Also, there were elevators on both sides of the hotel so you could see who was in the other ones as well. My brother and I played "Elevator Tag" where you try to tag the other person but you can go down elevators and stuff.
We spent some time in the Milpitas Library. It had moved into a new building and it was way bigger. We applied for library cards, got them, and got a whole bunch of books to read. The new library was bigger, with more computers and shelves. It even had a second floor. It was really busy. We could barely find a parking space in the parking lot.The two coolest thing is San Jose were the "Christmas in the Park" and the Tech Museum. The Christmas in the Park was a small section in downtown San Jose with decorations and displays celebrating Christmas. The best part was that all the displays were moving. The people in it were moving and they were dancing and stuff like that. I liked the Gingerbread house or the Santa Railroad Train the most. The following pics are of the Gingerbread House, Santa Railroad, Ornament mine, and Caribbean Christmas displays. All of them could move.

The Tech Museum was also really cool. There was a ball machine outside. It was where there was a conveyor belt and it brought up some balls to the really top of the machine and from there, the ball rolled on the tracks and hit all sorts of obstacles. Sometimes, it would go through some chimes or bounce off a wood block. When we got inside, we didn't need to pay because we had a membership. there was a second story and we went there first. It had an alphabet machine that could write your name with alphabet blocks. The sign said that the robot remembers the exact location of all the blocks. There was also this other machine nearby that drew you. I liked the alphabet machine better because the drawing machine made me look like a gorilla. I also saw this weird game where you have to get the machine to the edge of the cliff without going over. Downstairs, there was an invention lab and other exhibits. There were the lightbulbs that were powered by the bikes and a lot of other green things.

Five Star

Five star was a pretty cool restaurant. It had a nice splattering of graffiti inside. Aside from the seedy neighborhood and the $5 dollar cups of juice and the lame lighting, it was decent. Also, it was really expensive and a party of six cost around $180. You could get like 200 McChickens with that type of money. Also, somehow the waiters must not feel the temperature because it was like 20 degrees and they still had the AC on. I think it was supposed to be an "Asian" cuisine but they didn't even try to fool us. There were like "Fried Green Beans" and a whole bunch of other "authentic" food. They were not even as real as P.F. Chang's! If they were trying to say it was good food and five star, they are very mistaken! I would recommend that they change their name to two star. So, in all, if you have money to waste and you wan't to eat some food in murky darkness while it's 20 degrees, be my guest. Five Star (Two Star) is the place for you.

We went to the Lincoln memorial and some people made us join a rally and hold signs up. It was to let DC have a voice in the Senate and House. It was also to stop the war and all that stuff. Then we went to Jefferson. It was way smaller than the Lincoln memorial. We also saw the WWII Memorial. It was filled with people that held cardboard signs. We also saw the Korean War Memorial. It had big silver people that had guns and walkie talkies and those equipments. The black wall behind it had etchings of soldiers and workers. The WWI memorial was really small. It was a pedestal with a golden person on top of it and red flowers that looked like a big 1. It had names of all the people in the division that died. We also saw the White house. It had a lot of security on it. They also had wire mesh and concrete barriers. It was not as cool as before.

Sackler Gallery of asian art was another museum we visited. It had asian art in it. I saw weird Hindu people with a lot of arms and a lot of heads. I also saw thai pots and a whole bunch of other stuff. There was Ottoman vases.

The African Art Museum was cool for many ways. One was that it was one that we never visited before. Another way was because it had a 14 foot mask that weighed around 30 pounds. The last way was because it was connected to three other museums. I will start by saying how we chanced upon it. We were walking in the Smithsonian garden and then we just went into it. The first thing is security. They look at your bags and that stuff. Then you see this staircase curving downward and there is this pool at the bottom. There is also a mask that is stretched across two stories. On the top level there is not much. On the bottom, there is the sweetgrass baskets and those stuff. There also fancy gold and stone African chiefs or gods. A guide told us that you were supposed to wear the mask and dance around with it!

Wolf Trap Nat. Park was this huge theater place. Every night they would put on a show and you could go there. We got a private tour. The theater was huge. It had 8000 seats and it was open, no walls. IT was made of wood and had an upper balcony where all the rich people stay for free. There was also a club that you had to pay $3500 to get into. That was the big theater but there were two smaller ones. One was for International Childrens day where you have children flown in from around the world. Another was in the woods. They put on shows for kids and all that stuff. Besides the theaters, there was also a stream called Wolf Trap Stream. There was a little forest walking area. I liked the place because it was just plain cool. There are theaters that let you brin alchohol and they're the only place that sells it too. I think the natural beauty is shadowed by the big theater. The smaller ones are fine.

Yesterday we went to the Steven Udvar Hazy center. It was a big building that had a ton of airplanes in it. My favorite one was the in the old airplanes section. It had a normal airplane look except at the front, it had a car motor. I also liked the Constellation. There was a guide and he told us that Bob somebody flew a plane in a roll and poured ice tea at the same time and he didn't spill a drop. We also saw the Enola Gay which dropped the atomic bombs. It had catwalks where you could go into to see the airplanes up close. It took away the fancy Wright Flyer that rich people used to have. They also added the Constellation.

USNWC

We went to the USNWC which was in Charlotte. It was the United States National Whitewater Center. It was also a USA Olympic training center for the Beijing Olympics.

First, we went to the Mega jump where you had to jump off a three story building. There was a rope that slowed you down though. From the bottom, it looked really easy and all the kids were saying to the people on top stuff like "Hurry up!". But when you actually got to the top, it looked really tall. They hooked your harness up to a rope that was attached to this "slowing" machine. The lady hooked me up and told me to step on the red dots at the edge of the platform. I could see all the little people down below and they were looking at me. I closed my eyes and walked off. It was like when a roller coaster goes down a big hill, but slower. When I got to the bottom, I realized I liked it.

Then, we went kayaking. It basically a plastic board which you sit on and paddle. It was really fun though. It was light so it could go faster than a canoe. It could also respond quicker than a canoe. My brother was trying to ram into me so I just back-paddled and turned around to face him. He was going fast so he just shot past me. In a canoe, like in Raven Knob, If another canoe was trying to get you, you would have to turn really slowly, or get rammed. I also like a kayak better because if you get beached, you can slide from the shore really easily.

Next, we went back and ate lunch. It was a cheeseburger and chips and a drink. Everyone had the same thing.

We went rafting after that. It was the funnest part. We went to the calmer channel. Even though it was the calmer channel, we did surfing, where they put the boat into the falls and everyone got wet. I think that I like the M rapids because they were fastest in the Wilderness channel. We went on it 4 times. Later, in the evening, we did rafting again except this time we got to go through the fast channel. It was awesome since we went to the huge drop and we went fast and backwards through it. We saw a raft get flipped over. All the people fell out. I also fell out because another raft rammed into us. The guide pulled me up. I think rafting was the funnest out of all the activities.

We also did climbing but we did rafting before it so our arms were really tired. I did manage to get to the top of one but the others were too hard. There was this wall that went at a 70 degree angle so it leaned out!

Summer

I like the summer break. First, there is no school. Second, you can do fun stuff all day long without having to worry about homework or catching the bus. Third, and probably most important, you have a better mood without school stress eating your brain. This summer seemed like the longest summer.

A regular day would go like this. Wake up and play piano, eat breakfast, and do some typing. Around afternoon, we would play with the Legos and the Jenga blocks and those toys. Around evening, we would do some math and play the chopstick game.

To those who do not know what the chopstick game is, I will explain. We get a tray and each person gets a pair of chopsticks and a different colored group of ten marbles. What you have to do is that you have to get your marbles from your section of the tray to your container using your chopsticks. It was a very hard game.

I like when we went to Canada or Atlanta the best. I like that because they had cool museums and attractions like the zoo and the science and tech museums.

I hope this summer wont end soon but poor me.

We went to Raven Rock State Park which was near Lillington and Fuquay-Varina and camped there for a night. I think the only bad part was that we had to hike two miles to get to our campsite. Also, there was no water at the campsite so we had to carry all the water bottles with us. Also, on the first day, we hiked back to the parking site to meet the ranger and then hike back. There were some pretty cool things on the trail though. There was a place called Overlook and that was basically a stone balcony that you could see the Cape Fear River from. Also, we saw the rock which was this huge rock that hung over the water and was as tall as two or three houses! The lunch was boiled hot dogs and the dinner was Easy Mac which was a macaroni and cheese thing that you poured water into and then it became something close to macaroni and cheese. We also had marshmallows and mine never got brown, one side expanded but it was always still white. After that, we went to bed. Our tent was super hot and I was stuck to the sleeping bag. Plus the cicadas were deafening and there was an owl that kept on hooting. Finally I fell asleep and woke up early next morning. I packed my stuff and sat outside. It was cool and not that hot. Breakfast was eggs in a bag and we did the hike all over again and finally got to the parking lot. We took a car back to Raleigh.