I went on the East Coast Trip from Saturday, April 9th to Thursday, April 14th. It was an educational tour with MFWI program. I was in the travel group 6, which was the last group to leave the campus. We visited Boston first and then went to Washington, D.C. by Amtrak. We visited many important places of each city. I was impressed by many things during the trip. I will write about three things that impressed me the most, and that I enjoyed the most.
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| Interesting Pilgrims Actors |
First, I had a lot of fun at the Plymouth Plantation.
We talked to the actors who were pretending like they were Pilgrims from the
1600s. The most interesting thing I heard from one of the pilgrims was that some
of them had virtue names. For example, there was a man whose name was Love, and
he said his parents named him Love because they didn’t want him to forget to
have love. He said it was kind of a reminder. That was very interesting. At
Plymouth Plantation, I was able to see how the village looked at that time and
what kind of clothes they were wearing. I also learned some of their values by
talking to them. I felt like I was in a different time, so it was a lot of fun.
They also had village for Native Americans, and I learned some things about
their life, too. It was a pity that we couldn’t see the Mayflower, but I had a
good time there.
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| Gorgeous Rotunda of the National Gallery of Art |
Secondly, I enjoyed the Smithsonian Museum
very much. Each museum was so big and the exhibitions were really interesting. Three
hours were definitely not enough for me to see all I wanted to see. My friends
and I visited three places; the National Archives, the National Gallery of Art,
and the Air and Space Museum. We first visited the National Archives and saw
the real Declaration of Independence and Constitution. I was so impressed to
see them because I had been studying about it for the last few weeks in
American Studies classes. I was so happy that I had a chance in my life to see
that precious document. Next, we visited was the National Gallery of Art. It
was my desire to go to that museum because I love seeing classical paintings. I
especially like Impressionism, and I saw many of them in the museum. My
favorite artist is Pierre Augustine Renoir, so I was so excited to find his
paintings. I very much enjoyed other paintings by Impressionists, too. There
was a painting by Leonardo Da Vinci in the museum. I think it was my first time
to see a real Da Vinci portrait. Although it was not one of the most famous
paintings of his, I was happy that I could see the real one. The last museum we
visited was the Air and Space Museum. We were all very excited in the museum
because we saw the air plane of Amelia Earhart, which was in the movie “The
Night at the Museum 2.” I was especially impressed to see a Japanese plane of World
War 2, since I’m interested in that part of Japanese history. I had a lot of
fun at the Smithsonian and I hope I can come back again to see other museums
that I didn’t get to see this time.
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| Overwhelming Statue of President Lincoln |
Finally, I was impressed to see the Lincoln
Memorial. I had seen the photo of the sculpture of Lincoln many times, so I
couldn’t believe I was actually standing right in front of the sculpture. The
memorial building was huge, so the statue looked smaller than I had imagined it
would be, but it was still a very large statue. I stood on the spot where
Martin Luther King Jr. made his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. The view was
very pretty from that place, and it was spectacular to imagine that the large
space was once filled with people who went to hear the speech by Martin Luther
King Jr. I was really happy, again, to see the place that I had only seen on TV
or in books.
I had a really great time in East Coast. Everything
was new and impressive to me. I like history very much, so I was really glad to
visit so many famous historical places. I appreciate my parents and school for
giving me these amazing opportunities to see all of those amazing places.
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