Written by Ashley Yu in Year 6A
Almost every Christmas holiday, me and my parents go somewhere. Last Christmas, we went to White Mountain. This year, we went to White Mountain again, but with Jasmine, her dad and her sister.
Travelling from Shanghai to White Mountain isn’t a very long airplane ride. Our airplane stopped at Qingdao for an hour and we changed flights to head to White Mountain. When we arrived at Qingdao, me, Jasmine and Sophia had some tasty snacks. We all got a nice warm hot chocolate from Starbucks and had some cookies. It was delicious! And then, we got ready for our next flight.
Finally, we arrived at White Mountain. As I looked out of the window, I saw what I expected the most: snow. (I know it because I went there last year). I was super excited since I missed White Mountain. When I stepped off the airplane, cold air greeted me. Everything around me was white.
On the very first afternoon, we played with snow. We borrowed 2 sleighs, 2 shovels and 2 snow ball makers. First, I dragged the sleigh onto a hill and my dad helped me get on. Then he pushed me gently and the sleigh went sliding down. The wind whipped my face but I didn’t care. I tried it again and again. After my hundredth time, my mom wanted to build a snowman. Everyone agreed. Me and Sophia went off with a sleigh and 2 shovels to get the softest snow while others start building the base of the snowman. When I suddenly tumbled I was glad I wore gloves, otherwise my hands would be buried in snow. I stood up quickly and waddled back onto normal snow before snow could get in my boots. Me and Sophia gathered loads of snow and the snowman was huge. Around 3PM, it was already dark, so we had to leave.
Two days after arriving at White Mountain, we went skiing. It was snowing that day and it was around -25 degrees, it was freezing! We went to the middle level, it wasn’t very hard, but the slope at the start and the end was the hardest. I was very scared at first, but I got used to it half way through, it was so fun! But the problem came when I thought: No problem! This is fun. It was near the end, when I thought I’m ok and zigzagged down the slope. I was already at the bottom when I lost balance and “BAM!” I fell onto the ground. Now, this is skiing, falling down doesn’t hurt, but getting up is hard. I struggled and struggled, mom and Jasmine told me what to do but I was too clumsy. In the end, I took one of my skis off. Later on, I learned from that lesson: always pay attention, you could fall down anytime while skiing. I nearly fell several times after that but I always managed to balance myself.
The day after that we went skiing again. But what was special this time was that we went to the top of the mountain. When we got on the top of the Mountain, there was a house, which I assumed was an office. However, there were awesome ice statues and trees covered in snow. It was beautiful! The trees looked like they are made of silver. The ice statues had lots of details. When I went in the house, I figured out it was a restaurant! We ordered 2 plates of pork and cabbage, 1 plate of pork and celery and beef stew. They were surprisingly delicious. It was a huge surprise that all this was on top of the mountain.
On the last day, I went to the water park with Jasmine, while my parents went skiing, again. Jasmine’s father borrowed 1 plastic dolphin and 1 plastic tube. Since Sophia is too young to play on some of the slides, we broke up into groups: me and Jasmine, Sophia and her dad. Me and Jasmine first went to the monster wave bay, but there weren’t any waves yet. So we floated around on the toys. After that, we gave Sophia the plastic floating toys and we went to play on a water slide called The Tornado. Since me and Jasmine didn’t have adults with us, we shared a ride with some kind adults. We sat in a giant tube. I held onto the handles tight and closed my eyes as we slid down. Suddenly it turned dark as if we went down a dark tunnel. I managed to have a peek as I felt I dropped a thousand meters. “BOOM!” We fell onto a half cylinder part of the slide and “SPLASH” we bumped into a wall of water while swaying up and down, water was all over my face. With that, we fell into another part of the slide. And at last, we finished with another drop, and the ride was over. We played another few times and we returned to Jasmine’s father. The music was on at Monster Wave Bay, suddenly huge waves formed and we jumped in to play. First, I played in the tube, I tried to “catch” the waves and let them carry me away. Then I tried using the dolphin to “ride” the waves, it actually worked! It was like I was on a real dolphin. Sophia told me:”The dolphin’s name is Blue Diamond, named after the black diamond” and we both laughed. At last, it was time to go. We all didn’t want to leave, but it was pretty late.
Finally, it’s time to leave. The trip had ended, and there’s 3 words to describe White Mountain: fun, exciting and awesome! If I had time, I would want to go there again. When I was in the airport of White Mountain, I found myself already missing that fantastic place……