Last four assignment
Clarissa, Huay Ching Ngoh
110108911
Professional writing: Travel feature - assignment 3
Theme: The reasons of
visit Santa Barbara
“Santa Barbara is a beautiful town
where remains undiscovered for many universal travellers in California State of
America,” Clarissa proclaims.
Fast fact
Santa Barbara is the capital city
of California, it situated on southfacing section of coastline and it also has the
longest west coastline in United States. Geographically, the city locates in between the steeply rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. However,
bear in mind that Santa Barbara's climate is always described as Mediterranean.
Demographically, the city has an average population of 220,000 and the
population of the whole country was 423,895 in 2010. Santa Barbara is a
heavenly seaside place epitomising the Californian dream - palm-lined beaches,
a romantic lifestyle, gourmet delicacies, fabulous wineries, vivid arts scene
and a hustle bustle of city life.
I spent my winter holidays on the
southern edge of the United States. Conversely, State was having summer on the
mid of June as opposed to Australia. My first intention to visit Santa Barbara
is because I intended to understand how the local persons there manage to live
their lives in such a boredom edge, but I never discover that place is such
awesome until I visited.
Unpredictably indeed, there are many
reasons to visit this best freaking place. When I call up all the attractions
in California, the dreamy activity definitely first remind me of ‘wine tasting’
on the breathtaking Santa Rita hill with a large piece of inevitable greenery
in my sight. You may join a day tour for $99 US dollar; take an ordinary limo
with a group of four via highway 101, on the midway of this scenic route, you
may witness big building block in the urban and full of brand designers stores
on the straight steep road.
Journey of Santa Rita
As a group of four, we drive along
the shortcut to the Santa Rita hill. The distance is an hour away from Isla
Vista, Isla Vista is the place where I stay throughout my whole trip at Santa Barbara.
'This is where the route that never had bad trafficking,' Jane, the tour guild
says. However, 'when people are caught attempting to overdrive they will get
fine for $300 US dollar as there are public CCTV on the highway to capture the
instant scenarios,' she adds.
When we gaze through the windows of
limo, we get to witnessed that the Santa
Rita hill is wonderfully beautiful yet ramshackle, with the slums go hard with
farming and strolling on the hay; picking the watery strawberries and assorted
of grapes under the hot sun. We stop at a twist in the road and look out; 6
acres secluded mission style villa is on our right, a 'slice of heaven' villa
which contains one bedroom and one bath home. The most amazingly, the villa
just built out of the greenery strawberries yard. Nevertheless, the price of
this villa is something unaffordable for civilians like us who just expect to
have a fresh air at the place where we never been before rather than living in
a place where completely cleared us out. The villa cost a fix price of $325 US
dollar per night throughout the year and seasons and the most unexpectedly is
it still cost another $125 for cleaning fee upon termination. 'Rich is good',
Jane proclaims. We get out of the limo, Andrew, my tour member, took out his
sunshade and had a glance at the wide world. As I snap a photo and they told me
not to hurry as we have plenty of time. Due to the irresistible sun light, I
ran and hide under the shanty where the place they gathered up strawberries.
For those who attempting to come to
this place, Jane proclaims that here is a kingdom for the rich. I
say money can't buy happiness though. They can actually have their fresh air
like us without spending one penny. Andrew grew up in Australia and that is the
reason why we talked the most during the trip, we talked about our education
background and the place we came from, while another two just having their
silent moment by sightseeing as their travel concepts are 'silence is golden'.
Wine tasting at Santa Rita hill
We arrive at the wine house of
Santa Rita hill, they is one wooden signboard lead us into the antique
tasting room. We are allowed to taste unlimited glasses of wine which range
from bitterly sweet to sweetly bitter. 'How I wish my every Saturday could be
like today' I say. More than merely tasting the wine like drunker, we are given
some crunchy biscuit sticks to swallow while sipping the wine. The most
embarrassingly, the chunky bartender laughed at my innocence and reconciles 'You
are eating biscuits more than tasting a wine'. Unfortunately, Daniel was
partially drunk after a quick sip of wine. We can see that his face turns ruddy
rather than naturally sanguine. At the end of the drinking section, we are
given a 'Santa Rita' printed wine glass and allowed to have some time to look
around the wine painted gallery before we exit the house.
Things to do at Stearns Wharf
Sunset watching - In Santa Barbara Pier, Michelle and me, we held
hands like besties on the wooden pier. We
spend time for sunset watching at the beautiful harbour whilst enjoying its flesh
Atlantic oyster at the Santa Barbara harbour restaurant. During the sun fall at
6 o’clock, we see all the big and tiny boats remain at its positions for
travellers to snap the priceless sunset pictures. We strolled down via Stearns
Wharf, enjoyed the breezy wind under the greyish sky. “Tomorrow we may try
kayaking and sunset cruise here,” Michelle suggested.
Kayaking - To fulfil my dream, the next morning, we have our first
attempt for kayaking; two of us share a kayak boat. As a first-hand, we are
taught to how to row the boat by the kayak coach. When we make full use of our
energies to row the boat, the boat getting faster and faster; we accidentally
hit each other for a couple of times while we rowing the boat. “Ouch!” Michelle
implied me to row properly. As kayaking technique, we learned that when we hit
each other means we rowed in a wrong timing. Certainly, it is
interesting but super tiring. More than that, I got an extreme sunburn
scar on my skin which under the area of my watch. “Its damn painful and ugly” I
expressed.
Light refreshment - As a universal traveller, coffee is not my cup
of tea any more as it is everywhere around the globe. Instead, I try to have a
milkshake over the hot summer. Milkshake can be a kick-start for the day; it is
beneficially cooling and stimulating. Occasionally, I fall back into Asian
habits and ask for a standard Milo drinks in America, nonetheless American baristas
normally stare at me and ask “we don’t have a milo, but we do have a hot
chocolate.”
High tea at State street
State street is a shopping paradise
at Santa Barbara. International restaurants, cafes, branded stores and painting
gallery are all over there, you may spend all of your precious afternoon along
that street. For me, I love loitering in beautiful high tea restaurant for all
kinds of reasons. One of the best reasons, Adelaide does not have so many high
tea options as America does. We girls dressed up fantastically like a princess
for the purpose of high tea setup. We get in the best Danish high tea
restaurant in Santa Barbara - Andersen’s Danish Restaurant and Bakery, which
has the highest review and most positive comments across the net. The interior
design of the high tea restaurant is super beautiful, it suits all sorts of
ages; whether they are young kids or old ladies, they will definitely get
attracted in this place. The floor is in black and white tiles, the border of
wall is decorated with blue antique plates and the red roses over the white
clothes are the most attracting one. The
store baristas pride themselves for their good photography skills as many
customers who came in requested them for photo-taking in the store. In a three tier
high tea set, there are chocolates muffins and chocolates tarts on the basement
tier, four pieces of Danish croissants with thin-sliced lemons at the middle
tier and a glass of fruits salads at the top. Additionally, there are
strawberries and orange jams; few pieces of butter and white cream for bread topping.
Celebrities spotting
One more thing, the reason to visit Santa
Barbara is to spot the celebrities. If you are attentive enough, you will get
to see some movie-star shop around on the street with an ordinary look; with sunglasses
or hat over their head. Sometimes, you
may caught a celebrity hanging out with their family like usual or shop alone
by their own in a random boutique. Or else, you will get to see them chill out
in the cafe lounge.
Solvang
Last but not least, rather than
looking at the American culture, the Danish
town – Solvang, it is one of the great attractions in Santa Barbara too. The
houses and building over there are built in a unique
Danish architecture. There are Danish bakeries, unique cafes, attractive restaurants,
Danish souvenirs stores, cultural boutiques and the Solvang vintage motorcycle museum
in the Danish city. Solvang is the best place where you can found a cuckoo clock. 'It is the best mini gateaway for people who decide to take
their 7 days annual leave for a mini vacation' Michelle gives her piece of
mind. Whereas, I concluded my travel wisdom with the quote of 'a picture paints
a thousand words', people who never leave a footprint here will never know the
bits and pieces at this place. As a traveller's opinion, Santa Barbara is a
great place to gives you a barrel of laughs.
Reflection
Reasons and methods in meeting my subject
Discussing about the memories of
America trip is the best reason to meet up my subject, we bring back all the
memories about what we gone through at America, I need the particular details
to fulfil the requirement of this assignment. Hence, we interacted via Facebook
message to make everything in black and white, we used written form of
communication instead of oral communication to specific the details such as the
name of the places, the best recommendations and attractions at Santa Barbara, the
reason why Santa Barbara is the best choice of my theme, agreement of our
dialogue and so on. Although the time difference between Australia and America
is about half a day different, but we have no any difficulties in communicate to
each other since the interaction is in written form.
Sources of
information
Michelle Toh, best friend of Clarissa
Isla Vista, California
Leanne Schlinger
Santa Ynez Vacation Rental, Santa Rita Hill
phone: 805 770 7100
fax: 805 486 1663
email: info@santaynezvacationrental.com
Jullie Miller, Fairfax Media
Technique employed
The technique employed in this
profile is by organizing the structure according to 'attractions in Santa
Barbara' in an hierarchy order, from a fast fact of 'what and where the place is'
to a conclusion of 'why it is awesome' and 'why it is worth to visit'. A few
deep research is done in establishing this profile; research is used to define
the reason of why the information should include in this profile. My real
identity and real story is used in this profile to create a sense of
truthfulness which worth to read up by readers.
A brief discussion
From the course outline, I reviewed
an example of travel feature and then further searched the keyword of 'Santa
Barbara' to apply in my real life experience. The searched result provides me
an idea of the 'Twenty reasons to visit Santa Barbara'. I rationale the concept
and turn into my idea by organizing the profile in a hierarchal way. The
contents of this feature is based on the focal points of 'Santa Barbara', using
illustration to describe the scenario rather than straight to point. Standard
English is used in the profile as the style and format of the feature.
Demographic statistic is introduced in the first paragraph, journeys are my
procedures in the middle of the paragraphs, ultimately 'cross-culture' concept
is demonstrated in writing the finished product.
(2,055 words)
Bye Journalism!
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