I enjoy spending time in cafés. Many people like to rest, study or chat with friends in cafés, and I am one of them. Among all the cafés I've visited, there is one specific café in my memory which has a special meaning to me.
The café 'Bavis Garden' is a place I spent my time in the winter of 2014. I had plenty of them, since I had just taken the entrance exam and was just waiting for the results. My friends and I used to take exercise classes to lose weight, and whenever the class finishes, we would drag our tired bodies to take a rest in the café. Our bodies, which were freezing cold and tensed from the winter wind from outside, became relieved and melted down immediately as we stepped into the café. It was always warm inside, and the pleasant heat was just about right when we took off our coats. The pleasant, snug ambience made us doze off from time to time.
'Bavis Garden' was a small café, with only 5 tables. However, it was cozier than any other cafés could be. If I were to name a color for the whole atmosphere, I would say 'warm brown'. The songs hummed at a low pitch in languages that I could never understand. The calm and restful music was never too small or too loud; it was just right as peaceful background music when talking, and as a sound that tickles your ears when you close your eyes and take a sip at your coffee.
All the tables and chairs were different from one another. The tables each had different size and shape. Some chairs were hard, wooden ones and others were soft and fluffy. My favorite chair to sit in was a dark red, round fabric one. Whenever I sat on this cushiony chair, I would sink into it so deep that sometimes it made me wonder if it could be similar to how babies feel inside the womb.
*Some parts in the back are missing, due to an error in saving. I'll try to find a way to do something about it soon. Sorry!
As I read your essay, I really surprised that the place which has a special meaning to you and me is similar! I liked the way you started the essay with the sentence 'The cafe Bavis Garden is a place I spent my time in the winter of 2014'. The reason is that I felt as if I read one of the novels because of the word '2014'. I thought it grabbed my attention to read your essay because I wanted to know about your 'winter of 2014'. This expression is very impressed to me. I thought the place was described clearly because the expressions such as 'The tables each had different size and shape', 'Some chairs were hard, wooden ones and others were soft and fluffy' helped me to imagine the interior appearance of the cafe. So, in my opinion,there was not a specific point that I couldn't understand clearly. However, I'm sorry that I don,t think you appealed to the five senses. Of course the sentences such as 'The calm and restful music was mever too small or too loud' and 'as a sound that tickles your ears when you close your eyes and take a sip at your coffee' appealed to sound very well. However, there was no sense of taste. So, I think you need to add more add more expressions appealed to different senses and it will make your essay more vividly and interesting. I would say the mood of this place was peaceful. This cafe must be important to you because you used to take a rest in this place and you have a lot of pleasant memories in here. Thus, it could be the reason why you chose to write about this place.
ReplyDelete201502384 LeeSooKyung
I liked the part about describing the cafe as "warm brown" the most. I find it unique to describe it not just as a color but also as one of the senses (warm) but it somehow seems to make sense. At the same time, this also seems to be something to describe further. Why brown and why warm? Expanding on these two words may make this more detailed. I can tell you chose to write about this place because it was a peaceful place to you and it was memorable. But letting the readers know why it was memorable may perhaps be an area for improvement. I can tell how this cafe was peaceful (music, ambiance), but not not entirely sure why this specific place was memorable to you! It was interesting to read otherwise!
ReplyDelete201502398 Subin Lee
ReplyDeleteCOMPLETED FIRST DRAFT part1
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I enjoy spending time in cafés. Like many other people, I like to rest, study or chat with friends in cafés. Among all the cafés I've visited, there is one specific café in my memory which has a special meaning to me.
The café 'Bavis Garden' is a place I spent my time in the winter of 2014. I had plenty of them, since I had just taken the entrance exam and was just waiting for the results. My friends and I used to take exercise classes to lose weight, and whenever the class finishes, we would drag our tired bodies to take a rest in the café. Our bodies, which were freezing cold and tensed from the winter wind from outside, became relieved and melted down immediately as soon as we stepped into the café. It was always warm inside, and the pleasant heat was just about right when we took off our coats. The pleasant, snug ambiance made us doze off from time to time.
'Bavis Garden' was a small café, with only 5 tables. However, it was cozier than any other cafés could be. If I were to name a color for the whole atmosphere, I would say 'warm brown'. The songs hummed at a low pitch in languages that I could never understand. The calm and restful music was never too small or too loud; it was just right as peaceful background music when talking. The melodies tickles my ears when I closed my eyes and took a sip at my coffee. It never felt more relaxing than hearing the low ‘gulp’ in my throat as I did so. Another thing I could notice with my eyes closed was the smell of roasted coffee beans, which danced into my nostrils. It was weird how the smell of coffee being made could be so much stronger and deeper than the smell of a drink in front of me. This dominant fragrance that filled the whole place was another aspect which made the atmosphere feel ‘warm brown’. It just made my piece of perfection.
All the tables and chairs were different from one another. The tables each had different size and shape. Some chairs were hard, wooden ones and others were soft and fluffy. My favorite chair to sit in was a round fabric one that had a deep red color. Whenever I snuggled down on this cushiony chair, I would sink into it so deep that sometimes it made me wonder if it could be similar to how baby kangaroo feels inside its mother’s pouch. As I fully leaned my back to the chair, I could never resist stretching my legs out wide, even though I knew it would annoy my friend when I hit her by mistake.
201502398 Subin Lee
ReplyDeleteCOMPLETED FIRST DRAFT part2
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Something that adds to the perfection of the moments in the café is the drinks it offered. My friends and I would always try different drinks, and we each had our favorites. My friends’ favorites were sweet potato latte and hot chocolate. Sweet potato latte was a drink that had the prettiest color among all the drinks sold at Bavis Garden. You couldn’t smell the sweet potato, except to feel the warm heat on your face, but you could see that it was there in that cup of drink. It was light purple with a white heart drawn on it with milk. I never understood why it was purple instead of yellow, but you could recognize from the taste that it is made of sweet potatoes. My friend would always complain about how this sweet potato latte makes you so full that you regain all the calories we burnt in the exercise session. Yet she would still order it and give a satisfied smile. Then I resist my laughter behind my cup, and burst out laughing when I spot that my friend’s tongue has become light purple, too. I also liked to drink sweet potato latte, but I never really liked drinking hot chocolate, which was the favorite of my other friend. I never understand her passion for hot chocolate because it felt too sweet that it gets to a point that it starts to taste bitter. I never liked the feeling of heavy hot chocolate sliding down my throat. That’s why I always said ‘no thanks’ when my friend offered me a sip of her cup. Instead, I would sip from my own cup, which mostly had green tea latte in it. The light green color of the drink reminded me of grass; I would daydream about the spring as I looked out the window to the cold winter. It was pleasing to gulp down the warm drink. In that moment I would enjoy my drink and say nothing, listening to my friends talk.
When my friends and I were not closing our eyes or drinking from our individual cups, we were mostly talking with each other. No matter how much we chat, we never ran out of topics. Because the entrance exam had ended, we had more time than anyone else on the planet. We talked about drinking alcohol, plans to go shopping to buy new clothes, make-up and so on. There were so many new things to talk about. We also talked about how much we’re excited to step into a whole new world. Then we also giggled about who will be the first one to make a boyfriend. All of us were looking forward to enter university, experience various things that we’d never tried before. Sometimes the exam would become the conversation topic, which then would be quickly changed into a different topic. No stressful stuff for now; we had worked too hard for the past year. It was about time we recovered the peace that we hadn’t felt for a long, long time. Together in the Bavis Garden, my friends and I dreamed of the future with shining eyes, our hearts fluttering with anticipation. We spent merry times in the café, never letting one another fall into low spirits, worrying about the unforeseeable future or the past results. We still meet as students of different universities and spend good, fun times together, but it is never the same as the times spent in Bavis Garden. . It is the place where I had spent one of the most pleasant moments in my life, together with the people I love and care for. When I think about Bavis Garden, it reminds me of the peaceful moments without any worries but hearts tingling with anticipation. Would I ever be able to feel in such way again?