Partially-Crushed Christchurch
(26th - 29th November)
We arrived in Christchurch in the early hours of Saturday morning, having set off from our hotel the previous morning. It's been 5 years since I was last in NZ and I didn't know what to expect, especially since the recent news of the Greymouth miners and the Christchurch earthquakes earlier in the year. I thought Christchurch had a lot of roadworks going on, until I realised that half of them were the aftermath of the earthquake. Apparently they have had many tremors since the big quake. I was impressed by one garage I saw though, they've made the most of a bad situation for their advertising. On the side of their premises is what I assume is a new slogan, "Shaken but not deterred!", and another picture next to it with a couple of guys, one of whom saying something along the lines of "Does my crack look big in this?" It made me chuckle anyhow. I was on a bus so I couldn't take a picture but you'll have to take my word for it that it was refreshing to see the Kiwi sense of humour had not been lost.
We only had a few days in Christchurch before we'd be picking up our home for 6 weeks, a converted people-carrier cunningly marketed as a sort of campervan (a Toyota), officially known as a 'Spaceship'. We therefore treated ourselves to a (cheap) hotel before we collected it. The reason the hotel was so cheap was because our room had no windows, but it had some amazing lighting that was supposed to have the effect of natural light. E.g. when the alarm went off, what actually happened was a 'sun light' came on a while before to wake you up gently, and then the TV turned itself on and supposedly you would wake up feeling refreshed at the time you'd set the alarm for. Well, the first night we didn't set the alarm because of our horrendous flight the night before. The 2nd day we switched the alarm off, discovering there was no snooze functionality, but the 3rd and final day we finally mastered it! Chris said he felt much more awake because of it. I couldn't say the same, but all the same it was an experience for a few days. I don't recommend staying any length of time with no windows though. Whilst it is quiet and you don't get woken up by the light, you also have no concept of the time and we slept through a whole morning or two thanks to it.
We also went to see a 'Battle of the Bands' type thing one evening in Christchurch. Apparently over 60 bands had entered the competition from across NZ and now only a handful of them were performing for the top spot. We only caught the last band but they were very good and we thought they deserved to win. Unfortunately they didn't, and the group that did appeared to be about 12 years old (ok, maybe 14 at a push)! We didn't get to see them perform, presumably because it was past their bedtimes when they collected the award. It was a free night of entertainment though, so can't complain!
We arrived in Christchurch in the early hours of Saturday morning, having set off from our hotel the previous morning. It's been 5 years since I was last in NZ and I didn't know what to expect, especially since the recent news of the Greymouth miners and the Christchurch earthquakes earlier in the year. I thought Christchurch had a lot of roadworks going on, until I realised that half of them were the aftermath of the earthquake. Apparently they have had many tremors since the big quake. I was impressed by one garage I saw though, they've made the most of a bad situation for their advertising. On the side of their premises is what I assume is a new slogan, "Shaken but not deterred!", and another picture next to it with a couple of guys, one of whom saying something along the lines of "Does my crack look big in this?" It made me chuckle anyhow. I was on a bus so I couldn't take a picture but you'll have to take my word for it that it was refreshing to see the Kiwi sense of humour had not been lost.
We only had a few days in Christchurch before we'd be picking up our home for 6 weeks, a converted people-carrier cunningly marketed as a sort of campervan (a Toyota), officially known as a 'Spaceship'. We therefore treated ourselves to a (cheap) hotel before we collected it. The reason the hotel was so cheap was because our room had no windows, but it had some amazing lighting that was supposed to have the effect of natural light. E.g. when the alarm went off, what actually happened was a 'sun light' came on a while before to wake you up gently, and then the TV turned itself on and supposedly you would wake up feeling refreshed at the time you'd set the alarm for. Well, the first night we didn't set the alarm because of our horrendous flight the night before. The 2nd day we switched the alarm off, discovering there was no snooze functionality, but the 3rd and final day we finally mastered it! Chris said he felt much more awake because of it. I couldn't say the same, but all the same it was an experience for a few days. I don't recommend staying any length of time with no windows though. Whilst it is quiet and you don't get woken up by the light, you also have no concept of the time and we slept through a whole morning or two thanks to it.
We also went to see a 'Battle of the Bands' type thing one evening in Christchurch. Apparently over 60 bands had entered the competition from across NZ and now only a handful of them were performing for the top spot. We only caught the last band but they were very good and we thought they deserved to win. Unfortunately they didn't, and the group that did appeared to be about 12 years old (ok, maybe 14 at a push)! We didn't get to see them perform, presumably because it was past their bedtimes when they collected the award. It was a free night of entertainment though, so can't complain!
posted by wobblepop at 6:33 am
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