New Zealand - Christchurch - Best Sign Ever and Free Day

"Attention customers... we would like to inform you that our business will not be participating in the recession."

-Barbershop, Manchester St.

Fantastic.


Leaving Dunedin was bittersweet. With my flight to Australia impending (in less than a week!), lots of ground to cover, and increasingly cold rainy weather arriving, it was time to get on the move again. It was sad to leave Mike and Ashley - staying with them was a) super fun b) delicious (shout out to Ashley's Chicken Parmesan especially!) and c) did I already mention super fun?

I am once again rocking the buses. I left bright and early Wednesday morning on the six hour bus to Christchurch. The drive was especially nice around Timaru, which has a beautiful stretch of coastline. Christchurch itself was pretty nice - I only had two days there and could have done more. I spent the first day shopping for groceries and enrapt in some fabulous second hand bookstores. No surprises that after this I spent the evenings enrapt in a good book. My hostel was pretty sweet - it had a community herb garden, excellent showers and a pool!

My second day I ran around to the listed must-see tourist attractions. First up was the Arts Centre, which literally felt like a beehive of creative activity. The winding halls of rooms with everything from carpentry to glass-blowing to painting to ballet were really impressive. Afterwards I wandered over to the art gallery, where I perused the work of Rita Angus, a pacifist NZ painter who protested WWII, and the contemporary art exhibits.




When I felt I'd used up my enthusiasm for art, I ambled around the Botanic Gardens (are there any cities in NZ without these?) until I found myself in the Canterbury Museum, where I learned about the extinct moa (wingless giant ostrich), the existence of the shark-toothed dolphin and 2m clams in prehistoric times, and about the discovery of Antarctica. Poor Scott, who died on the expedition, was a month behind the Norwegian who got the credit.

I then explored the market stalls in Cathedral Square and popped into the Christchurch cathedral, the centre of town. It was quite a pretty church and merges different Maori, Polynesian and European influences into its design, but I probably wouldn't have liked it half as much without the choir singing in the background (they were rehearsing for evensong later that night).

Not a bad day's work all in all.

Did I mention every activity I did that day was free? Nice.