Christchurch Day 68 and 69
Trip Start
May 20, 2009
1
51
191
Trip End
Dec 22, 2009
Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Today I got on the bus to Christchurch. It was a long day ahead. On the way we stopped off for a couple of snack breaks and to stop at Lake Pukaki where we could see Mt Cook in the distance, looking across from the lake. The whole mountainside surrounding the lake was spectacular, all were covered in snow and many of the peaks reach above 3000m high! For the remainder of the bus journey we watched the television in the Kiwi Bus, on the way to Christchurch we got stopped by a herd of cows in the road, which was interesting. After I checked in I met up with Peach, Lloyd, Lucy and Chanelle. I was quite pleased to see some familiar faces and we caught up with what everyone had been up to. We went for a chinese, with James and Lloyd being somewhat disappointed with their meals (lol), I enjoyed my gorgeous prawn curry. We took the local bus to Pak 'N' Save and got some cheap booze and played some drinking games back at the hostel. After we went out to a couple of bars and played some pool and chilled out and we sort of said our goodbyes (the girls ran off, lol). Hopefully i will meet up with Lloyd and Peach in Thailand or Oz (going to extend my stay to a month now).
Day 69
Today I went out to explore the city of Christchurch. It is really nice to walk around, as the old buildings have fantastic looking architecture, especially the cathedral. I went inside, it looked pretty impressive and was rather expansive, although not to different from anything in the UK. I got a couple of cool pics of the large vase sculpture next to the cathedral, it looks brilliant. Christchurch has a lot of museums,art galleries and history so there is plenty of things to check out. Afer wandering around some streets for a while, doing some exploring, I headed off to a exhibition/art gallery place called "our space". It was a bit boring with not a great deal of interesting exhibits. Next was the impressive and contemporary Christchurch Art Gallery. There was some really fascinating and querky contemporary artworks here, such as the 'peep hole', where you can see through the hole, and an alien hanging on the wall, and other weird/different artworks. I then went to the galleries and shops section of the 'Arts centre' where they had a lot of arts/crafts shops that you were able to wander through. I did manage to pack quite a few activities into the day. Other highlights today included the outdoor gallery donated by the dyslexic foundation. This had some cool statues and talking seats which told the stories of people suffering from dyslexia, very informative. The whole street is rather long and seems to be the main cultural/historical hub of the city. I started the beginning of the 'Arts Centre', but it closed so I will have to check it out another day. In the evening I chilled out, dossing around, watching movies (trying to keep my spending to a minimum)) and having frustration trying to backup my photos. I haven't made any friends yet, although most people are only in Christchurch for a short while, as many fly from here. I'm a bit down about being on my own again, but optimistic and excited about going to Australia!!
