Christchurch Saturday 2.2.08

Christchurch is a wonderful city. The second largest city in NZ, it is described as the most "English" and it is easy to see by its low-slung skyline that it is very different from the North Island big cities. We do the fruit and bars breaky thing in our room, Mary cranks out the laundry with minimal help and we head to town center to return the rental car. We patrol most of the retail area and spend some time in NOOD (New Objects of Desire) which is one of the concepts from a hot new retail entrepreneur in NZ. The store is electronics, kitchen stuff, leather goods, furniture, everything edgy and unfamiliar. We can understand the appeal.

We find the bar zone and the Tram mall and Cathedral Square and begin to have a pretty good feel for the city. There are Irish dancers, chess matches and a flea market going on in Cathedral Square that we saunter through on our way back towards the park for lunch. We stop at Ferment for a burger (with bacon, cheese, fried egg, beets, lettuce, tomato and mayo), fries, and a beer.

After lunch we happen upon the arts area around Worcester Street and there is an arts and crafts fair in full swing. Most of the emphasis is on Maori inspired paintings and jewelry with a sprinkling of soaps and home canned products. There is a jazzy group playing at one end as a musical backdrop. John sees the bratwurst stand with fried onions and sauerkraut and figures he could have skipped the burger and beer. Moving a little farther towards the park we pass the theater (The Producers) and find a courtyard where a Maori kid band, Tabu-Tabu, is performing. This really is shades of Hannah Montana with tons of screaming little kids who know the words to the songs. Most of the audience is Maori so that may have something to do with it. There is a Maori TV station here with local programming in the native language so many of the kids are probably catching these little stars at home. Interestingly enough one of the features on Maori TV is the NZ Breakers Basketball Team games starring Rick Rickert, formerly of the University of Minnesota.

We head back into the park through the botanical gardens that are in full bloom. There is a huge tree on one side of the path with a name tag on it, and when we check it out it says the scientific name is Sequoia something, but the common name is "big tree." No kidding. Our goal is the west bridge over the Avon River (English?) and we find that is our entré into the bowl and croquet pitches. First there are ten grass tennis courts, each as manicured as a top-notch putting green with a match on each. Then we find the bowls pitch manicured slightly better than the tennis courts and we watch some 80-somethings in a heated match. Then we move to the croquet lawn and lo and behold, the world croquet championships are taking place here and now. Unfortunately the early afternoon matches are just wrapping up and the next ones won’t start until later so we watch some of the big hitters working on their games. We check the line-ups and they really are from all over the world. Who knew?

We complete the walk across the park to our hotel so we can make a few phone calls and finish packing. The front desk guy recommended a couple restaurants nearby for dinner and we select Thai Orchid. It looks deserted when we approach but there are a few tables going inside. By the time we order the place is packed with locals so we decide it might be OK after all. We have an order of springrolls and John orders the green curry with chicken and Mary has the "64" which is some sort of chicken and mushroom stir fry and a double order of rice. All excellent. A little toddy with Kerri in the hotel bar to say goodbye to New Zealand, set the alarms for 3:00 AM and early to bed.

Today’s local headline: $250 million hole in the ground NZ Weekend Herald (A municipal Auckland construction project gone awry.