Touristy Day

Spent the day walking around central Christchurch.

Caught a ride with Andrew from Diamond Harbour to Lincoln University. Caught the 81 bus into town.

The place is a bit bewildering to the newbie at first - lots of commercial buildings with few landmarks. But then I realized that everything here was organized around Cathedral Square, and keeping that in mind, everything else seemed to fall into place.

Changed some money (USA into NZ, at ripoff bank rates). Currently, given the collapse of the NZ dollar against the USA dollar, it's an American shopping paradise. The American dollar buys 75% more than it did just five months ago. Who knows where it will be five months from now, but it looks like I timed my visit perfectly!

Ventured into the Cathedral. Blogged. Shopped. Strolled the botanical gardens.

I caught the tail end of a speech regarding women's liberation by a silly man in a witch's hat (a southern hemisphere version of Albus Dumbledore). He was selling a favorite tourist item (a map of the world, upside down, giving place of prominence to New Zealand). I didn't pay $5 to him, or to the Caribbean musician singing about buffalo soldiers, but I did to the earnest teenage girl playing the bagpipes.

I stopped to eat the luncheon special at 'The Carvery' and got crushed with food (I liked the generosity, but please!) Noticing the gulls and ducks outside, waddling along the nearby slow-moving Avon River and coming up to the restaurant for scraps, I absconded with some chicken leftovers and found a quiet place to feed them, where few passersby would complain. At first, just one attentive duck followed me, tyring to guess my intentions, but once I whipped out the chicken, in an instant, I had more than a dozen birds trying to be my very best friend, including two ducklings. Needless to say, the chicken didn't last long.

At one point, I saw a two-man TV One news crew waylaying passersby in Cathedral Square. I asked them what they were doing:

TV 1: You're not local are you?
MPV: No, but what are you asking people?
TV 1: "Given the pressure of the world's economic collapse, are you changing your Christmas shopping plans?"
MPV: Well, I flew to New Zealand.
TV 1: (Laughter).

And most importantly, the Court Theater, apparently the only fully professional theater in the area, is doing "La Cage aux Folles". I hope to catch that show Thursday night!