Downtown Christchurch in 2015

We wandered around downtown Christchurch on Sunday.  Lots of damaged buildings remain from the 2010-11 earthquakes, and open spaces exist where structures once stood.  A number of buildings have been repaired, and some new buildings have been constructed.  We also saw some building fronts that are protected with stacks of empty shipping containers - these remains will be used as historical fronts for new construction yet to come.

Since a number of surviving buildings had open side or back walls after neighboring structures were torn down, a number of murals were commissioned by the art museum, by the ministry for culture and heritage or by other art supporters and projects.  Here is just a sample (if you want to view the slideshow again, don't click on the arrow at the end of the slide show, but rather refresh the web page at the top.)



Even some of the park benches have been creatively repainted.

We stopped at the small downtown farmers and craft market, where we talked to the resident wizard.  He has been the wizard of New Zealand for over 40 years and the art gallery has declared him an authentic living work of art. 

We watched some hula hoop artists and some locals.

An arts space dance mat is out in the open, on the edge of a parking lot - you put a $2 coin in a laundromat-style washing machine and it amplifies music played on your phone/iPod. We put in $2 to start it so we could dance, but it was out of order.

So, we headed to the C-1 Cafe where we got a lamington (which we got to inject with raspberry filling) and hot chocolate.

Road work & Lyttelton

It’s winter in Christchurch, but a few flowers continue to bloom.

We live on Waimairi Road which is quite busy, having almost continuous car traffic that generally doesn't stop for pedestrians.  Students who are taking education classes need to cross from the regular U of Canterbury side of the road to the Dovedale side, and Paul needs to cross the other way to get to the computer science building.  Recently someone had the good idea to put in lights so pedestrians could cross without risking their lives.  Work has been going on since we arrived and good progress is being made.  Sidewalks here are made of asphalt; one of the photos shows a worker flattening the new asphalt with a roller.

Paul crossing Waimairi Road

Thursday we took the city bus to the harbour city of Lyttelton, a suburb in the hills on the outskirts of Christchurch.  Many Lyttelton buildings were badly damaged in the 2010-2011 earthquakes.  Now buildings have been torn down and a few new ones built.  Years ago, an old church had been moved to another city.  That original church has been returned to replace a destroyed church.  Apparently no working toilets are inside the church, but instead mobile porta potties are provided.

Note the web site name at the bottom

We didn’t go to the All Blacks vs Argentina rugby game last night (it was sold out even if we had wanted tickets).  Instead we reconnected with friends at Farandol International Folk Dancing.

Saturday we walked to the Riccarton Farmer’s Market which has lots of prepared foods, baked goods, flowers, meat, cheese, beer and of course fruits and veggies.  The Bacon Bros. truck staff was busy making breakfast for customers.

Two Nights in the City

We enjoy finding different things to do when we’re in a new place, and had two interesting evenings this week.

Sunday night, we met our friends Tim and Judith at the CBD Bar and Pizzaria.  Tim and Judith are both musicians (in addition to their respective day jobs as computer science professor and music teacher), and they were hosting five jazz musicians from Wellington at their house.  The musicians were performing at the CBD Bar under the name “The Ghost Chorus”, and we enjoyed listening to their variety of jazz music.  We talked to their lead singer, a woman who is originally from Vermont and has lived in northern Wisconsin – small world.

On the way home, the four of us stopped at the Hagley Park Botanical Gardens.  While nothing was blooming, the gardens were hosting a five-day event called “Night of D’Light”, where various lights, including laser lights, were being used to illuminate the gardens and structures.  The many displays were whimsical, interesting, and were overall quite impressive. The photos below are from Tim and Judith Bell.

On Wednesday night we attended a very different event called Pechakucha Christchurch, which was held at the University of Canterbury Student Association events centre.  Pechakucha is a presentation format started in Japan where speakers have 20 photo slides shown for 20 seconds each, and each speaker tells a story focusing on something they’re passionate about using their slides as a background.  We heard ten speakers, ranging from students to university staff, talking about everything from the benefits of organic cotton to why volunteerism is selfish.  The presentations varied in quality, but all had some nugget of information and interest, and a few were outstanding in terms of being both entertaining and thought-provoking.  There will be another Pechakucha in Christchurch before we leave, and we’re planning to return.  Pechakucha is now in 800 cities around the world.  If you’re interested in more information, check out http://www.pechakucha.org/ .

First Days In Christchurch

We arrived in Christchurch on Friday, July 10th, and were picked up by our friend Tim Bell, who took us to our house near the University.  It's a nice large house with plenty of space for us, though it's a bit of a shock going from 75-80 Fahrenheit in Wisconsin to nights here in Christchurch that dip below freezing.

Cindy in front of our house on Waimairi Rd.

Frosty leaves in our back yard

Paul seeing his breath this morning

The layout of our house is quite interesting.  We have to go through 5 closed doors from the bedroom to the toilet, which is located in a room at the back of the house with permanently open glass window slates.  The result is that the toilet room is almost as cold as the outside (and it got down to 27 Fahrenheit last night).  We just pretend we're camping.  It is difficult to get up out of a warm bed, trudge all the way through the cold house (no central heating here) and have a rude awakening sitting on the cold seat.We found out that many homes in New Zealand have toilets this way - in older times outhouses were out back, and when toilets were added to houses, somehow builders thought they should continue to be separated.

By the way, our house does have two extra bedrooms.  If anyone wants to visit in the next four months, let us know!  We'd love to have company.


Paul is settling into to his office in the Erskine building at the University of Canterbury.  Last time we were here, about twenty faculty shared one large office due to half of the building being closed because of earthquake damage.  Now the offices are repaired, and everyone, including this visitor, gets their own space.  There's still construction and repair work going on, however - notice the crane behind the tree in the reflection in the window below.