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.