Hotel Off The Square Christchurch

Journal pour le vendredi 6 en soiree. En sortant de l'aeroport, la premiere chose qui m'a frappe, c'est la chaleur. Pas celle du Quebec en ete, quelque chose de plus profond, sec, je sais pas. Et l'odeur, la chaleur profonde a une odeur. Je me suis retrouve en un flash back a l'aeroport de Phoenix en Arizona. Les palmiers et les montagnes denudees au loin rendent la similitude encore plus grande. Et c'est quand tu mets le pied dans la rue que tu te rends vite compte que tu n'est pas en Arizon...

We arrived to Christchurch on the south island of New Zealand on a sunny but cold day. Last week Christchurch had suffered bad flooding that was expected to cost tens of millions of dollars to repair. So we were worried about how our visit would be, but it turned out to be just fine. Colder than Australia, but no flash flooding. Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island, but it's still quite charming. There's a large botanical garden with tons of joggers and bikers. There's also a ...

27/08/04 Leaving Hokitika early, our plan was to drive east along State Highway 73, through Arthur's Pass National Park dissecting the Southern Alps and on to Christchurch. Once in Christchurch we were to board the TranzAlpine train the following day for a return day trip back across the Southern Alps to Greymouth. That was the plan until we heard the weather forecast on the radio warning of heavy snow with the need for the dreaded snow chains. With a dicy 250km drive on the cards we put into...

Sunday 23 November, 9.38pm, Hotel Off The Square Oh dear. I have not been making the most of my time in Christchurch at all. After I checked in on Friday and sorted out my car parking space and stuff, I went for a little walk in the nearby streets, just to get the lay of the land. After about five minutes, I came across an off licence/"liquor store" (surprisingly thin on the ground, all things considered - most corner shops/"convenience stores" are not licensed). Bought a bottle of wine, came...

Monday 24 November, 11.15pm, my room Right. I have a question. If you were to hire a car, and with it, hire a satnav, wouldn't you think that the people who lent you the car would make sure that the power cable for the satnav WASN'T SOME DODGY NONSTANDARD VARIETY THAT DOESN'T WORK IN ALL THE CARS YOU RENT OUT?? Wouldn't you??? In some ways, today was a lovely day. I had a delicious dinner at Sticky Fingers. I enjoyed another Dark Cherry Mocha. I stood for a few minutes and listened to an Iris...

Wednesday 26 November, 11.01pm, room 7, Hotel Off The Square I moved into a new room today - the good folks at Hotel Off The Square (which is quite a sweet hotel, actually - it's madly trendy and full of this artwork that is just, to coin my new favourite phrase, punk as ****. It's actually the artwork that led me to dub the hotel as such) were not able to keep me in room 3, my former abode, and so have switched me to room 7 for the last two nights of my extended stay. It's not a problem - th...

Thursday 27 November, 11.07pm, my room Sigh. I thought that was too easy. It turns out the new satnav they gave me at Scotties had some charge in it, which is why it worked... for a while. When I took it back in today, they checked out the car properly, and it seems that my lighter socket is fubar'd. I have to take it in again tomorrow, whereupon they will swap me into a different car to go to Queenstown and Dunedin, then when I come back up through Christchurch, I will give their car back an...

We've arrived!!! The sun is shining but it has no warmth - the perfect winter sun that I love!!! We woke up this morning at 5am to catch our flight (which was delayed of course!). We're about to search for food - a veggie restaurant is close by I am lead to believe..... More after we eat!!! It's now 9pm NZ time. We are so far liking NZ time! We walked to Dux de Lux (cnr Montreal and and Hereford sts) a vegetarian (and seafood) restaurant/pub. It was fantastic. Nice and cozy and fantastic food...

Our first full day in Christchurch has been great! We slept in a little and made our way to the Lotus Heart Cafe. So far, every meal we've had here has been tastey and innovative! We didnt do too much today, just walked around the city, took photos and of course ate! We leave early in the morning for our trip to Greymouth through Arthur's Pass up in the snow - so that should be exciting!

more to come