Christchurch
Hello blog!
Once again, I need to apologize for posting about Christchurch literally a week late! I have to confess that I’ve been quite lazy this past week, but only because Dunedin’s been giving us downright dreary weather. Everyday by 2pm its been overcast, rainy and cold here and all I want to do is drink tea and cuddle up on the couch with a movie. Hopefully this weekend brings better weather (fingers crossed).
Anyways…last weekend I made a trip up to Christchurch and it was one of my favorite weekends since I’ve been here in New Zealand! Since our friends Dylan and Amy were in Thailand all week, the Polly gang had been cut down to two: Me and Kaelin. The two of us decided to do something really fun with our weekend because we had the Polly Trolley all to ourselves (and duh we had to make Dylan and Amy jealous of all our cool adventures). Christchurch seemed like it’d be pretty chill so we booked an Airbnb and gathered a group of people to fill the car. Car passengers: Me, Kaelin, Ina, Adam, Sarah.
On Friday, the 26th of July, we left Dunedin in the Polly Trolley at 1:30pm and arrived in Christchurch at 6pm. It was a pretty easy drive up, listening to tunes and watching the coastline roll by. However, when we got to the Airbnb things got a little weird. The place we had booked turned out to be this tiny, one room garage with two bunk beds and a mini fridge. The room was also located in the backyard of the family who owns and rents out the Airbnb. When we arrived, the owner gave us keys to HIS OWN HOUSE and proceeded to tell us that we would need to go inside his family’s house and use their master bathroom for showering or using the toilet or anything. Essentially, the room we had booked was a room which had been renovated from a garage space into a small bedroom without a kitchen or bathroom. It was very weird and also not at all what had been listed on the Airbnb website (not cool man). But thankfully everyone in our group had a ‘go with the flow’ attitude and we decided this strange situation would be fine for the next two nights.
Although the owner had tricked us into this odd room situation, he did give us a great restaurant recommendation so I guess we can call it even. We had some amazing Thai Food for dinner and we all went home to hang out at our small garage bedroom for the rest of the night.
Side note: you can never properly estimate how awkward you’ll feel going into some strangers’ house to wash your face for bed, especially when they just stare at you while you make your way to the bathroom. I walked in and they were having a family movie night on the couch. Superrrr awkward experience.
On Saturday, we woke up early and went to a Farmer's Market in town. I’m not exaggerating when I say that this Farmer’s Market seemed like something out of The Truman Show (it was almost too good to be true). There were children laughing, people flying kites, old couples walking together, a small stream with baby ducks and amazing fresh food from each tent. We walked around for ages “just admiring the general splendor” (small pride and prejudice reference for my mom). I ate some pirogies and sat on a bench with my friends while we made a plan for the rest of the day. We decided to drive Polly to some nice hiking locations and take a picnic to eat at the top. We had to be back in time for the Maori cultural experience/bird tour that we had booked for the afternoon, but that wasn’t until 4pm so we had time to kill.
We did a series of hikes along the border of Christchurch - near the dormant volcano. It was a beautiful day, 60 degrees and sunny (how is this winter?!?). At the peak of the hike, we sat and enjoyed the views, got out our picnic food and had a lovely time. It was around 3 when we began to hike back down to the car. Before getting back into Polly to go to the Maori dinner and bird tour, we got ice cream at a cute little spot on the mountainside.
By 4:15pm, we had arrived at the bird sanctuary. I had been excited for this experience and the possibility of seeing a kiwi, but I wasn’t THAT excited. Little did I know that seeing a kiwi bird would be one of the freakiest and coolest things I’ve ever witnessed. We walked through the entire bird sanctuary and were able to see some amazing rare birds native to New Zealand, but when we saw the kiwi I flipped out. The kiwi bird is so weird looking that it almost seems fake. Especially when it walks around and you can see how large it is (about the size of a rooster) its very disorienting and cool.
After the bird tour, we went to our Maori cultural experience which was held at the same facility. We were able to learn more about Maori traditions, rituals, games, weapons, dances and various words and phrases popular in their language. Throughout the whole experience, the Maori people were so kind and seemed genuinely excited to be able to share a piece of their culture with us. It did not come across as touristy or fake - it seemed as though they purely excited to spread awareness and carry these traditions on through others. The evening ended with a four course meal cooked on hot coals in an underground pit. This method is referred to as a hangi and it is amazing. I even fell off the vegetarian wagon for a a couple hours just so I could taste the meat that had been cooking underground for the past 8 hours. It was so very tasty.
Another interesting tid bit: In between our entree and dessert, the Maori servers came out and asked if we wanted to feed the deer. We all obviously agreed (even though we were a bit confused) and went outside. We shook around a bucket of food and in 10 seconds there were about 35 deer running out of the forest towards us. It was one of the weirdest sights I have ever seen. Bu we fed the deer it was strangely awesome.
After dinner had concluded, we left and went back to our Airbnb and watched a movie before bed. Overall, it had been a packed day, full of cool experiences.
On Sunday, we woke up early and had breakfast at a small cafe. I drove Polly all the way home and picked Dylan and Amy up from the airport on the way back. We exchanged stories of our past week and they told us all about Thailand. When we arrived back on campus, I went straight to my room to work on my paper, which I had not worked on at all over the weekend (whoops).
Thanks for reading :) btw I finished my paper and turned it in on Tuesday! #proud #accomplished
