In Which Debbie cha-chas down to CHCH

 I seem to be covering parts of my holidays in reverse order. Very confusing.

In the ridiculously early parts of last Wednesday morning, Matt and I dragged ourselves out of bed, said goodbye to the cat* and headed off to Wellington Airport to go for a brief but fun-packed holiday to Christchurch.

I must note that due to my bad reactions to mornings I more stumbled along than cha-chaed, but I was cha-chaing on the inside. I like Christchurch - it is a very pretty city and Matt and I were going to visit his sister and her husband (Loo and Roo) and their house and cat. Woot for holidays.

Upon arrival in Christchurch we promptly found our transport and set about the business of finding breakfast. Christchurch city is quite civilised and tends not to bother being too busy at around 8am. We found the Yellow Rocket Bagel cafe next to the square and so we could eat deliciopus breakfast whilst watching the shops start to open and more and more people pass by as the city came to life. Yellow Rocket Bagel Cafe it an interesting eatery. You can pretty much get most different kinds of breakfasts provided you get it in, on or next to a bagel. I had my favourite banana, bacon and maple syrup on a french toasted bagel (very yummy) and Matt a a hearty serving of eggs, sausage and bacon decoratively arranged all over a bagel. The cappuccino was passable although the milk had been a little overheated. I would recommend their breakfasts to anyone provided they liked bagels.

As Christchurch is heavily populated with students, we noted that many of the book and gaming stores (which we eager to investigate) did not open until 10am. However, they were worth the wait and we spend a couple of very agreeable hours browsing around the shops before heading back to the Airport to pick up Matt's mum who was also heading to holiday in Christchurch.

We all met up with Loo and Roo at around lunchtime and after some brief refreshment and more shopping went to their nice home in New Brighton. A very nice house which has been fairly recently painted and spruced up a bit by its new owners. We had seen photos of its previous decor and it was cool to see how much of an improvement redecorating can make. It was kind of like watching one of those Hot Property type shows were they make-over the house, only without watching the painting or redecorating process. It made me eager to try and redecorate a place and make it look cool and trendy. This is a danger when I only see the awesome results, not the hours of work. Still the owning of and make-overising a house seems a drool-worthy prospect. Pretty houses...

We ate delicious Thai food from a place (cannot remember the name unfortunately) and later in the evening went out to Denny's (yet another distinctly Christchurchian experience for me) for yummy hot fudge sundaes and oreo milkshakes to celebrate Roo's birthday with family and youth group. It was a most enjoyable experience only slightly marred by...

Disturbing fishy behaviour. Whilst waiting for a table I was watching the fish tank. They had goldfish and googley eye fishes which seemed to be innocently swimming about in their tank. Unfortunately, one fat looking goldfish kept rising to the surface and seemed to be badly constipated. A smaller goldfish swam up close to the bigger fish and... For the sake of the gentle-minded or weak-stomached readers, I shall not divulge what happened next but needless to say had even the Marquis de Sade been observing those fish at Denny's he would have felt a little queasy. It took me a while to regain my appetite.

On our second day, we ventured off to the new art gallery after a fortifying breakfast. The Gallery was very interesting - it particularly stands out in design as a modern glass building contrasts quite nicely with the stately old buildings of Christchurch.

The older collections were stunning but modern installations were less than impressive. I started to believe I was one didn't like Modern Art, however there was one very evocative Prison themed installation that I thought was immensely cool. I realise I do like Modern Art just not bad Modern Art.

Anything where you have to read a page of commentary before you have any idea what is supposed to be about is probably not very good.

We then went to the Arts centre which I love and I bought entirely too much Fudge. Hmm, fudge.

After a delicious lunch (I had Spinach and Ricotta lasagne at Le Cafe which was fantastic) we did some more shopping and bowling. After a brief rest at home, we had some excellent food at San Pan restaurant (a great mix of Korean/Malysian/Thai food) and played a couple fo games of pool before heading back to the Airport at the end of Christchurch fun.

Unfortunately, the plane was delayed so we had one of those "waiting around at a crowded gate" airport experiences which did at least afford plenty of time to read.

The plane trip back was bumpy at best and there were a couple of "arrgh, the plane's dropping out of the sky and we're going to plunge to our deaths" moments. Although Matt claims it was not so bad. I seem to be getting more sensitive to turbulence as I get older. I used to love flying.

We arrived back in Wellington late that night. My Mum picked us up at the airport and the cat was pleased to see us when we returned.

All in all, an excellent trip. Much fun and delicious food, it was great getting to catch up with folks as well and see the place they live in and their lovely cute cat Simba.


* We went down to my parents' place with Austen (cat) on Tuesday so as to spend a night with the cat to help her adjust to her holiday. Austie dealt with her couple of days at her Grandparents' place with great equanimity** but was not particularly impressed by the car trip. She didn't mind being in her cat carrier but she was displeased with the moving car. Her complaints during the trip varied between plaintive meows and angry feline expletives directed at us whenever we went over a bump in the road. Matt did his best to go slowly and carefully over speed humps and around corners to avoid displeasing the cat further.

** She mostly slept, smooched my Mum and demanded food. On one occasion, whilst the dog was gone from the house, she ventured out of her upstairs quarters and explored a bit.