Christchurch

We made it to New Zealand! Steve and I are very glad to be here. We really enjoyed Thailand but I think I was done seeing old white guys with a bunch of Thai women and being asked if I want a Tuk Tuk or want to go to Big Buddha.

New Zealand is beautiful! However...Christchurch is really, sad. I don't think I expected the earthquake damage to be SO widespread. It is crazy. It also looks as though it just happened because nothing is really cleaned up and it was 7 months ago. We stayed at The Old Country House and it was really nice. It was on the East side of the city so we were separated from everything by the city being blocked off. It is very eerie to walk by everything, there are stores that still have everything inside of them, like time just stopped, because no one can enter them.

So we didn't spend much time in Christchurch, we rented a car and went up to Kaikoura where they have a lot of whale watching. We walked around the town and had lunch on the beach, it is so pretty there! We also had heard about a waterfall that has a pool with seal pups who go up there to swim. It was so cool! There were only 2 seal pups up there and the rest were down with the mama seals "exploring". There are the most pups during the winter months. It was really neat and not crowded at all. The seal pups were just laying back and lounging in the pool. We had a really nice day in Kaikoura. We came back and there was a group of Irish who had moved into our dorm room. They were pretty awesome. They all work in Auckland and have been going to all the Ireland games for the world cup. We saw a couple of them after the game in Dunedin too!

The second say we walked a lot. We dropped off our rental car and tried to go to a supposed farmers market. It was nowhere to be found. So we walked back and saw the side of the city that is still pretty active and has stores and people around. It was cool. We went through a park and they had a whole tribute to rugby thing going on. It's so cool being here during the world cup! Everyone is excited and you get to meet so many people!

I wish I could have seen Christchurch before the earthquake...it seems like it was a really cool city.