Rain rain go away............

It is almost 9am here, and I am yawning over my coffee and the keys trying to wake up. We really have no choice in waking up early around here. One, we spend a lot of time outside in the fresh air, which has us passing out early, but aside from that the road outside apparently is a busy one during work hours. I wouldn't have thought a beach road so far from the central city would be so busy or that such a rather quiet culture would have such noisy cars but it is and they do. So while we can enjoy the lovely sounds of the surf much of the time, mornings are filled with the rumble and zoom of the Christchurch populace going about their business day. Greg is so not impressed and is actively hunting for a louder fan to drown out the sound.

The weather hasn't been quite as expected either. We have this rather lousy luck with weather when we travel. In the Caribbean, it rained, in Florida it rained, in DC it rained, San Francisco, yes you guessed it, rain. Apparently they are having an off season this year down here, El Nino effects, so the weather isn't as warm and sunny as expected and even the locals are unimpressed. So we try and take advantage of the good days as they come and try not to let the overcast and drizzle slow us down too much. Aside from those few things all is good though.

We had planned on venturing out to Orana Wildlife Park yesterday, which according to their website has a shuttle that departs from Cathedral Square in the morning. So we all got up early, no challenge there, and hopped the metro downtown. Of course, its dreary out, but suppose to burn off by early afternoon, so we decide to go anyways. Imagine our surprise when we get there to find out that the cost of the shuttle to get there was more then the actual admission fee to the park itself. Ridiculous! Now I do really want to go to this park. I have had the worst luck with attempting to visit zoos and the like on all our trips. But it just wasn't worth it to pay so much on such a wet, gray day. So we wandered around the square and found something else to do. First stop, the visitor center where we picked up scads of pamphlets and fliers for things to see and do locally and all over the South Island. Then it was off to the Southern Encounter Aquarium & Kiwi House. We definitely enjoyed viewing the marine life. Celia's favorite was the octopus and we spent much time watching it artfully glide across the tank with it's many suction cupped arms. I loved the sting ray, watching it glide gracefully through the water is amazing and definitely inspirational for drawing. Greg liked the sharks, but seemed to enjoy taking in all the marine life in general. We didn't get to see the Kiwi birds though because the female has just laid an egg, so she was chilling and the male was baby sitting. Unfortunately it was pretty dim in there, so we couldn't really take any pictures.

 

  

After the aquarium we wandered around the square a while and decided to check out Christchurch Cathedral.  As one often finds with Catholic churches, it was very beautiful and ornate and best described in pictures. 

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

After walking around all morning we decided to grab some lunch then head back to the beach house. We found a Burger King and decided to see if it tasted like home, or a bit off like so many other things do here. I swear Kiwi's have no taste buds, the food here is so flat. But BK did not fail us, so below is our over priced ($35 NZD) but very tasty BK meal. Cheers! :)

  

Behind on updates....

Yes, I am already falling behind on updates. We're so very busy here that when we get back I'm half asleep! But we're having a good time and taking pictures as we go (mostly thanks to Greg's diligence..thanks hunny!). So I will post some pics and commentary for a quick update and do some more in depth posting a bit later on. Cheers!

On Sunday we ventured downtown to get our Metrocards for the bus and visit the downtown area and Art Centre.

 

The Art Centre features an open market every weekend with local artisans and crafts people.

 
 

  

  

  

  

  

  

This morning, Tuesday, Greg went to his first beach Tai Chi class. Very groovy!

 
 

 

On Saturday we woke up early to the sounds of dozens cars and people arriving across the street at the South Brighton Surf Club. We wandered over and discovered that they were having the New Brighton Water Festival which featured surfing competitions all weekend long. A couple blocks up the beach there is the New Brighton Mall, which is an open air plaza with a wide variety of shops and cafes. Upon wandering there to see about some groceries and scoping out the local shops we had another pleasant surprise when we found that they were having a street market and festival. 

Apparently Saturday Feb 6th is a national holiday. According to Wiki, "Waitangi Day commemorates a significant day in the history of New Zealand. It is a public holiday held each year on 6 February to celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand's founding document, on that date in 1840. The Treaty made New Zealand a part of the British Empire, guaranteed Maori rights to their land and gave Māori the rights of British subjects."

So we wandered around a bit checking out the vendors, enjoyed some ragtime like live music and chatted with some local craftsmen. Here are some pics we took....

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

 

Kia Ora! Greetings from Kiwi-land!

We have arrived!

We landed in Christchurch after over 24 hours of traveling at 8:30 am yesterday. First off I have to say that one, this place is as breathtakingly beautiful as everyone says and two, the people are very friendly. We took a cab to our rental at the beach and arrived only to find that the keys were not in the lock box as promised. As you can imagine this caused a bit of a panic, but our cabbie, a wonderful Maori guy named Mike, stuck around and let us use his phone to call back to the states to talk to our landlord. Apparently the previous tenant didn't leave the keys but the land lord sent over her cleaning lady asap and we were in business. So much thanks to Mike the cabbie for all his kind help and information, it made us feel very welcome here.

The house is cute and quirky. Celia and Greg were a bit hesitant about it, but after we got our stuff in and settled down we went across the road to the beach and then they were sold on the house choice. New Brighton beach is stunning. A broad expanse of open beach and rolling waves surrounded by distance hills. We played on the beach a while. Celia and I wandering around to find interesting sea shells and Greg went right for the water. I can't explain how wonderful it felt after all we endured for the last two years to see him out there in the surf, happy and playing in the waves. Much gratitude to G-d for granting us this time in paradise and seeing us through to get here. Greg's back held up wonderfully during the trip and we are all doing very good. 

After playing at the beach we came back to the house for a while before heading out again to see what resources were near by. Celia and I ventured out to the shopping center a few blocks from here but some one should have warned us about how deceptively strong the Kiwi sun is. Our northern winter fair skin is nice and red with sun burn from our afternoon wanderings and we will not be going out with sunblock from here on out. Aside from looking a bit fried, we had a successful venture out having found a variety of stores, including a good grocery, some familiar food like Dominos and Subway. We returned to the house with pizza and a pre-paid cell for use here and a decent idea of where bus stops and stores are. Unfortunately the internet here didn't work at all yesterday but I woke up at 6am, a lovely side effect of jet lag, to the pleasant surprise of working internet this morning. So I am guessing our internet access from the house will probably be dependent on user traffic and time of the day, so I might be keeping some strange hours to get access. That's ok though, as long as we can get access it's all good. 

Some of our first impressions of Christchurch: 1) it's beautiful, lovely plants and flowers abound, the weather is fairly nice, somewhat damp in the morning, warm and sunny in the afternoon though, and the ocean is quite breezy, 2) the people are fairly friendly and helpful, but very quiet and soft spoken. Even in the shopping plaza with people all over it was pretty quiet. 3) Prices at the dairy (what they call convenience stores) are pretty outrageous and we all decided to try our best not to shop there unless absolutely necessary. We'll be fully scoping out the grocery store later today. 

 Its a strange feeling to be so far away from home, to know you are on the other side of the world, but still see so much that is familiar of home, like food places, tv shows and just life in general. Similar but strange all at the same time. But over all, we are very happy and grateful to be here. We are finding solutions to problems as we encounter them and are grateful to all the help and good luck, which I really think is a lot of G-d looking our for us, that we have had so far. I feel good about being here and think it will be a wonderfully enriching experience for us as a family and as individuals.

I will be posting up some pictures in a little while. It really is visually stunning here and I can't wait to get some art supplies so I can start capturing some of the amazing things I've seen. I've never been big on nature art but everything here so captivates me visually that I think that will change here.

Much love to everyone back home - Kelly

Last Day

It's 8:50 am, Monday Feb 1st. Everything in the house is pretty much packed up and most of the cleaning is done. This is our last day in this house that we have spent a little over four years in. And its been an interesting and full four years. From these walls I really got my illustration career off the ground, Greg earned his master's degree and Celia transitioned from child to teen. We learned to be a family here. Sometimes weren't so great, like the medical issues, but other times, like getting engaged, were golden. But the time has come to move on. When we return from our adventure abroad we will be continuing on in this new chapter, moving to a new home or perhaps two depending on how Greg's career pursuits go. This transition has been emotional on all of us but in time I think the growth we gain will be worth it. 

I don't know what the future holds but I hope it is good things. This morning my kabbalah email emphasized certainty, to quote...To see real miracles occur, shut down doubts when seemingly insurmountable obstacles confront you. Shift your focus away from outcomes.... And while the idea of possible events that may seem like insurmountable obstacles makes me a bit nervous, i will do my best to remember that everything will turn out ok and all will be as it should be.