Bye bye sunny Brisbane...hello rainy Christchurch!

23rd April 2006 AD

The wedding flew by relatively quickly - I guess Shte1 and I know what it's like to get married now! It was a beautiful ceremony (more said on my other blog) and many people have commented to that end. I also certainly understand now when people say to cherish the time because it goes by so quickly!

After a mostly restful evening Shte1 and I finished our packing and was picked up by Brysie. Shte1 had left a pretty big list of instructions for Brysie to follow whilst we were away (he was house-sitting). Bags packed and off to the airport. I don't know why but a slight nervousness fell upon me as we were heading to the airport - it really did feel like Shte1 and I were *now* starting our lives together. What would the future hold? One can never be certain, but knowing that our good and perfect God is guiding us was very comforting.

We checked into the Brisbane International Airport at about 1:00pm giving us plenty of time to sit down and relax before boarding out 3:30pm flight to Christchurch. I used that time to muck around with the camera a little bit as well as do a little walk around the shops in the International Lounge. The BIA certainly is a small airport and nothing like the granduer I was kinda hoping to expect after seeing 'The Terminal'.

The plain ride was mostly uneventful. A +3 hour flight with a 'psuedo meal' (my new name for airline food!) and touch down into Christchurch their time 11:00pm (but to us it still felt like 9pm thanks to the time difference). Got through customs pretty easily and then went to the Thrifty stall to pick up our car. I had pre-booked a CCAR class (small-medium automatic) and was hoping to get a Mazda 3. Turns out we had a Toyota Corolla station wagon which was ok in the end (but a few days later we were thankful for the boot space).

Headed towards 'The Polars Apartments' close to the town centre to check in. Pretty nice place! And tired from the flight we headed to bed ready for our NZ adventure.

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24th April 2006AD

Shte 1 and I had previously decided to use this day primarily to do nothing. We stayed in lazed about and had room service. The day itself was rather rainy and Shte1 rather tired. So I took some of these snaps looking outside our apartment, during one of the quieter moments:

The view down the street facing south. Beautiful autumn leaves in bloom!

And here a view of the 'Poplars' for which the apartment block was so aptly named. The poplars run along side a river which I'm sure would have looked nicer in finer weather. It was a very nice apartment though!

I ducked out during the afternoon to the local supermarket as well to pick up groceries for the dinner we planned to make for ourselves (partly to save on costs). I entered into the store 'Countdown' store. The first thing I noticed was the liquor isle in which wines and beers could be purchased... there is nothing like this in Brisbane, Australia so it really surprised me to find it (though I have recently been told that Victoria and New South Wales have regulations for supermarkets to do so as well). It was a pleasant surprise, given that I have become a bit of a wine fan in recent years so I did have a short browse through to see what I could find. A nice mix of New Zealand wines as well as some imported from France and Australia!

Anyway, I picked up some things to make a curry chicken noodle dish and headed back. Tonight, however, we intended to go out to eat and I wanted to try out this Jap/Chinese place I noticed on my drive. SunnyGarden was it's name and Steph and I enjoyed a relatively nice meal. I've been craving good cheap Jap food ever since!

My Bento.

Shte1's Tempura Prawn Udon

Again, after a nice dinner we headed back to the comfort of our apartment to escape the cold rain.

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25th April 2006AD

Today we decided to hit the town. It was officially our second, and last, day before we headed off to Franz Josef. We drove around a little to find parking (which would become a regular thing in NZ - driving around for parking) and ventured into the cold windy city. Christchurch, I am told, is a beautiful city with nice architecture and a rich history. It's a pity the 'normal' New Zealand weather didn't put on a good show for us to fully appreciate all this city had to offer.

Christchurch is aptly named - a city full of Churches. Much like Adelaide, it's sister city. After a bit of touristy shopping (hmm...if you've been in one tourist shop, you've been in them all) we checked out the main Anglican Cathedral in Cathedral Square - Christchurch Cathedral. It was a gorgeous church, much like the look and feel of St Andrews Cathedral in Sydney. We purchased (or donated) a license to snap photos of the inside and I'm glad I did. It was amazing. Shte1 and I had a quick look around and discovered a prayer wall in which visitors would write down a short prayer and a prayer group would, during the week, take those prayers and pray them. There were some generic prayers for world peace, some cute prayers which seemed to be written by children and one which really encouraged us - someone who wanted the words of Philippians 2:10-11 prayed. Amen to that :)

But it wasn't before long that I discovered some of the sermon outlines and transcripts for people to take with them. I won't go into too much detail here but suffice to say I couldn't help but come away with the impression that the church was a bit liberal. Hmm...

An impressive and grand inside.

The mosaic window at the rear of the church.

Shte1 and I stopped at the church cafe afterwards for coffee and tea before we headed out onto the town again. Our search quickly moved from touristy gifts to bring back home, to finding an umbrella to keep us warm! We ended up in a little (big) shop called 'Farmers' which is very similar to our 'Myers'. There we not only found an umbrella but also a beanies and gloves - which came in very useful later in our trip.

A late lunch was had at a little Jap/Korean place called 'Mum's 24'. We ordered sushi and sashimi which wasn't too bad.

We then hopped onto the inner-city tram system for a short tour around the city. We got off at what we thought was the museum but only ended up being a funky little area with lots of little shops. Again, if it hadn't had been for the cold we may have enjoyed it a lot more!

Afterwards we headed back to the apartment (and realised that where we ended up parking was only 1 minute down the road from the place we were staying!), had a hot shower, cooked up dinner and watched 'Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events'.

Travel plans were then made for our trip to Franz Josef and we headed to bed early.

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Next: Franz Josef (glacier, quad-bikes, good food, nice view from the villa...)