Getting To Know Christchurch

As well as applying for jobs, we have explored a bit of the city, and get handy tips from the people we meet along the way. There are multiple Pac n Save's, some smaller than others. The same with The Warehouse.

The Japanese ramen place we have been to a few times before is still just as good as it was, but the prices have gone up. The food courts in the mall serve roughly the same food as in Dunedin, and seem to have increased a few dollars. Outside of that we tried a local sushi place called Mugan which is only open during daylight hours. That was pretty good to be honest. Very fresh sushi.

The Botanic Gardens is nice. We only visited one time so far, but we have been to Riccarton Bush about 3 times. There is an amazing cafe there which is actually in the ground floor of an old stately building called Riccarton House. There is also a small enclosed sanctuary there with a predator fence. I have no idea how well kept it is from predators, but all that is in there are city pigeons, blackbirds and a few fantails. Its still nice walking around it. Outside of this is a nice garden, with small pockets of bluebells dotted around and emerging cherry blossom trees. There was an old woman who stopped us for a chat on our first visit. Nattering Nana she called herself. She was a nice lady who wanted to talk about all sorts of things. She lived up to her name. lol. Even though she talked for ages, we didn't mind. We contributed to the conversation. It was actually pretty nice to be honest.

The AirBnB provides some DVDs for us to watch, so we have been doing so.

On Saturday we visited a German cafe, where we each had a leberkase sandwich. After that we visited Jellie Park for a walk around, where there was a lake and ducks. They also have frisbee golf here for free which seems like a cool thing to do one day. We also inquired at the swimming pool that was there just to get accustomed to membership fees etc.

A leberkase sandwich, something I didn't think I would see in New Zealand

On Sunday we had a lovely 'ploughmans' lunch at Riccarton House. Don't get me wrong, it was nice, but alas no Branston Pickle. NZ doesn't really know about the Branston flavoured pickle. I don't care about the knock offs, they are all the same in my opinion. But its very hard finding it out here. Eating here is very much like taking a step back in time, kinda like eating in a National Trust property, but better, and quieter.

After that we decided on the fly to drive to Akaroa for the afternoon, as you do. The drive is spectacular, and the seaside village is a bit touristy but still a bit of fun. We had real fruit ice creams. I had the boysenberry flavour, Sabine had the banana. Hers was strangely better. Mine was more like a generic berry flavour, sadly. No photos nor videos were taken of this afternoon excursion. The weather was glorious. I wonder how busy it would have been if there was international tourists around? It made me think about how things would have been in say the 1980s when I was living here as a kid.

On Monday we visited the cats for the last time with all three of them together. Calcifer and Hermione will have new owners to another young couple.

The last ever photo of the 3 cats together

Today we looked at registering with GP's. Mioni is eligible to be seen by Plunket, a NZ child organisation which I think is a bit like the baby health care visitors from the UK. So that's good. We still need to register her with a GP.