It was summer in New Zealand and the sunset at 9pm. Since we still have a few hours of sunshine, we bade farewell to our hosts and we were off to explore the city on foot. The Addington suburb is quite plain. While walking towards the city, we did stop by a few motels/hostels to see if there would be vacancy for the following night. Unfortunately, everywhere either fully booked or they were too expensive. Before going to NZ, of course I did research on backpacker's hostel and one of the top rated hostels is Jailhouse Hostel. From the website, the place seems full of character and quite close to town but the room rate is off the roof! (no pun intended. ;p). Interestingly enough, we came across the hostel on our way to the city and decided to take a look around.
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| As the name suggests, it was a former prison converted to hostel. |
The place looks decent and we tried our luck for vacancy but we were turned down. Honestly, we didn't see that much people at the viccinity. Ok. Maybe because it was 5 o'clock and Kiwis rather be in their house at that hour (really? Solely my assumption. hihi), but come on! It didn't look like Christchurch was full of tourists or anything. Weird.
We continued our journey to the city, our destination was Hagley Park. From the Google Map, it was the nearest park to Addington so I thought it would be a short walk from our lodging however, it took us half an hour to get there. Phew. Once we got there, my fatigue immediately vanished. It was everything I imagined a park in a 4-season country would be. Big trees, benches, green grass, a lot of sunshine. BEAUTIFUL. :)
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| Such a pretty tree. LOVE IT! |
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| Faiza, my travel buddy. |
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| One chap going barefoot in the park. Hipster? Thihihi. |
We walked through the park and somehow we ended up in Christchurch Botanics Garden. I didn't know the parks were next to each other. Hahaha. I planned to visit this park later but since we ended up there by chance, might as well take in the stunning view. During the flight, I read in AA's magazine that a flower festival was going to be held in Christchurch Botanics Garden on the 17th. Well, we stumbled upon the park on the 16th but the flowers were already spectacular. Summer in NZ is awesome! :)
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| My favourite colour. Lovely. |
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| The abundance of ducks in the park. Extremely tame. Was literally charged at as soon as I sit by the river bank. They must be famished. |
I swear I want to post more photos but Blogger is being difficult at the moment. Urghh.. Apologies. More pictures in the next post. Pinky promise. Heeee..
After spending some time at the park, it was getting darker so we made our way back to Addington. On the way back, we stopped by a Chinese joint that sells fish and chips. I KNOW. Chinese + fish and chips? But it was the most decent place that sells fish and I bought the fish and chips for $4. CHEAP! The portion was gigantic and I didn't even finish the french fries. The taste? It definitely tasted like a four-dollar-fish-and-chips. If you know what I mean. ;p
One thing I have to state here. The weather during the day was excellent. Very sunny and just a bit on the chilly side. When night set in, the weather did a 180°. Brrr..
We went home and L, J and A's roommate, was home and let us in. Both J and A went out. J worked the night shift at a bakery, A returned to her parents' place for a family dinner and L works in the same bakery as J's and he's doing his apprenticeship there. L was very sweet. He was playing video game on the tv when we came in but he switched his game off and asked us if we want to watch a particular movie. I objected to LOTR since I had spent 11 hours of my life watching the extended version back in Malaysia, just the week before. We ended up watching the animation movie, Monsters vs Aliens together while I had my dinner in front of the tv. I must say, it's a bit awkward watching the movie with a stranger, in his house. HAHAHA! While watching the movie, A came home and joined us. I asked her if there's any interesting place in Christchurch that we should visit and she suggested Willowbank Wildlife Reserve. That's how we decided our itinerary for the next day. Easy-peasy. :)
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