Slept in a bit this morning, which was lovely. After a leisurely wake-up Sarah W., Fran, and I headed out to Science Alive!, the hands-on science museum. It was a longer walk than anticipated, but we definitely saw some non-touristy parts of Christchurch. Actually the walk was only about 20 minutes, but it seemed longer. The weather was grey and spitting, but it cleared up nicely.
We were some of the only people in the museum, so the attendants were very frequently asking up if we had any questions. I think the were bored. One girls who worked there was from Timmins, ON, working abroad for a while. We played with the exhibits and the Sarah went off to find lunch and Fran and I played a round of glow-in-the-dark minigolf. Well, we messed around with the balls and clubs, but I don't think what we were doing in any way involved golf of any sort. Good thing we were the only ones on the course. After whacking the golf balls around, we heading back upstairs to play on the vertical slide (the largest one on the South Island). It was pretty scary and lots of fun. It's like a mini Drop of Doom, and it's just you and a wooly blanket going down the drop.
After the slide we climbed the climbing wall. I decided to put my sandals on because climbing walls in bare feet sucks. I made it though the easy and medium walls, and fell off the hard wall. Fran, who was just climbing in bare feet, found it too painful to get to the top. When we were done sliding and spinning (unfortunately the human gyroscope was out of order) we wandered back downtown. I stopped in at the Air New Zealand office and Fran carried on. I found out later that she got back to the hostel and realized that she had left her key at the museum, so had to walk all the way back to get it. I carried on to Cathedral Square and browsed the market - I bought a "magic" hair clip and one of the skirts I'd been eyeing the day before. There was latin dancing in the square, and I sat and watched Kenneth Lightfoot, a street magician. His show culminated in him throwing a playing card on the roof of the information centre (very high up).
Then onwards to the Art Centre, which is actually the old University of Canterbury. It's now shops and galleries and workshops and studios. I saw some nice stuff and visited the Fudge Kitchen, which gave out a ton of free samples. I bought three different types of fudge - orange chocolate, manuka honey, and hokey pokey - the national ice cream flavour of New Zealand. It's caramel with pieces of sponge toffee swirled in.
After walking around the Art Centre I visited (briefly) the Christchurch Art Galley, the Centre for Contemporary Art (COCA), and the public library.
I also poked my nose in a few stores including Farmers, a department store with a great clearance sale on. Then back to the hostel and chatted with Sarah W. and Fran about books and TV shows. Out to the internet cafe and then back to teach Kieran and Sarah M. how to upload their pictures to Flickr. Susan, Ronnie, Fran, Steve and his friend Tika all went out to a Japanese restaurant called Ebisu. It was like a Japanese tapas restaurant - interesting food, but the service was pretty crappy. The back to the hostel to repack and then bed. Happy Valentine's Day!
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