There’s a bunch of images, you should be used to it by now.
Part of the goal for Christchurch was to just stop for a while, because I’ve been doing a lot of things, and while that’s fun, it’s also tiring, and it makes it harder to plan out the next things.
Another part was that planning I mentioned.
And the last bit was seeing how Christchurch had changed over the 8 years since I was last here.
My hotel room had underbed lighting. Couldn’t find a rave mode, and it didn’t seem to have a significant UV component, so I think it’s just a fancy nightlight.
The hotel also had coin-op laundry rooms, but only on a few floors, so if you weren’t on one of them, you needed to ask for an extra card key to access one of the special floors. You also needed to ask for a bunch of $1 coins, because while the machines would sometimes take a $2, they weren’t consistent about it.
There are parts of Christchurch which are unrecognisable to me. I know the streets, but everything has changed. Other parts are essentially the same, and one building near one of the punting places looks to have been repaired, because it was being held up with scaffolding in 2016
I got some things done which needed doing, more in the first day than the second, but it’s still progress.
Found a nice café for breakfasting, party because I wanted to, but also because at least a couple of tour groups were at the hotel, and those tend to make hotel breakfasts a challenge. I don’t know why, but tour groups or organised groups seem to be incredibly slow at hotel buffets; Aside from filling the space, there seems to be this effect where people cannot understand what they’re seeing & must call in others from the group to confer, so that not only are they not getting breakfast, but neither is anyone else.
My train out of Christchurch leaves at 7am, and the station isn’t in a helpful location. I’d thought that I’d need to get a taxi or something, but it turns out that the airport shuttle bus company also does the train station, so hotel reception desk folks came to my rescue there. 🙂