Christchurch weekend

Dunedin has become cold and wintry. It's was getting pretty bad two weekends ago. We both were missing everything about home and resentful toward everything here. The weather was miserable (like November without snow) and work wasn't great for either of us. It required an emergency trip to Christchurch 2 weekends ago - Christchurch is 5 hours north of Dunedin and the biggest city in the south island. We drove there Saturday, shopped, ate and drove home Sunday. It was fast but totally worth it.

This is SOL square in Christchurch (South of Lichfield) and where we ended up. We had a tasty dinner at a great Japanese place called Ishimoto's, and the square was full with people watching rugby on the projection screen on the wall of the building.

I just got about 8 inches cut off my hair - it doesn't even look that much shorter. Also I got a new wool coat while shopping in Christchurch - it's Icebreaker and made in NZ, and I'm using it all the time. The shopping was fun in Christchurch even if we didn't buy much. I just missed looking at nice shops; the shops here in Dunedin are mostly Kmart or hardware stores.

We stayed at the hip, modern Hotel SO in the center of Christchurch. The rooms are really compact (& cheaper) but have all sorts of fun gadgets like ipod hookups and lights that change color.

This is the cathedral at the center of Christchurch. Very impressive. That top part of the steeple had to be redone a few times over the last century due to earthquake damage.

It's nice to know a bigger city is relatively close. I knew Dunedin was a smaller city (140,000) but I didn't realize how small it feels especially when the weather is bad.