Photo by Hala Fauzi
Photo by Hala Fauzi
When we got to Christchurch, we didn't discover our bikes. I had thought that the agent in Auckland had said he'd fill out the rest of the form, but it turned out that the destination on the shipping form was blank, so back in Auckland they didn't know where to send them! The Kiwis are really responsible, however. We got profuse apologies, they hustled them from Auckland and dropped them off at the backpackers', AND gave our backpacks a free passage up to Auckland!
Hala and I both walked around the botanical gardens in Christchurch. I liked the feel very much. The trees were isolated enough that you could see the whole tree, and they were clearly marked with the Latin name, common name, and native geographical location. The park was neat enough to look nice, but not so obsessively well-kept that you felt like you needed to keep your hands in your pockets. (There were benches on the grass, for example.)
Photo by Hala Fauzi
Furthermore, there were five or six art installations in the park, most of which I quite liked. It was really quite magical to look up and see chicken-wire chairs suspended in mid-air! Hala saw how easy it was for me to deal with my short-short crew-cut, and so she ended up getting a buzz cut (and a beret) herself.
But then, walking back to the backpackers', I came across a sing-along
in the park. The park was MOBBED with people carrying little
photocopied song sheets and candles. "Ah, how nice!" Wrong. It
might have been nice once, but it had been turned into a media event.
Some game-show host was emceeing the event for production as a TV
show. He was giving the crowd instructions: yell this when I say
that, make noise here, I can't hear you, etc. It also became obvious
to me (with my TV experience) that he was operating off of a script,
and he wasn't even trying to be sly about it. He'd ask his floor
director questions over the PA system ("Are we on link seven now?"),
he did a lead-up which involved his new baby, then when baby couldn't
be found at the right time, did the EXACT same lead-up and got the
audience to go "Awwww" at the right time. And the audience didn't
even seem to realize that they were being manipulated! It downright
sickened me. The whole time I was thinking of the kiwi birds, and
how they'd gotten wiped out because of being so defenseless, so
unsophisticated in the world of predators. I couldn't help feeling
that the citizens of New Zealand will get just as rude a shock
someday with their unsophistication with the media. Bleck.
Dec 25
Photo by Hala Fauzi
On Christmas day, the people who ran the backpackers' put on a feast! It was a lot of fun and the food was quite good. Dave, a young American (who, with his wife, was working at the backpackers' in exchange for room&board in the middle of their two-year around the world trip) said, "KATE! How would you like to look foolish?" So of course I obliged.
I followed him upstairs to a room FULL of costumes. The proprietor started putting me in a rabbit outfit. "Ok, now take off your hat. Oh. Um. I guess that won't work." She had wanted to put the comb attached to the ears in my hair, and I had no hair to attach it to! But I spied a wig and put that on, so the ears worked.
When I came out, Hala didn't recognize me! Later on, when I ditched the costume (and hat), the other "campers" didn't recognize me! It was fun.
Skip to future pages: Nelson, Christchurch (again), and The North Island.
Copyright, 1994, Kaitlin Duck Sherwood