Christchurch Wrap - Up

My favourite thing I did in Christchurch was definitely the Antarctic Centre - it was one of the more expensive things we did ($28 compared to $12 pool entry at Hanmer Springs and $10 for the Da Vinci Machines exhibition at Canterbury Museum) but it was well worth it. As well as many other exhibitions and photo opportunities (an ice slide, sleds, snow mobiles and antarctic dress up clothes) they have an environment in which they look after disabled little blue penguins that have injuries meaning that they will never return to the wild. There's a sweet little girl penguin called Elvis(!) who is blind and feels her way around the enclosure using her beak as a cane. The Da Vinci Machines exhibit was phenomenal too - K and I were just blown away by how spectacular the intellect of just one man could be. Managed to pick up a Christmas/Birthday present (haven't decided yet) for my father also. Hanmer was also worth the cost - we rented a holiday home there for two nights which was $210 all together and broke down nicely into $70 for each of us. It was great to have a kitchen although the only meals we had there were breakfast and the fish and chips we took back the first night - a resort town has too many restaurants to just stay at home! Most embarrassing moment of the holiday would have to go the "incident in the fish and chip shop". We'd been roasting ourselves in the sulfur pools at Hanmer (the hottest ones there) and then I got dressed back into all my winter layers. Walk into the nice warm fish and chip shop, go up to make the order and all of a sudden I can't hear anything and the room starts going fuzzy - I just make it back to the group in time to thwock my head down between my legs. The poor family sitting in there waiting for their take-aways were shocked. Great customer service though, the woman came sprinting out from behind the counter with a glass of water. Biggest regret? That I didn't get to experience the Christchurch clubbing scene because of the polar snap. I wouldn't have given up the snow for anything though, and it gives me an excuse to take a summer break there soon - with K moving from Hicksville to ChCh, it's definitely worth my while.
In other news, I have another off-line date tomorrow with an online suitor... really haven't been talking to this one, who we'll call ?? long so I have arranged for S and probably J to "arrive" at the bar about an hour after I arrive there so I have an out if necessary. Better safe than sorry. Talking to another prospect also, Flyboy, who I hope to meet soon.