christchurch

I'm finally feeling well again after the food poisoning, so we headed into Christchurch to see the post 2011 earth quake damage. It was very sobering. Shopping malls, cinemas, public library, theatres, office blocks, small shops, big houses, war memorials, bridges, sky scrapers, churches - you name it and the damage was there to see. Whole roads and sections of a once elegant city were closed by site fencing. It was like being in a post apocalyptic city or an empty movie set and very unsettling. Weeds were growing on the pavements, leaves piled up still from last autumn, many windows broken and there was a background rattle of ripped plastic sheeting put over buildings windows. Office blocks and apartments were left as they were - windows open, curtains billowing, computers, files etc all seen through the windows - the buildings deemed too unsafe to re-enter. Piles of collapsed buildings, some shored up, some cleared, but devastation every where to see. Some of it was utterly random, with one half demolished or being repaired, the other a still functioning home or business. Many of the low rise older wooden buildings seemly survived compared to the stone ones, especially like the old cathedral which is propped up and looking very sorry.
However, hope springs eternal and the city survives, with pop up shopping malls made from containers, empty plots have been turned into cheap car parks and the art work and lateral thinking for using the decimated spaces is rife.
We particularly liked the white chairs on this street corner. Every chair was different and there was one to represent each person killed in the quake- over 200. The dance platform was fun, 2 dollars bought you 30 minutes of your favourite dance music and the teenage girls were having great fun with it.