hmmm... christchurch

well considering that it's the biggest city on the north island it's not that impressive, christchurch. i must say i appreciated that there were many things to do for free, but after two days i was completely out of things to do.i went to the botanical gardens (great rose garden, i smelled each one, and the ducks were so cute as they harrased you for bread crumbs, so unabashed) the christ church cathedral, the art center (used to be the canterbury college, all gothic revival and full of shops, eateries, artist studios and a movie theater-where i saw slumdog millionare which everyone should see, and love- lost of different opportunities to buy jade and bone fishhook pendants, kiwi body lotiona and sheep shaped chocolates among other things) the canterbury museum (the bird section was awesome, all the taxidermied birds in their intricate painted environments), the christchurce art gallery (a really cool white themed exhibition and some work by local young artists) and the contemprary art museum (the coolest show of contemporary german childrens book illustrations, but they didn't actually have the books they were exhibiting there, but they had other books, which was odd and confusing) and the best things was that ALL of these things were free, and they only asked for donations which worked for me cause i really don't like to be forced to pay exorbident amounts to see art, and i prefer to choose how much i wish to donate depending on how much i got out of the musuem, how long i stayed etc.
but after a day and a half (and only that long as i was hampered and slowed by the almost constant rain and drizzle which forced me to be ducking into shops every few minutes to shake the raindrops from my hair) i had seen everything and some things twice, and tested a great many sidewalk cafes and it was time to move on.