Christchurch

My flight from Los Angeles arrived in Auckland, New Zealand close to midnight on Saturday, January 24. Although the hour was late, there were also other flights arriving at this time from other destinations. It might be that the airlines schedule flights to arrive at certain times during the day so that the customs workers do not have to be at their posts 24 hours a day, but rather only when the groups of flights arrive. The airport shops were of course open and I went to an ATM right outside my gate to get some cash for the airport shuttle to my hotel. What I did not realize at the time was that although the ATM belonged to the Bank of New Zealand, it had an option to give the user Australian Dollars. I mistakenly chose to get Australian Dollars, a mistake that I did not realize until later since I had never seen either currency before and I never looked at the bills other than to check their value.

There were the usual lines for customs after which we had to collect our bags and to go through a very stringent import control. All food products had to be declared as did any hiking or camping equipment. To ensure that each person had declared everything, all bags had to be x-rayed once more in search of food products. I was wearing a pair of heavy hiking boots that had picked up a bit of dirt in the treads in LA and so I had to go off to a back room where they were disinfected by walking over a pad soaked with disinfectant. Plants and animals and tourism are the lifeblood of the NZ economy and so these strict measures were taken to prevent a disease such as Hoof and Mouth disease from entering the country.

Since I was to fly out to Christchurch in the morning, I had booked at a bed and breakfast which was located near the airport and which also had a free shuttle service. However, the free shuttle did not run so late at night and so I would have to find my own way to my bed for the night. At first the taxi and shuttle vans turned me away as the B&B normally had a shuttle service and they told me where to find it. However, since the owner of the B&B had told me that I would need to get to my room on my own, I returned to the shuttle driver and asked the price. Fortunately, I had asked the B&B owner how much I should expect to pay and so I knew the drivers first number was too high. The haggling went quickly and soon I was in the van. The airport shuttles in New Zealand are mostly small vans with lockable, metal trailers behind them where the luggage is stowed. The driver waited until the van was full before departing from the airport. Once at the B&B, I paid the driver and found the key under the entrance mat as promised by the owner. Inside, I found a note with my room key and I settled down for the night.

As I lay in bed, I was overwhelmed by a strange smell that I think was coming from a plant outside my open window. The smell reminded me quite strongly of smell that I remember from India. I was disappointed that it was dark out and so I would have no chance of determining where the smell was coming from before I would get used to the smell and stop noticing it. Sure enough, by morning I had forgotten all about it and never noticed it again.

I had breakfast at the B&B after which the owner took me in her van to the airport for my flight to Christchurch. I mentioned to her that her advice regarding the cost of the airport shuttle had been quite useful the night before. She told me that other guests had been terribly overcharged in the past and she blamed it on the Indians who would rip anyone off. I did not quite comprehend what she meant at first because what did people from India have to do with anything. It was later that I realized that she was talking about the Maori or perhaps other Polynesians in general. It was my first hint that the two populations of people still did not quite get along.

The Qantas flight to Christchurch took about one hour and I arrived around noontime. An airport shuttle van got me from the airport to the hostel where I would be spending the next few nights. I had a single in a clean, quiet hostel near the large city park. The hostel had a kitchen, lots of shared bathrooms, common areas and even laundry facility available. After checking in, one of the first order of business was to find a grocery store where I could purchase the makings of lunch. I failed to find a grocery store, but I did find a Shell gas station with a market where I got the makings for a picnic in the nearby park. It was the teenager at the register who first gave me a clue that I had taken out Australian Dollars instead of New Zealand Dollars when I offered him a $50 bill. Fortunately he was honest and told me the problem since the Australian bill was worth more than its New Zealand counterpart. I guess that the shuttle driver in Auckland had gotten the better of the deal after all, but on the other hand if he had refused the bill, I would have been stuck since I had no other currency at the time. After lunch, I set out to explore the city.

The city of Christchurch was not quite as I expected. The city is small with a population of just over 300,000 and the downtown area is easily seen by foot. The city was originally founded on the Canterbury Plain as an outpost of Anglicanism by the first settlers. The city itself is low rise with most buildings being under four stories tall. The center of the city is the cathedral which is a Gothic revival Anglican church, fronted by a large plaza called Cathedral Square. Most of the downtown area lies within a few blocks of Cathedral Square before turning over to residential areas. The sites include the stunning Christchurch Art Gallery, Christ's College, various other museums and the Christchurch Town Hall.

The Town Hall is the site of a world renown concert hall which was quite revolutionary in design when it was built in 1972. Since I was in Christchurch, I had to visit the hall as part of my quest to visit the great concert halls of the world. The hall itself is shaped sort of like a punch bowl with the stage at one end and two levels of seating around the edges. The hall was revolutionary due to its shape and the fact that it actually works. A lot of effort was made by the acoustic engineers and the architects to ensure that the sound was correctly distributed by using reflective and sound absorbing panels which are quite prominent in the hall. The natural wood color of the panels and the burgundy upholstery give the hall a warm feeling.

Through the downtown area winds the Avon River and it is possible to hire boats to navigate its narrow banks. West of the city center lies Hagley Park which is gigantic in size and includes a botanical gardens and playing fields. The park is larger than the built-up downtown area and rumor has it that the park was created to separate the Anglican districts near the cathedral from the Presbyterians in the suburbs beyond. There are also areas of thriving restaurant and cafés as well as upmarket shopping.

I am not quite sure what I expected Christchurch to look like, but it was not quite what I found. I think that perhaps I am used to European cities with central downtown areas with old town areas. Although a nice city, Christchurch's not so orderly or centralized downtown lacks lots of impressive architecture. Furthermore, as you drive outside of Christchurch you find lots of new housing developments as the city sprawls outwards from its core. The developments are mostly 1/8 acre lots with small, one story houses dropped down side by side. The development sites were once orchards or farm lands and beyond the new construction is the countryside which does not take long to find.

Christchurch lies on the Canterbury Plain which is fertile plain which slopes upwards from the ocean to the Alps. The plains were broken into huge tracts by the original settlers and a good number of these tracts still remain and are farmed by the descendents of the original settlers. To the east of the city lies the coast with numerous beaches and to the south of Christchurch lies the Banks Peninsula.

I set out for a day trip to the Banks Peninsula on Monday, specifically to visit the little town of Akaroa which is a 90 minute bus ride from Christchurch. I caught the 8AM bus in Cathedral Square and it was funny to watch the other backpackers stumble out of Starbucks to catch the bus. The Banks Peninsula is made up of two massive drowned volcanic craters the cones of which jut out from the otherwise flat Canterbury Plain. The craters now form the protective harbors where the towns of Lyttelton and Akaroa are located. Lyttelton serves as the harbor for cruise ships which call on Christchurch. The surrounding hills are mostly bald due to over forestation by the early settlers and only covered with long grass, brown due to the drought. Captain Cook originally thought that the volcanoes were islands due to the salt lakes which extend from the ocean into the plain and he named the area Banks Island after his botanist Joseph Banks.

Our bus made its way out of Christchurch quite quickly and soon we were skirting between the hills and the salt lakes. The road up through the hills wound its way up and up, hugging crests and rims before descending to Akaroa. I found that the bus drivers in New Zealand often add commentary so that the passengers know what they are seeing and our bus driver that day was no exception. He explained about the landscape, the trees we passed and the settlement of Akaroa. The town of Akaroa was originally settled by the French and today one can still see French flags flying around the town. Today the town is a picturesque place to get away. There are easy hikes around the area, but many tourists head right for the docks from which boats set out to allow their patrons to swim with the dolphins which live in the harbor (book way in advance). For those who choose to stay on land, there are lots of little cafes, sandy beaches, small sailboats moored in the harbor and mountains all around the bay. I later met one woman who spent four days living on a nearby farm. Each day she would go down to the beach to relax for the day and then to dig the muscles which would be her dinner for the night.

I unfortunately, had to catch an early afternoon bus back to Christchurch so that I could be back in time for my first interview that evening. I was to meet a man from the office at a popular pub downtown so I got cleaned up and walked over to meet him. My interview the next day with the director was over lunch, so everything was rather informal. However, I was glad that I had brought my suit with me. I was also very glad that I brought my umbrella because it was pouring that Tuesday. I was later told that New Zealand is currently suffering from a drought and so everyone was happy to see the downpour. However, normally such a heavy, sustained rain only happens maybe three times a year with quick showers or drizzles being the normal rule.

When we sat down for lunch, we chose a table outside near a couple that was smoking, but was about to leave. Their presence turned the conversation briefly to smoking. A new law will be going into affect in New Zealand this summer which will ban smoking from any public building including bars and restaurants, similar to the laws in New York, Florida, California and soon to be Massachusetts. What I was surprised to learn was that in New Zealand it is legal to ask a job applicant if they smoke and to deny that person a job if they do smoke. Marshall Day had a project on one of the new airports in the country and during one of the planning meetings the question of what to do with the smokers arose. If people were to be allowed to smoke in the airport, special rooms would have to be set up with a second ventilation system which would be expensive. The decision was made to just ban all smoking and to require that the passengers smoke outside before entering the building. It is a model which has been duplicated in other airports in the country.

I also learned that New Zealand is largely self-sufficient when it comes to its energy needs. The country depends on mostly geothermal and hydroelectric sources to supply the electricity and is blessed with an ample supply of both resources. However, the system has its drawbacks in years of droughts and rolling blackouts can occur when the water supply runs low. Therefore, New Zealand has a new project underway where six new dams will be built on one of the rivers on the South Island. However, other sources of energy are also being sought. The people I spoke with were appalled by the idea of using fossil fuels for energy due to the pollution, but were equally appalled by the idea of nuclear, particularly after the stance that New Zealand took with the US and with France. The people reported that wind turbines and not satisfactory which I took issue with, but apparently NZ is also looking at underwater turbines.

I mentioned that I had consulted a friend of mine from Auckland about things to see in NZ and she had written back that Christchurch was a boring town. I mentioned this to the guys from the office and asked if this is a North Island versus South Island type of thing. They responded that it is an Auckland versus everyone else type of thing. Auckland is by far the largest city in the country and the most cosmopolitan. Therefore, someone from Auckland might look at Christchurch in the same way that someone from Boston might look at Little Rock.

I was of course asked about how long I was planning to live in NZ. While we were on the subject, the people from the office explained how challenging it is to hire a person right out of university in New Zealand. The problem is that it is just generally accepted that people will spend a year abroad once they pay off their student loans and so the company knows that the recent graduate will leave them in a short time. At one time, people spent the year abroad right when they got out of school, but the rising cost of a university degree resulted in the change. The fact that most everyone takes off for a year to travel would go a long way towards explaining why you find so many Kiwis (New Zealanders) traveling all over the world.

One of the men who I interviewed with had spent several years going to university and then working in the UK. However, he returned to NZ because he belived that the quality of life was better and because it was a much more affordable place to live. During my travels, I would meet several people from the UK who had chosen to move to NZ for the same reasons, so there must be something to these claims. For example, at my hostel I met a man who was just starting a career at Pratt & Whitney in Christchurch. He had come to NZ to visit and had fallen in love with the place. It had taken him about two months to get his work permit, but now he was in NZ to stay.

After lunch was over, we went back to the office where I continued to chat with the director. It turns out that the whole idea of having the informal interviews was to get to know me on a social basis since it is difficult to judge that sort of thing by a piece of paper called a resume. The idea was that you can always train someone, but it is a persons personality which can not be easily changed.

What I was surprised to learn in the interview was that the Christchurch office was small with only three people currently employed. I had not realized that the Auckland office was the larger of the two offices, but it is the Christchurch office which is currently expanding. They have already hired a man from the UK. The British man and his wife are avid gliders and they specifically chose Christchurch as a place to live due to the consistent thermals in the area. The interviews were also a good way for me to learn about the office and to get an impression of New Zealand. As of this writing, I still do not know if I have the job or not or if I would take it if I did.

Once the interview was over and I could walk back to the hostel to change out of the suit, the sky became bright and sunny and chased the rain clouds away of course. So, I spent the afternoon wandering about the city. It was a bit disconcerting to be in a foreign country but to be able to understand what was being said. I also noticed that people were walking on the left rather than the right. However, this may have just been a fluke because I don't remember noticing it much later. One thing that I was sure of was to obey the crosswalk signs and to only cross with the light since traffic in NZ drives on the left. On a prior trip to London a few years ago, even after having been in the city for over a week I was still stepping out into traffic and so now in Christchurch when I was tired I was taking no chances.

New Zealand in general seems to have a large Asian population, particularly Japanese but it was difficult to determine if the people that I saw were residents or tourists. However, in the larger cities there are a number of Chinese, Korean, Thai and other Asian restaurants. I stopped by a Korean restaurant for some Bi Bim Ba'b which was something that I remembered from the Korean restaurant in Yantai, China. However, it was not the same as I remembered. That night I packed up my things in preparation for my first day of travel in New Zealand.