Weekend in Christchurch

[Where has everyone gone, hmm?]

Anyway so I went down to Christchurch (though apparently it was technically in Canterbury) for a wedding over the weekend. It was so lovely!
[Cut for a few photos, and as always, unnecessary rambling]


The bride and groom arranged to have everyone staying in the same place(ish) - I think they had a little chalet thing to themselves, and the immediate family had proper rooms in the main building (I met the groom's parents and siblings and they were SO LOVELY and total father-envy let me tell you); the rest of us got epic BUNKHOUSES with four pairs of bunks per room, and four rooms per bunkhouse (plus bathrooms obviously) - it was like camp but with better food and facilities (there were some things we didn't do - but we did: swim in the indoor swimming pool with basket ball hoops at either end, play minigolf, and play around on the trampolines (three available) which were SUPER COOL because they were installed at the same level as the ground surface, like over a dug-out hole thing).

Anyway T and I got to our bunkroom first so we got to choose the one double bed (there was inexplicably one double bed as a bottom bunk in each room). First night it was just us and this one guy who was adorably funny (T knew most of the groom's people through the groom back in the day; true to my weird habits I patted the hair of most of the ones he knew 'well', including one who I WON OVER WOOO haha; also lots of them had hilarious (kiwi-ish) nicknames, including a guy called Moo who I unfortuantely never met). The second night we were joined by the guy's girlfriend, and a couple who are getting married next week (and the latter of whom we only met after they stumbled drunkenly into our room after the Reception). Later during the second night the girl from the second couple got in a fight (outside the bunkhouse) with another girl who allegedly got crazy-violent all of a sudden, and she spent the whole night in our room rambling about how the other girl was going to come and stab us all. She kept trying to convince her fiancé that they had to flee early so they wouldn't get stabbed - but even though he seemed like he was not so drunk and trying to calm her down, they had disappeared by the time that we woke up in the morning, so, yeah.

Back to the wedding: the bride and groom (like many others) are like Real South Island-type people, so the actual wedding ceremony was on this open bit of grass beyond a bunch of trees and facing out towards the sea so (bar the gazebo and some vases, and the string quartet with the token Asian) it was like we were properly surrounded by nature. (Unfortunately I'm still getting used to owning a camera and forgot to bring it with me for that bit OH WELL.)

There was some token Christian stuff in the ceremony, because the bride's family is religious, but they also included non-religious/non-marriage-centric-societal-expectation reasons for why they were getting married, which was all romantic and personal and actually really nice (especially from the perspective of someone who doesn't want to get married, not because of a general anti-marriage sentiment, but more due to the lack of adherence to a religion or a cultural context that gives importance to marriage - because, without something else to give it importance, marriage is pretty much just a legal certificate telling others that you love someone).


Anyway picture time:

Here is some nature, as seen from the main building! I like the water.

The vases that were at either side of the gazebo, pictured on the deck when everyone was packing out on the last day.

On the table next to the above vases were some leftovers of the carrot cake that the groom's mother made. He likes her cake so much that he made her make lots for the Reception - FYI it was rather good; also I CONTRIBUTED; after dinner in the hall on the first evening, the groom's mother and some others happened to be at our table shelling walnuts and my dutiful Asian female genes kicked in (see: hours of shelling pumkin seeds for grandmother and/or cousins in the Philippines) AND I HELPED. More importantly I WAS BLOKEY because I could do it with MY BARE HANDS. Though because I had short nails they eventually bled a bit and I had to stop.

Spekaing of nails, I got a stencil and painted my nails all special for the wedding! Bahaha.
(Picture taken when I was bored in Riccarton Mall when we were killing time before the flight back, so spent ages getting the hang of my camera. Also FUN SOCKS)

On the last packing-up day after the wedding stuff was over, I got to play the piano (in the hall where we had the Reception, which I had been eyeing since I spotted since the start of that evening; also it said WAGNER bahaha) - and by 'got to' I meant I snuck in after it had been cleaned out, and tried playing quietly but every now and then got a bit loud, and eventually the groom came by to see if someone had left music on and said I could keep going :D

And yeah! Then one of the groom's brothers gave us a lift back to central-ish Christchurch/Riccarton (the temporary central, until the rest is functioning, eee), and we stayed another night in a motel (SPA BATH HELL YEAH).

Random other things I learnt about Christchurch/Riccarton:
- It would be an awesome place to bike around!
- I should totally get a spa bath. And someone to put chocolates on my pillows.
- Riccarton Mall has three Japanese restaurants, all of which make onigiri (tuna or chicken) in the form of massive balls of rice that are the size of my face. Is this a normal Japanese thing I was not aware of? I found it WEIRD.
- Upshot of Riccarton Mall: ROYAL ROAST. THIS IS A THING OF WHICH I WAS UNAWARE.
- Shops and restaurants etc close earlier than Wellington D: This makes sense, particularly given post-earthquake stuff, but given that I tend to complain about how early things close in Wellington I never thought to compare it to other (non-Auckland) places in NZ.
- The food-and-shops area on the second level of the (new) domestic terminal of Christchurch airport TOTALLY looks like they've copied and pasted together half of Auckland airport and half of Queenstown airport. What the hell man.

And now I'm back! To work tomorrow. Yaaaay.