I woke up at 0200 this morning with jetlag keeping me from getting back to sleep. That was good because it allowed me to fully feel the aftershock that hit at 0340. I'm in the 21st floor of the Hotel Grand Chancellor, a very modern and safe hotel in downtown Christchurch. I suspect that being so fat up allowed the building to sway much more than a lower floor might have done. I nice feeling to be safely in bed. In the morning, the news said that it was a 4.6, fairly sizable.
There was a lot of activity down in the streets but unrelated to the earthquake. A clothes store was giving away $100 of merchandise to the first 1,000 people in line and the line just got larger and more festive as the day grew brighter. Downtown Christchurch is a bit down at its heels and there seem to be a lot of young folks out clubbing and hanging out. Lots of alcohol, lots of young rowdies.
Went out to the Botanical Garden fairly early. What a neat institution! Loads of great bedding plants with gorgeous color in the early Spring weather. Magnolia trees in full bloom. The camelias were a little past peak, while the first rhododendrons were only starting to bloom. There were redwoods, both coast and giant redwoods. Interestingly there was also a Dawn Redwood, a tree that previous to the late 1940s was only known from the fossil record until discovered in a remote area of mountainous western China. That was really cool to see it there with its needles off and waiting for Spring to advance a bit more. On one side of the Gardens there is an long stretch of woodland with hundreds of thousands of daffodils at the peak. They started planting their extra bulbs there in the 1930s, sort of an early guerrilla gardening attack. Over the years they have planted something like 400,000 daffodils, and a lesser number of grape hyacinth. The effect is staggeringly beautiful. Again, no wonder the city was known as the Garden City.
Afterwards I went into the museum on the premises with a very special exhibit of photos from the Scott and Shackleton expeditions. The Scott photos were especially beautiful and large format, maybe 14 by 18 inches. I said something to the docent about how sharp the photos were after enlargement. He said that they weren't and that they were the original prints that had been presented to the King after each expedition; this exhibit was the first time that they had been let out of the UK and would be retuning right after the exhibit ended. They also had the original flags that the King had presented to each expedition and which had been returned to him afterwards. Very impressive!
Big day tomorrow!
There was a lot of activity down in the streets but unrelated to the earthquake. A clothes store was giving away $100 of merchandise to the first 1,000 people in line and the line just got larger and more festive as the day grew brighter. Downtown Christchurch is a bit down at its heels and there seem to be a lot of young folks out clubbing and hanging out. Lots of alcohol, lots of young rowdies.
Went out to the Botanical Garden fairly early. What a neat institution! Loads of great bedding plants with gorgeous color in the early Spring weather. Magnolia trees in full bloom. The camelias were a little past peak, while the first rhododendrons were only starting to bloom. There were redwoods, both coast and giant redwoods. Interestingly there was also a Dawn Redwood, a tree that previous to the late 1940s was only known from the fossil record until discovered in a remote area of mountainous western China. That was really cool to see it there with its needles off and waiting for Spring to advance a bit more. On one side of the Gardens there is an long stretch of woodland with hundreds of thousands of daffodils at the peak. They started planting their extra bulbs there in the 1930s, sort of an early guerrilla gardening attack. Over the years they have planted something like 400,000 daffodils, and a lesser number of grape hyacinth. The effect is staggeringly beautiful. Again, no wonder the city was known as the Garden City.
Afterwards I went into the museum on the premises with a very special exhibit of photos from the Scott and Shackleton expeditions. The Scott photos were especially beautiful and large format, maybe 14 by 18 inches. I said something to the docent about how sharp the photos were after enlargement. He said that they weren't and that they were the original prints that had been presented to the King after each expedition; this exhibit was the first time that they had been let out of the UK and would be retuning right after the exhibit ended. They also had the original flags that the King had presented to each expedition and which had been returned to him afterwards. Very impressive!
We needed to go back out to the airport to be issued with our ECW gear. We tried on each piece for size and tested zippers and laces to make sure each piece was polar ready. No replacements down there should something not be right! The fun part will now be rearranging our carry-on and kangaroo bags for the flight. The carry-on has to fit in a standard box and the kangaroo bag has to be less than 25 pounds. We will be very close to the rated payload of the Airbus 319, outfitted with extra fuel tanks for the 4,100 km flight tomorrow. We learned later the next day that we were within 100 pounds of that limit! Close! Our big bags will be coming down with the first C-17 on Tuesday the 28th and we need to plan our two smaller bags accordingly to have what we'll need for a few days.
Big day tomorrow!
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