Steampunk!

So on Friday I was expecting to go to the Ellerslie Flower Show, which is apparently quite famous in New Zealand (altho there has been recent controversy when it moved from Auckland to Christchurch). However, when I got there, I discovered that tickets were $37, and I didn't want to pay that much to look at flowers. Instead, I went over to the Arts Centre (the old grounds for the University of Canterbury) and went to Rutherford's Den (an exhibit on Ernest Rutherford, the man who split the atom and who did most of his work at Canterbury). It was pretty cool. You actually get to go to the little nook where Rutherford did his experiment (it's a really small room and quite unexeceptional--I think it was a coatroom before Rutherford used it). Anyways, it was pretty cool.

That night I went to Ninja club, where we watched a Japanese karate movie called "Black Belt." Its apparent claim to fame lies in the fact that the people doing the karate are actually doing karate on each other. The plot's fairly thin--an evil miltary captain is trying to confiscate karate dojos so he can turn them into brothels--and there's actually not that much action in the movie, but it was still fun to watch, especially with other martial arts enthusiasts. On the way back to my flat, I found myself accompanied by the four Japanese people I know here-Taka, Yoh, a girl whose name I don't remember who is Yoh's girlfriend, and my closest Japanese friend, who told me his name but which I was unable to understand because of his accent and his tendency to speak softly. I found it interesting that they were (for the most part) talking in English to each other-probably to practice it, but if I was in their situation I'd probably backslide whenever I had the chance to.

Saturday was an eventful day for me. I got up early in order to go to the Lyttelton Farmer's Market, which I'd heard good things about. I ended up getting some pesto and something called a "hot juice," which turned out to be a concoction of lemon, lime, and ginger juice that was piping hot. It did good things for the sore throat I was feeling, tho. After agonizing over it, I decided against getting blueberries, even tho they looked tasty. After that I went to one of the other things the charming town/suburb of Lyttelton has to recomend for itself. This is the Time Ball, a contraption atop a tower on a cliff. The ball drops at precisely 1 o clock, which helped mariners calibrate the clocks that helped with early longitude calculation. It was actually a nice tourism spot, with the interior of the tower set up with turn-of-the-century furnishings and the ability to go up on the roof, which I did.

After I was finished with that, I decided to do one more thing that had been recommended to me in Lyttelton: buying an icecream at the General store. For $2, you get an amazing amount of ice cream, so that was pretty cool.

After I got back to my flat, I dropped off the pesto and went over to a nearby park where Culture Galore, the Christchurch cultural festival, was happening. There were food booths run by the various societies in Christchurch (The Singapore society, the Egyptian Coptic Church, The Malaysia-New Zealand club, etc.), and booths by other organizations. I had snack food from several of the booths (the Malaysian, Bangladeshi, Indonesian, and Scandanavian booths, I believe), as well as a little goat's head made of salt dough I got from the Singaporean booth. Christchurch is an amazingly diverse city (I believe I heard someone that 1 in 4 people here were foreign-born, but that's almost certainly false), and I'm discovering that part of the fun of coming here was learning about a lot of places other than New Zealand. Anyways, as I was leaving I happened upon some Morris dancers, and then I had to stay. after they were done, they invited people in the audience to come up and learn a simple morris dance, and of course I volunteered. I think Morris Dancing might be the most adorably dorky folk costume ever, but it;s fun to do.

Later Saturday night I went to Sci-Fi Soc's Steampunk party. People were dressed in some interesting costumes, which I shall post on Facebook as soon as I can. I spent a lot of the night conversing with an English guy named Richard and a Kiwi girl named Janelle, which was nice. I really enjoy a good nerd conversation. I think I'm gonna like Sci Fi Soc.

Intriguingly, I've discovered something interesting about NZ slang. They refer to potato/tortilla/whatev chips as "chips", like we do. However, they also call what we'd call fries chips (or sometimes "hot chips"), like the English. Surprisingly, it's rarely confusing.

Today was a lot less eventful as yesterday. I had plans to meet up with one of the clubs I joined on New Brighton beach, but I got there a bit late and ended up meandering on the pier, and then into the New Brighton Mall, which was a series of little shops down a common street. There was some kind of antiique car show going on, which I snapped a few photos of. There was also a remarkable collection of junk shops, which I perused for interesting stuff. I might have picked up a souvenier or two there. I had lunch at a fish and chip shop, which promised "Indian and Fijian takeaway." I decided to try the Fijian food, which in my case was fish in a coconut milk based sauce. It was good, but not great.

I'm not sure what my next noteworthy exploits will be, but I'll report them when I've figured it out.

Talk to you later!