today we decided to ride the tramway. it's kind of like the cable cars in san francisco. it goes around in a circuit that passes by things of interest to tourists. your ticket is good for 48 hours, or 1 year if you are a christchurch resident.

tramway

trying not to look at camera

we boarded at cathedral square and got off at the arts centre to check it out. it's a whole block of buildings devoted to art. very cool. there are 2 cinemas and various studios and workshops. because of this, christchurch seems like a city very devoted to art.

hanging sculpture, arts centre

we then rode the tramway to victoria park and took pictures of the hamish hay bridge, fountain that only runs at night, and the poupou which had an audio installation as well that was really quite bizarre. there were at least three speakers and a choice of three different languages (english, japanese, german). we picked english from the main speaker and at first it was all in maori. we thought perhaps there had been a mistake. eventually english was spoken and it was a bit hard to understand due to the poor speaker quality. then sounds came out from the other speakers and you were supposed to go to them and i think stand inbetween for a stereo effect. we decided to walk away at that point. sorry to the people who were sitting nearby--i wish there was an off button.

punting in the park

fountain in victoria park

poupou, victoria park

we rode the tramway again just to complete the circuit. we got off at the square and ate our packed lunch. there's a guy who dresses up as a wizard and talks in the square everyday. he's famous for it. when you go to christchurch, you have to see the wizard. i read somewhere that he's there everyday from 1pm-2pm. so i made sure we were there at that time because so far i haven't seen the wizard. well, we didn't see the wizard today either. perhaps he's changed times. perhaps he's on vacation or he doesn't do it anymore.

after grocery shopping, we stayed up at the hostel pretty late in a frenzy of puzzle madness. there are 2 puzzles at the hostel called wasgij (jigsaw backwards) and they're really quite fun and interesting. especially because i haven't done a puzzle in ages. the picture on the box is not the picture you are to piece together. rather, it is only a clue. the basic concept is when you look at the box cover, imagine if you turned around. what image would you see? that is the puzzle you have to piece together! someone had done most of one and i couldn't stand to see the last few pieces floating around waiting to be put together so i did that earlier on during our stay. the other puzzle was of a classroom and to imagine the reunion scene 20 or 30 years later. there wasn't much put together and we almost finished the entire thing. we worked on it for hours! i just had to get all the faces together. it was bugging me. i'm going to have to take some of these puzzles back to america but will i even have room in my luggage?

the avon river