The mambo queen took her act on the road to New Zealand this morning. We've only been here for a few hours so far, but dancing is already happening in the streets.
Grandpa Maloney is visiting for a couple of weeks and we will spend most of our time on the South Island of New Zealand. We are spending the first two days in Christchurch. We knew that we would see quite a bit of damage from the 2011 earthquake, but we were still amazed to see the scale of it all. Almost all of the buildings in the central business district were destroyed or heavily damaged, including the tall one in back of the dancer that is boarded up. Christchurch is making innovative use of some of the open space created by the earthquake. The dance floor shown above has a coin operated disco machine where you plug in your iPad, insert your coin, and the lights and music start.
The city is slowly but surely starting to rebuild, although still has a desolate, eerie feel with a few solitary backpackers wandering aimlessly and looking lost while passing by block upon block of empty lots, cordoned off buildings, and rubble. Pockets of new development and renovated surviving structures are found in a few places. The closest analogue we've seen before is maybe some of the rebuilding cities we visited while we were in Bosnia, or some of the stories and pictures we've seen of Detroit.
Regardless, we are having a good time so far. We were happy to leave Melbourne for a bit because of the heat. It reached 105 the day before we left. No comments on the hat please.
Grandpa Maloney is visiting for a couple of weeks and we will spend most of our time on the South Island of New Zealand. We are spending the first two days in Christchurch. We knew that we would see quite a bit of damage from the 2011 earthquake, but we were still amazed to see the scale of it all. Almost all of the buildings in the central business district were destroyed or heavily damaged, including the tall one in back of the dancer that is boarded up. Christchurch is making innovative use of some of the open space created by the earthquake. The dance floor shown above has a coin operated disco machine where you plug in your iPad, insert your coin, and the lights and music start.
The city is slowly but surely starting to rebuild, although still has a desolate, eerie feel with a few solitary backpackers wandering aimlessly and looking lost while passing by block upon block of empty lots, cordoned off buildings, and rubble. Pockets of new development and renovated surviving structures are found in a few places. The closest analogue we've seen before is maybe some of the rebuilding cities we visited while we were in Bosnia, or some of the stories and pictures we've seen of Detroit.
Regardless, we are having a good time so far. We were happy to leave Melbourne for a bit because of the heat. It reached 105 the day before we left. No comments on the hat please.
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