What would Vicky say?

Oh man, it was so cool. Victoria Square, not 10 minutes' walk from my house, was turned into a Chinese Lantern Festival this weekend. There were pandas and turtles and fish and flowers and bees and a moving giraffe and really bad food and even worse karaoke! You just thought it was bad in a smoky bar, imagine if the same disharmonies were being broadcast across an entire park. There were children there, for heaven's sake!


All that aside, it was really cool. I think I liked the fish and the lily pond best because of the reflections. And if you can spot the obligatory punter in the background, he's just there to remind you that it's in Christchurch. They love punting on the Thames around here.


These are the lilies, see above.


Upon studying the dragon for a bit I came to the realization that someone, somewhere, stitched all these together, probably by hand. That is neat beyond words-- I may have found a new hobby. Who wants a Chinese lantern for Christmas? C'mon, you know you do!


Oh yeah, I gotta try my hand at this. The giant bees were mildly spooky, but mostly charming.


They lived in this garden!


The weekend's festivities were made doubly exciting by Erin's arrival! We laughed, we cried, we confused those around us by speaking mostly in movie references. And we took some really bad pictures in front of the lanterns. Erin liked the pandas. She did not like that we were cheated out of our own little paper lanterns to carry around and potentially light things on fire with. And neither, I must confess, did I. I'm going to find me a lantern, and I'm gonna carry it around on a stick anyway-- all by myself! So there!


They're turtles... but they're playing musical instruments. OF COURSE! It all makes sense. Note how rimaculously more tanned Erin is than me. Turns out the north island is warmer and sunnier than here.Turns out.

So I leave New Zealand in just over a week! Craziness. I'm sure you're all sad that this sporadically updated blog will become of historical significance only. But you'll be able to stop being disappointed when you check up on me and find I haven't done anything! So that's nice.

Hopefully my last post will involve some pictures from my going away party (Red Carpet theme. does anyone have some suggestions for velvet ropes? I don't know anyone who works at a movie theater, unfortunately) and some wise saws and modern instances and wit and wisdom and other important things like that.

I'm going to Oamaru tomorrow to see the penguins, at long last. I'll try to think up some clever things to say while I'm there. Just for you guys. In the meantime...



I managed to capture everyone's reaction when I postulated that this Cosco lantern must be representative of their corporate sponsor-ship...
Thank you! Thank you! I'll be here all week!