We got up early to return the car and hit the airport. Interestingly, here, when you turn in a car, you just park it and go in the terminal to return the keys. There's no inspection of the tank or whether any damages were done to the car. Easy enough.
We had a good flight to Christchurch and had the task of finding another rental car company when we landed. We went from counter to counter looking for a cheap car and the winner ended up being Budget.
We got the same car, a 2009 Toyota Corolla, this time it wasn't a hatchback and came in a nice red color. To avoid a repeat of the Wellington pain, we decided to get a GPS this time so that we always knew where we were going.We made our way to our accommodation for the night, the Ashleigh Court Motel. The owner, Steve, was very friendly and spent a good 15 minutes telling us where and what we should do and eat while in town. On his recommendation, we had lunch at this place called Robbie's. A local pub type of place. I had a Greek salad and Eric had the beef schnitzel, which is the equivalent of what we call a chicken fried steak.
After lunch, on Steve's suggestion, we took a walk through the botanical gardens before hitting city centre. The botanical gardens were absolutely beautiful. The rose garden was amazing. Perhaps 100 different varieties of roses in that garden. I admit that I went a little crazy taking pictures in the garden.
We then hit the city centre and walked around. It's not a very big city, but it's nice. We stopped at the Canterbury Museum and the Christchurch Cathedral. We then walked to the local Casino to check it out. Unfortunately, we didn't make it past the front door as there was a dress code and our "thongs" weren't permitted. Thongs, btw, are flip flops, not dental floss underwear! :)
Since we already circled the town twice, we decided to call it a day and had dinner at the Dux Lux Pub and Bistro in town. It was ok, nothing special. I had some mushroom dishes and Eric had the nachos. Probably more fried food than we really needed to eat, but we could justify it with all the walking we did during the day.We finished off the night with a laundry wash and a grocery run. They had about 8 varieties of apples at the grocery store and the biggest strawberries I have ever seen. Food is more expensive in Australia and New Zealand, but as one Aussie pointed out to us, this was because everything is fresh and organic. No chemically enhanced fruits and veggies here! The strawberries were huge and succulent. Like mangoes in Thailand, strawberries were my new obsession in New Zealand.
For pictures of the day, go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=eric.chang1&target=ALBUM&id=5409713302561049761&authkey=Gv1sRgCPSqw7mxluj3Zw&feat=email
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