Central City Christchurch !
Today I took a deep breath and decided it was time to look at the central city ! It was a strange experience. Only one familiar building remains in the main shopping area. On the cleared ground these buildings and gardens have appeared. In another area shipping containers have been painted bright colours and turned into shops. Not many people around and the shop keepers seem accepting of the fact that most of us were there just to check it all out. The hanging baskets in the photo,were all donated by a garden group. They looked very pretty. Another area was covered with large sun flowers. There is a Buskers Festival on at the moment, so there was entertainment to enjoy while we sat in the sun and sipped coffee. We figured that we would be a safe there as anywhere else, in the event of another quake... ! That possibility is never far from the minds of Cantabrians... Anyway. It was an interesting day, full of emotion as we remembered how it was and all that had happened there last year... I have another photo showing the shipping containers, I don't seem to be able to post two at once (!) so will send that through too. Half way along the street there are barriers to prevent you going further. From there you can see the cranes and the rubble. What a HUGE job. It's hard to see how the city can come back from this. We looked through the windows of a restaurant which was fenced off, and the tables still had cutlery and china all over the floor. It looked as if the quake happened this morning.. I'm relating all of this in the hope that it may be of interest to some of you. Not many of us have this experience. The headline in Tuesdays paper read. "500 days.......9,500 quakes" which approximates to 1 quake (magnitude 3+) felt every four hours since the Sept. 2010 quake which started all this business !! No wonder we are getting used to them !
Lovely sunny day today, I hope you've all had a nice day too.
Marion.
posted by Marion in NZ. @ 12:36 AM
5 Comments:
Thank you Marion for the picture and the description.
I always find it surprising how we all learn to live with the )upheavals/disasters/events) in our lifes.
We are an amazing lot.
Marion, I never tire of hearing about life in New Zealand and about the earthquakes that most of us have never experienced (I did once but it was around 5 at home just west of the city of Toronto). It was an eerie feeling to watch dishes dance around on shelves and feel the rumbling underfoot. I can't imagine what it's been like to have this happen repeatedly over the past year and a half. This is what makes this board so special because we get to see and hear about other parts of the world and not just our own patch on this planet.
Rosey
Marion, I'm really impressed at the way the council and community have made an effort to beautify the city with bright colours and flowers and open spaces for people to spend time in. It shows how much they love their city, I think.
Thanks for keeping us updated, Marion! I love seeing the beautiful, cheery flowers. And isn't it interesting how useful those big containers can be. :-) I know in the US people found a variety of uses for railroad cars; some even made them into homes. I think that was after our Depression? Or WW11? As Grace said, humans are amazingly adaptable. The city might not look the same but the spirit is still there as well as a different beauty.
Thanks again,
Hugz, Mary in Oregon
Thank you ladies. I really appreciate your comments . The earthquakes have dominated our lives since Sept '10.and I fear boring people silly by posting about some aspects of it ! Most of us still can't quite believe what has happened (is still happening..) ! In nearly 50yrs of living here in NZ., I had previously only experienced one mild shock...
Marion.
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