Fine and Frosty

The weatherman describes this week’s weather as fine and frosty -  meaning it is sunny and cold with freezing nights.  This is better than last week which was rainy and cold – either way it’s a typical Christchurch winter.   

A frosty flower

Hagley Park, near Christchurch Botanical Gardens

The tramping outing was cancelled last week because heavy rain closed the tracks on the hills.  Instead we walked around the city and parks.  

  

We also take lots of buses to get around Christchurch.  

The 100 bus, right on the road we live on

Christchurch has several good farmers markets and we have already visited two of them.

Christchurch Farmers Market at Riccarton Bush

Makes sense to us...

Halswell Community Market

Cindy met some cute animals up close, including Merlot, a ragdoll cat who belongs to one of the walking group women.  

Merlot

This Kea or mountain parrot lives at Willowbank Nature Reserve where Cindy volunteers.

Kea from Willowbank

We like the efficient color-coded rubbish bins – everyone in Christchurch has the same bins and the same rubbish hauler (the city).  Red is rubbish (landfill), yellow is recycling and green is organics (everything organic except flax and cabbage tree leaves, dead animals and sawdust – we don’t know what you do with those exceptions).  Green is picked up every week and yellow and red on alternate weeks.   

Our three bins

Paul checking to see if the bins have been emptied

The contents of the organics bins are turned into compost which is used on all public green spaces and is also available for sale by the bag or trailer load.

We’ve discovered a new (to us) vegetable called tatsoi...

... which Cindy got at the Okeover Community Garden on campus when she weeded on Friday.  

Tatsoi can be eaten raw or cooked similar to spinach or bok choy.

We’ve seen the little fantail bird, which is one of our favorites – this one didn’t fan his tail all the way though.

And we’ve been out to eat a few times – once was to Sakura, a Japanese restaurant with great tempura, and another time to a grand opening at Pocket Full of Spices, an Indian restaurant in the Christchurch suburb of Rolleston.  

Vegetable tempura at Sakura

Yalini and Paul at A Pocket Full of Spices

These restaurant visits are thanks to Yalini, a colleague of Paul’s who loves to show us her favorite Christchurch restaurants.