Christchurch

First day of the trip proper, and people are already into the whole “get to know you phase” where one asks where you’re from, your name, your age, then promptly forgets it all, only to be forced into the circumstance where they need to ask you again. We were driven up to Christchurch proper and shown around (still on the bus) so we could get an idea of where to head to for lunch, and where to meet the bus afterwards. Eventually they took us to the laser tag place, which was to be our main activity for that day. We had to split into two groups because the arena wasn’t big enough for all of us. I was in the second group so like any productive group of teenagers we stood around outside talking about nothing in particular.

When it was finally our turn to go I was pleasantly surprised to find the guns were actually pretty decent (I’ve always hated the guns at laser tag places. Too small, too bulky, horrible firing, there’s always something wrong with them). They were well sized to be wieldable in either one or two hands without too much trouble, and they offered you the option of switching between a long distance “rifle” laser, or a wide spread (but short range) “shotgun” blast.

Our team ended up winning, because despite the fact that the other team had the best players, they also had a lot more of the worst, plus one girl whose gun didn’t work but whose vest did (an unfortunate combination that ended in something around negative 600 points)

I was ranked second best on my team, so I can’t really complain.

Anyhoots, after that we were sent off to find lunch for ourselves, and although I would have been perfectly happy to stop at one of the many food courts (actually only one, but our group got lost and ended up walking past it about three times), the people in my group insisted on finding a “FoodWorld” (a supermarket chain over here). After a few botched directions we actually found one, so I finally got to consume something.

After that the guys were pretty much dragged along after the girls from department store to department store (we had hours until the bus left, what were we supposed to do?) until we finally reached the cathedral square.

Now Christchurch, believe it or not, has this really big church that you can go inside and look around. It’s not quite “European cathedral” big, but it’s big enough. I managed to tactfully avoid it last time I was down there, but this time there was no stopping it (damn you kenophobia, damn you to hell).

After that little adventure we gathered onto the bus and took off to our next destination, Kiakoura (which literally means “crayfish, food”. Maori get real creative with their names). We unloaded our junk from the bus and made to our rooms. I was originally in room “blue duck” with a few other people until Vince (France) decided he didn’t want to be in room 8 (there wasn’t really a sensible numbering system at this place) all by himself, and switched out with me. So I ended up getting my own room.

Most of the group hung out in the hot tub (which was way too small for all of us) until my group “the chickens” had to go upstairs and help cook dinner, which in all it’s cannibalistic ironic glory, happened to be chicken and couscous. (No one, not even the tour director knew what the hell couscous was, so I had to explain it)

Later, we decided to chill in the sauna for a while, but we got kicked out because apparently someone had reserved the pool area that night for a party (selfish bastards). On my way out I managed to pull off a spectacular slip on the tiled floor, which wouldn’t have been nearly as bad if the entire poolside wall wasn’t a great big window, displaying my clumsiness for all to see.

Just in case we hadn’t had quite enough of this day, Aiden decided to host a quiz night to see what we remembered about Christchurch. I made it to the third to last round, so really not too shabby. We were reminded of the wakeup time and what rooms the chaperones were in, which happened to be “narwhal”. It is common however in the Maori language to pronounce “wh” as “f”, so our chaperone told us he was in “narfal, whatever that is” I did a little mental facepalm and listened to the final announcements.

After spending the next few hours establishing slapjack and bullshit as the card games of choice, I finally retired to my room, where I spent most of the night making tremendous progress on my book, ultimately regretting it the morning after.