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<< Previous: Coining phrases | Next: New Zealand Part II >>

New Zealand Part I
Thursday, 2008 August 14 - 10:18 pm
A couple of weeks ago, I went to New Zealand on a business trip. Amy came along for fun. I think we've mostly recovered from the jet-lag. Mostly.

New Zealand is a beautiful, beautiful country, even in winter. (Apparently, summer is winter in New Zealand. Also, left is right. For the first day or so, I even got up and down confused.) The locals tell us we got lucky when it came to the weather; it was mostly clear (or "fine", as they call it) with temperatures in the 50s (er, 10s).

It's just getting there that's the horrible part. Our trip there spanned thirty hours and four different flights... each way. The flight from San Francisco to Auckland (the third leg of the flight out) was nearly fifteen hours long. And the flight was completely full... full of about 300 Catholic teenagers headed for World Catholic Youth Day in Australia. (At least they weren't rowdy.)

But we survived the flight. Upon arrival in Christchurch, Amy and I wandered into town and found a restaurant/bar called Red Jacks.

Red Jacks

It turns out that the city center is packed full of unique little bars, restaurants, shops, and salons. In the same area as Red Jacks were five other bars/restaurants (the distinction was blurry sometimes). We intended to go to the vodka bar that was there, Izba, until we looked inside and saw that it would be just us and one other brutish surly-looking guy; we figured that might be a little uncomfortable.

Izba

There were other places to find vodka... like this very cool bar, Vespa, right next door. The bar had several cozy side rooms with soft chairs and couches, perfect for gathering with a few friends. We need something like this in Raleigh.

Amy in Vespa

The "cultural precinct" in the heart of town has this snow-cone thing in the middle of a plaza; I'd wager that this is the most photographed thing in Christchurch.

Snow Cone

Also, there's a very pretty Victorian-style cathedral, which is probably the second-most photographed thing in Christchurch.

ChCh Cathedral

Wandering around, we came across a bar with interesting outdoor seating:

Outdoor Bar

And one evening, we found a whole strip of cool restaurants along a street called Oxford Terrace:

Oxford Terrace

One of the restaurants was called Ferment. It was here that we discovered a drink that they called the Finlandia Mule; it's commonly known elsewhere as a Moscow Mule or a Vodka Mule.

Finlandia Mule

That's vodka, muddled limes (lime wedges crushed with a pestle into the vodka), and ginger beer, served over ice. Ginger beer isn't something that American bars are likely to have. Ginger ale can be substituted if that's the only thing available, though ginger beer is really what you want to give the drink a kick. (A "kick", hence the term "mule".) Anyway, this has become our new house drink.

Now, of course there's much more to New Zealand than restaurants and bars... I'll talk about that in Parts II and III.
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Posted by Ken in: life

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