Cold Weather Clothing Issue and More Christchurch

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In the morning, we headed over to the Antarctic Center in order to familiarize ourselves with its layout, check our e-mail, and take the museum tour. The tour was quite enjoyable.

At 1pm, we checked in for our cold weather issue. After watching a video, we went to the changing room to try on every piece of cold weather clothing issued for our travels. The clothing came in two large bags. The first bag is items that we need, but not required at all times or duplicate items. The other bag is our extreme cold weather carryon bag. We must wear the contents of the ECW bag the day of departure (tomorrow).

After clothing issue, we head back into Christchurch (the airport is quite a distance away from the city center). We ate dinner at the Holy Grail, a sports bar focusing on Rugby just off of Cathedral Square. It was quite fun and the food was excellent.

From the grail, we walked west toward the botanical gardens. Along we way, we observed some of the local architecture and passed through the arts and theater district.

The botanical gardens were exceptionally beautiful. New Zealand is very very green. These gardens magnified this beauty and greenness. The gardens featured many grand trees that you would not commonly see together. Coming from Kansas, you seldom are capable of seeing neither such large trees nor so many varieties of trees.

After leaving the gardens, we learned that we missed the bus and had to wait 40 minutes until the next bus came by that would take us to the Antarctic center. Around 10pm, we strolled into our hotel lobby and all went off to bed.

Photos coming soon…delayed because of low bandwidth internet access.

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Photos

Gear...Lots and Lots of Gear
This board displays some of the cold weather gear issued for field research in Antarctica.

Antarctic Center
The International Antarctic Center houses a museum, cafe, US Clothing Distribution, NZ Clothing Distribution, and the Antarctic terminal.

Botanical Gardens
The Christchurch Botanical Gardens is located in Hagley Park. It is beautiful. Lots of trees, lots of flowers!