Happy New Year!

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New Year's Eve

I woke up pretty early again today, so to kill time I created this here travel blog! Breakfast was excellent again: all types of fruit, toast, cereal, eggs, bacon, sausage... mmmmmm.....

Later, I went for a run in the Botanical Gardens again, went out shopping, ate sushi for lunch, then headed out to the beach. I could not decide which beach to go to the family beaches at Sumner with lava caves that look out into a bay, or the real ocean beaches at Southshore that have big waves and a long peir so I went to the bus station and waited for whichever bus came first. As it turns out, the Southshore bus came first, but in my laid back attitude I did not realize that the Hornby/Southshore bus could go in two different directions and ended up going out to Hornby. Needless to say, it cut down on my beach time a bit by the time I got out there, but the sound of the rolling waves and the endless expanse of water and horizon was remarkably soothing. I took off my shoes, walked through the sand and water, and threw some rocks. The peir was tall and long and had people fishing off the end of it -- no catches that I could see, though.

When I got back to Christchurch I went out to eat with Chris and Hyomin again, this time at a Bengali restaurant, Nobanno. It was delicious; I had a chicken dish with naan and rice. Afterwards we met up with two guys that are going down to the ice with us and went to the square for live music. The first band was a couple of 12 year old boys, so we opted for a bar instead. A long conversation later and we were outside again at 11:30 p.m. listening to better music and making our way through the crowd. A bagpiper played something as everybody counted down the seconds, then Auld Lang Syne as we celebrated. Fireworks erupted from the rooftops and everybody wished each other well.

On the way back I walked along the creek beneath the willow trees, then over a bridge with a man playing tunes on the recorder. I lingered there for a while before heading back to the hotel.

Have fun spending the next 17-18 hours in 2008! Make it a heppy new year when it comes around!

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Oh yeah, the reason I am in New Zealand to begin with... turns out we fly out in the morning at 10, so I will be leaving the hotel at 8:30 to check in and suit up. Yee-haw!

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Photos

Southshore
A strip of shops leading down to the beach.

Photo 3
watching the waves roll in

possibility
the ever changing, the unexplored

Photo 6
waves in the sand

kisses
Happy New Year!!

a tree!
they shine green lights into the trees at night. looks pretty cool.
forgot my camera in my hotel room, but took pics with Hyomin's camera and will get those eventually