Christchurch, the Garden City & Antartic Centre

I reckon, Christchurch is like Melbourne and doesn't take a genius to figure out why this city is called the Garden City. This city is so art oriented and there's even trams. Our hotel located opposite the art centre and if you're visiting Christchurch, this is one place that you have to visit (according to the travel brochures). So we went to this place and saw many arts and handmade stuff that I don't understand (I'm not normally like this, usually I enjoy looking at arts. It must be because I hit my head when I did snowboarding, it alters my whole taste on arts!!), the only spot that I understand fully is the Fudge Cottage. You can go around the factory with a guided tour and see how the fudge is made. The fudge is really yummy!

We'll fly to Auckland tonight, so we visited Antartic Centre on the way to the airport, which is just next door to the airport. This is my second time here and this place hasn't changed much. I went in to the snow room where the temperature was -3 degree celcius and it was conditioned like the real Antartica base camp. There were snowmobile, tent, igloo even snowstorms (what the..?). Yeah, we can get inside this room at certain time of the day where a snowstorm is scheduled every half hour. This man made storm wasn't so bad actually, the hard wind that wasn't even considered as storm when I did snowboarding at Porter Heights was even worse. We're not the only ones who were laughing throughout the whole storm process, other people were laughing too.

Well, it wasn't just the no braino things that we did in Antartic Centre, because the purpose of visiting this place is to learn how life is in Antartica. Bad Maya! I also learned that the coldest temperature ever recorded in Antartica was -89 degree celcius, so cold that when you go out from your base with normal clothes you'll die in one minute. See, who says you can't learn from watching movie? Stuff like The Day after Tomorrow really happen. And apparently in you live in Antartica, your hair and nails will grow twice as fast than if you live anywhere else in the world. Anyone desperate to have longer hair? Or can't wait for your next visit to your manicurist?

The highlight of this visit is the Hagglund ride. We can ride this amphibian snow vehicle, only not on the snow but on this big muddy ground. Close enough! Feels like riding roller coaster, especially when we climb up and down the hills. We drove accross a big hole just to prove the point that this vehicle won't fall inside the hole. Of course if the hole is bigger than the vehicle we will all fall inside. Just reasonable size hole, ok? Then on the last round, we went into the water. The driver made sure that all doors are closed properly and locked. The last thing we want is this muddy and cold water to wash over us. This vehicle is really handy. Imagine if you drive on frozen river and suddenly the ice crack and the whole thing fall in the water, you'll float straight away. Wicked...! But, this thing is no V8, ok? So in the water it has the same speed as duck paddling.