24/11/2010 Christchurch

I awoke this morning a little after 4 am. I was a little worried that we wouldn't have enough time before our flight left. I didn't want there to be any chance that we missed our 9 am flight and we had an hour between dropping off our car and getting through security. In case you are wondering how the Rotorua Airport operates I am here to be your guide. Though I will tell you that we were early. Not only a little early but a lot early. We arrived at the airport at 7:30. There was NO security check-in. In fact the door to the airplane was no more than 50 feet from the entrance to the airport. Super small airport and super trusting. I never flew before 9/11 and so I don't know anything other than the security in the states. We boarded the airplane and headed off to Christchurch.
We landed 1.5 hours later and found our waiting shuttle. After a short drive we arrived at our hotel. The hotel was very unique. It had huge roses bushes all around it too. Dan and I took a walk around the property. It was really beautiful and we understood why Christchurch is known as the garden city. My only complaint of this hotel was the location. It was quite a ways from the city center and so we had to take their free shuttle. I guess it wasn't that bad because they at least had shuttle. We took the 1 pm shuttle to the city center for lunch. We happened upon a swanky restaurant named Suede. Dan had a salad and I had a chicken sandwich. I
enjoyed my so much especially the avocado.
Once lunch was over we went to look around the city. We made it to the Cathedral Square but that was about it for the city. We decided that we would walk back. There was a botanical garden located in the park. It was fun to see so many big trees. The garden only had roses and a few shrubs for flowering plants. I think it was too soon for all the beautiful summer plants. We finished ti gardens after a bunch of photos and continued to our hotel. It was about a 30 min walk and by the time we got to our hotel Dan and I were quite tired. We spent a little while enjoying the free Internet and found a place for dinner.
Since we didn't have any mode of transportation we just spent the rest of the night at our hotel. Luckily we had a complimentary bottle of sparkling wine to drink so it wasn't half bad.