New Zealand: Trip of a Lifetime-Christchurch

On Sunday morning, we headed for Christchurch, the biggest city on the South Island. Our plan was to get to the city in time for church at one of the ward buildings. 

As luck would have it--I seriously can't believe that it happens so often--but it happened to be the weekend of Stake Conference which meant they had no Sacrament meeting. We only figured it out as we drove by the original meeting house and found the empty parking lot...super disappointing. So we then drove to another church building closer to the center of Christchurch (and our hotel) and discovered that indeed, it was a stake conference Sunday. We managed to get bits and pieces of the talks in the second hour and an amazing brightly dressed choir performance:). 

We did get a picture with the missionaries after the meeting! 

After checking into the hotel, Crown Plaza, we walked over to the central part of the city. I say city, but it felt quite small to us. Christchurch suffered from a terrible earthquake in 2011, of 6.3 magnitude. From what people told us, a lot of the central part of town was utterly destroyed and some is still under repairs. People talk about that tragedy with somberness, it really left a huge impact on the lives of the locals. 

We walked to downtown and after some wandering around hopped on the hop on hop off trolley to take a tour around town. We pretty much only hopped on and ended up not hopping off:). It was quite expensive.

The kids just welcomed a rest time again after walking around looking for lunch. Mark looks like he is so happy to be in New Zealand.

Oh look, that's us at the aforementioned lunch! We went to this huge food hall that had all sorts of food available! I really liked this set up! Everyone picked what they wanted and we just ate together. 

Christchurch didn't take that long to explore on the surface level, so we drove to the disc golf course that Robert had been eyeing for days. 

All was fun and all until they lost a disc and spent literally 30 minutes looking for it! hahaha Robert found a hedgehog instead! Who knew they had hedgehogs here??? Until I showed up to help them look and found it! 

Alex with his amazing one handed throw. 

After this little activity, we drove a little further towards the coast, parked in the closest public parking lot we could find to just go walk around on the beach to see the ocean! 

It was so vast! So pretty! 

Golden hour was fast approaching, so we took a bunch of pictures of those who actually wanted to get their pictures taken. 

Oh, we had so much fun doing our traditional beach jumping picture! NZ 2024! 

Great job, Robert, for being such a good sport and jumping with the kids! 

And making us all laugh! 

Wait, they are not quite finished yet! This was hilarious! 

Christchurch beach selfie! 

Please accept my apologies for not editing this picture, but now I don't know how to do it when it's already on my blog. 

I know it looks super dark but it was not even super late. Alex had a wonderful talk with me, he just wanted to chill and not take pictures. 

Then we headed to downtown again for dinner! 

We had some amazing burger/sandwiches at a locally owned cafe. 

Going out to eat is still one of our kids' favorite activity when traveling! 

I believe we snapped this candid picture because we were impressed with finally having free water available as self-served, you took care of your own cups and hoped that others put their dirty ones away. 

And then we found the cutest gelato place that was absolutely hopping! But we found a cozy spot to enjoy our dessert and chat. It was sooo fun! 

Katya was on search of a kiwi for days now... so every chance she got she pointed out kiwis. We weren't giving up yet on seeing an actual live kiwi bird. 

And that was it for our Christchurch adventures! Early in the morning, we dropped off our favorite Staria at the airport and headed for the North Island! 

It was super cool (for us) but because I matched my Delta status with United, I was able to get me and a guest a lounge pass to get some breakfast! It does change your travel experience quite a bit when you can enjoy these small perks along the way! 

To Be Continued....

New Zealand: Trip of a Lifetime-Mt. Cook Area

From Wanaka, we headed north once again towards Mt. Cook/Aoraki village. The beautiful thing about traveling to places for the first time is truly not knowing what to expect. And we were in awe with the unexpected all along the route. 

This beautiful glacier lake was just the color of the incredible blue! This is Lake Pukaki which appears blue because of the fine ground rock particles called "glacier flour", created as the glaciers move over the rock. 

This is a picture taken on the way to Mt. Cook. I mean.... It is just incredible because you know that in real life it looks even at least....ummm... five times better. 

We stopped for a quick rest stop on our 2.5 hour journey. 

The kids looked so excited to take pictures. Seriously, some things just don't change. Katya is always the most willing one to cooperate. 

Finally, we arrived at the Aoraki Mount Cook Village, a remote tiny village with a huge tourist population and conveniences. 

We were able to check into our little cottage that had two bedrooms and a tiny kitchen and then go wait at the gift shop for our group tour to gather together. 

In the meantime, Alex compared his height to the one of Sir Edmund Hillary who was the first man who climbed Mount Everest! This area is famous for all things mountaineering so that's why you could find a lot of information about conquering peaks all around. 

We found our group and got on the bus headed to Lake Tasma for a Glacier Boat tour! 

After a short bus ride, we had to walk to the lake where we were outfitted with life jackets. 

Then the group was divided into smaller groups so we could go on smaller boats. 

Equipped with comfortable seats and a knowledgeable guide. 

Here we are ready to embark on a journey to see the glacier and it turned to be NOT what you imagine it to be. 

That dark snowy bank is actually THE glacier we were set out to explore. It's a slooowly moving mass that's retreating and leaving chunks behind once in a while. 

Katya and I and a stranger from our group on the boat. 

So then this is one of the chunks that is floating in the lake where we can come see it closer. 

It's not exactly the color I imagined that an iceberg would be, but this is also a picture edited by Katya made to look kind of oldish. 

Our tour guide is holding a peace of the iceberg that we got from the chunk floating around. 

We all wanted to touch it! 

Mark got a smaller peace of ice. 

And then this epic picture of us and the iceberg and with the beautiful mountains in the background. 

With a nature backdrop like that, how could we not have a family picture worthy to be framed? 

Here is another look at the massive glacier that looks dirty, but is indeed ice. Hope you can see it...

This is how close we were able to come (or at least that's how it looked when I zoomed in). It's too risky to get too close because what if right at that random moment a chunk of ice decides to separate and float out to the middle of the lake while flipping over and disturbing peace of the lake?

And so if you want to see an glacier in New Zealand and you don't have plans to do a helicopter tour to land on an glacier, this could be a good option. Was it a majestic iceberg that I imagined? Even like in Iceland? No... But it was still a fun experience, especially when the speed boat was going super fast! 

For dinner we had an absolutely splurge of a plan! We went to the buffet dinner at the Hermitage Hotel. We were technically staying on property, although we were staying at the family cottages. 

The dinner was INCREDIBLE! I mean it. It was healthy and delicious with soooo many choices. I had so much shrimp and salad and all sorts of desserts! I mean it is so good (but expensive) that they have an hour and a half time limit on how long you can be there! 

Oh, just looking at these pictures makes me salivate because I remember how delicious they were.

The kids absolutely loved it and so did we. 

Just wanted to make a note, this pictures was taken right before we went into the restaurant for dinner. 

We had only one night in this area, famous for stargazing so after dinner, we drove out to the darkest spot we could find, parked and got out of the car. 

And WOW! I mean, WOW!!!! It was incredible! Even our teenagers who had seen so much in this world were amazed! The sky was studded with the brightest stars I have ever seen! It was surreal how much we could see because there was no light pollution. We all felt so much amazement! 

To Be Continued...