Today, meaning June 23rd, was pretty humbling.. We drove around Christchurch all day to witness the utter devastation that this small city had endured since this past September. We learned that Christchurch has had around 25 earthquakes with a magnitude of 5.0 or higher since September. There's also several suburbs that haven't had plumbing or running water since September. I have a couple pictures that I may upload in a bit. It was also kind of surreal to see stuff like this in person. I walked up to several coffee stores and other similar stores and they had been literally frozen in time. I peered into one of them and looked at a newspaper that was dated February 22nd, the day of the 2nd horrendous earthquake to strike Christchurch. There was dust everywhere and spoons spilled on the ground, chairs toppled over and tables overturned. It truly was a spooky sight to see. It really got me deep. You kinda stood there and imagined what happened when the earthquakes hit, like you could really get in touch with it, but you could never fully understand it.
On a more positive note we also went to a Maori cultural center, which was pretty sweet! I was somewhat reluctantly forced into being the chief of the group.. To which I so "graciously" thanked my group members. This entailed that I had to walk at the front of the group and had to get the peace offering from the Maori warrior (which was a fern leaf) after he had taunted me with a threatening dance kind of thing with a spear-type object thing. So after receiving the peaceful leaf thing I lead the group into the song hut amphitheater thing (as you may be able to tell my Maori terminology is second to none). When we got into the amphitheater I got my own "throne" as well as a seat for my Queen, which in this case, as always was and forever will be Martha! I then had to meet the Maori tribe Chief and shake hands with him and also meet them in the traditional Maori way, meaning touching foreheads as well as noses. Which was kinda strange, but strangely personal and in an extremely special way. Then I sat back in my throne and watched the Maori's traditional dances, which was pretty sweet! The girls then had to learn a dance and do it in front of all the guys there, which was pretty interesting! The guys had to do it as well, ours was a traditional Haka dance, which the All Blacks do before every game, and let me tell you what, that thing is intimidating as hell, like I just watched it on Youtube and it intimidated me...
So these are a couple pictures from the last few days that I haven't been able to upload, but hey now it's working!
This is a random beach that I shot while heading to the Pancake rocks
Rainbow wave at Pancake rocks
Rainbow explosion at the Pancake Rocks
Bri being a rebel.. such a freshman..
Brohommad getting soaked on the beach at Truman Trail
Reflection in water at the end of the Truman Trail
Wave Explosion from the Truman Trail Beach
The underside of a cliff from the Truman Trail beach
Long exposure on the Hokitika beach with a little bit of light painting at the back.
Tomorrow we're waking up EXTREMELY early.. but hey we're going to FIJI!
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