The South Island: A Retrospective - DAY TWO

Last time, on "The South Island: A Retrospective - DAY ONE", our intrepid adventurers were in a hellish Christchurch hostel, drunk. Now we join them on day two for Hangover: The Reckoning. This is what happened on Wednesday, June 7th.

I don't recommend drinking a bottle of wine by yourself. It hurts. We checked out of Stonehurst and walked to "town" a few blocks away and begin our tourism extravaganza in Christchurch.

I like to front-load a vacation or trip by seeing a lot of sights and tourist attractions. That way if I get lazy as the trip progresses, I feel like I've already accomplished enough to justify completely slacking.
We had breakfast on this lovely mostly-pedestrian street, which was quite regularly disturbed by the passing of the historic trolley car. I become irrationally excited by a variety of modes of transportation, so breakfast was THRILLING. And when we were done (veggie eggs benny and a mocha), we hopped on this trolley for a twirl around the town. Here's our driver, Mo.
We took a ride around town (okay, one and a half times around town) on this thing, and stopped at the Christchurch Cathedral for a look around. Beautiful! And they wanted to charge $2.50 to take pictures inside! Whatever. There it is from the outside, and you can go to their website to see some good shots of the inside.
Here are people playing giant chess in front of the cathedral!
We walked through the charming open-air tourist market, and then down to the river. The river is pretty, as you can see.
And here is a wheely-thing. Actually, it's a waterwheel that was built in 1997 to commemorate the water-powered mill that used to operate on this tiny little river island in the late 1800s. But according to the sign, it's not a replica. Just a tribute I guess.
Now, anyone who knows Joe, knows he likes boobies. Clodagh and I made a special effort to photograph every boob-related thing we could find on our journey. Here in Christchurch, we found many such things:
Then on to the FUDGE COTTAGE for a tour! Look what they're featuring on today's tour...
And an assortment of fudges:
And the fresh hot Bailey's fudge being poured out into the mold:
After having our fill of fudge samples, and shopping in the Arts Centre (Nikhila: remind me I bought you something and failed to send it to you), we wandered back to the hostel to pick up the car. On the way, we saw this:
It's hard to tell, but it has two front ends. Cool.

This is the best parking lot decoration I've ever seen. I wish this had been my handwork.

So far, a lot has happened on day two! And the sun hasn't even set yet! For sunset, we drove with great haste to the gondola. On the way, a peacock ran out into the road. Go figure.
My pictures of from the top of the gondola were kinda crappy, so I found someone else's to use. Cool, eh?
We spent the next couple of hours trying to drive to Akaroa on the Banks Penninsula, after dark, without a map. Eventually, we found a gas station, got directions and a map, and turned around. When we got to Akaroa, we dumped our stuff in the hostel and headed over the pub for the worst dinner of all time, followed by the best sleep of all time.

Day two was a big day.