Wednesday November 20
We left early for a shuttle ride to Sydney International Airport, and the flight to Christchurch was uneventful except I got stopped at customs. Evidently some Asian man around my age was on some wanted list, as I, along with two other Asian men around my age, were all pulled out of line and they ran a more thorough check on our passports.

The weather forecast for Christchurch was a high of 15° Celcius. When we arrived we were pleasantly surprised to find it was 21°, almost as warm as Sydney. We arrived at the Hotel Ibis around 5:00, with no plans for the evening. Hotel Ibis was in a great location -- behind the hotel was a store, and that store faced Cathedral Square, which was in the center of town. Suzy and I wandered the streets getting a feel for the town and admiring the architecture, parks, and statues. Eventually we got hungry and went to eat at Indochine.

We ordered some potstickers, pickled cabbage, and the cabbage wrap pork dish for appetizers, as well as roasted duck for our entree. The service was slow, but we were beginning to realize that in this area, slow service is normal service. The roasted duck wasn't nearly as good as the one at Aria, but on the other hand it was half as much. The other dishes were fine but not unusual, which was disappointing.

After dinner we walked through another park and through downtown looking for a place to eat dessert. It was 9:00 and still very light outside, but almost all the shops had closed down for the night. We ended up getting a mud pie (ie chocolate cake) and ice cream dessert at our hotel restaurant, which wasn't very good. After that we went upstairs to sleep, as we hadn't gotten much sleep the night before.

Thursday November 21
Our travel agent had planned a guided tour to Akaroa for today, and we met our guide Allan a little after 8:30 at the hotel lobby. It turned out we were the only people going with him that day, which was fine, since Suzy and I generally don't like dealing with other people on tours.

We drove up some beautiful countryside to get to Akaroa. During the ride, we learned a lot about the various introduced plants and animals to New Zealand, as well as a fair amount of history. We ate lunch at a cafe on the lakeshore. Afterwards, we boarded a two deck boat for a cruise around the lake. There were 40 or so people, but the boat was large so it wasn't too bad.

The weather was great, and the cruise was awesome. The world's smallest dolphin, the Hectors dolphin, spends a lot of time in this harbor, and today we saw them swim alongside the boat. The most I ever saw at one time was 10 or 11, and they weren't shy at all. It seemed almost as if they were as curious of us as we were of them. We also got a glimpse of a penguin from afar, and saw a bunch of seals.

After the cruise, we stopped by Barry Bay's Cheese Factory. We tasted a few of their cheeses and were in the middle of watching a DVD on how they make their cheese when a huge tour bus arrived and people began streaming in. We decided to leave rather than deal with the crowd.

We got dropped off at the Royal Botanical Gardens where we strolled through admiring the various flowers and trees. I had never seen such huge trees in a garden before. We ate dinner at Pescatore, a restaurant inside The George, an upscale hotel. I ordered the six course tasting menu with the wine pairing, and Suzy ordered the same minus one course (the scallops) and had a glass of wine instead. After the second course which combined sushi tuna and a sorbet, I knew I would have to get a copy of the menu since it was so wacky. They were:

1. Caramaelised Scallops: braebum apple puree, shaved fennel, sherry caramel
2. Citrus Salted Tuna Tataki: persimmon sorbet, rhubarb, fenel and apple salad
3. Garlic Black Tiger Prawns: quesadilla with avocado corn relish and thyme vinaigrette
4. Sauteed Exotic Mushrooms: porcini wafer, sweet orn tamale and buffalo mozzarella
5. Duo of New Zealand Lamb: roasted loin and grilled cutlet, fondant potato and confit shallots
6. Trio of Berries: blueberry genoise, blackberry salad, strawberry sorbet and warm wild berry shooter

All of the dishes were excellent, even the tuna and sorbet. They messed up the service a little; the server initially brought the wrong wine pairing with one of my dishes (though corrected herself when she saw the label), and was late bringing me the wine pairing for another dish. To her credit, she comped us Suzy's glass of wine and also poured her a glass of the dessert wine on the house, so the place gets full marks from both of us.

 

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