Next morning a quite respectable breakfast spread, of which
I had pork shumai (decent, possibly made in house but from a
definitely mass-market recipe, but with bits of fat that made
me think not from a factory), an obvious nod to the substantial
Asian clientele and ignored the white folks stuff except for
several glasses of pink grapefruit juice, which tasted very
different from that that we get over here. Also a kiwi, as
that's what one does here.

Lilli wanted oatmeal; it turned out to be special order and
cost a bunch extra, but owing to my diamondness it was free.

Today Glenys took charge of us to show us the city that she
was born and grew up in and that she is very proud of. We
started poking around the Canterbury campus a bit and then
took a tour of the botanic garden; I was a little leery of
this (it was on a little choo-choo thing), but Glenys said
we wouldn't be disappointed, which we weren't. The driver
was genial and knowledgeable - it seemed to be a retirement
job for a guy who had had some kind of academic interest
but now (at apparently our age) likes to drive a toy
vehicle and jaw at people. After which we walked around town
marveling at the destruction, still very evident, caused by
the 2010 and 2011 quakes (also the 2016 one, but less of that,
as the most damaged neighborhoods still hadn't been rebuilt
in any way). Cathedral Square, which was buzzing when I had
been there with Carol, is pretty somber, the building itself
just sitting there gathering rats and pigeons - there is no
consensus as to whether to demolish or restore - the former
being illegal and the latter impractical.

At lunchtime, we checked out the downtown hot dining
district, centered on Oxford Terrace near the WWI memorial
and chose the Terrace Tavern, which was bustling, looked
chic, and smelled good.

Theory and Practice Pinot Gris seemed a good choice for the
warm but not too warm weather, so I ordered that for Glenys
- it was bright and fruity but with quite a bit of body.

Lilli had the Shiraz from the same Hawkes' Bay maker; plummy
and rich, just a little touch of sweetness to round out
moderate acid and good tannin to please the modern palate
(but not so much me). I think she had seconds.

Not feeling like wine, I got a Ginger Tom, a very pleasant
and quenching not very sweet alcoholic ginger brew.

The ladies had pork belly in different presentations - Glenys
got a bruschetta with goat cheese topped with two substantial
slices of the pork, roasted (probably 6 oz and the bargain of
the day); Lilli's was three such slices in a five-spice citrus
jus with salad, really quite excellent. The rind had not been
trimmed off, which made the sandwichy thing especially hard to
maneuver, but that only added to the fun.

To compare with the Akaroa fish fry, I got the substantially
more costly and substantially more pretentious fritto misto,
whose treatment was suitably streamlined, with an almost
tempuralike coating over mostly very nice seafood, to wit:
a couple each big greenlips, just done, juicy and delicious;
superb jumbo prawns; and large, juicy, but somewhat bland
scallops - they really don't make them like they used to.
Plus there were several chunks of a surprisingly wonderful but
unidentifiable white fish, so the waitress went back to the
kitchen for the word - turns out to be a native species called
moki. The whole assemblage was good; without the scallops,
which I don't expect much of any more, it would have been great,

After lunch the obligatory trip to the earthquake memorial, an
assemblage of white chairs, one for each victim, including high
chairs for the infants, out in an empty razed lot, and then the
Cardboard Cathedral, designed by Japanese "disaster architect"
Shigeru Ban: a bit of a misnomer, as paper products are not the
main structural materials, these being recycled plastics and a
number of secondhand shipping containers - still quite a feat
and quite a statement. There we walked in on the tail end of a
talent show/recital by students of a local school and their
parents - pretty cringeworthy, actually, especially a love duet
between an obviously uncomfortable boy in early adolescence and
his mother. I felt sorry also for a kid doing the first movement
of the Mozart violin concerto in G, who made the same mistakes
I'd made when I was about his age. We rushed out during the bows
and acknowledgements, having heard more than we needed to. Music
and Art needn't move over.

After a bit more sightseeing, including a jaunt along the shore
and a stop at an ice cream parlor (Glenys is mad for ice cream
and had a banana milk shake; I had iced chocolate, and Lilli's
order was her usual glass of red wine), we returned to the hotel,
where we had coupons for several freebies at the bar, but they
were advertising happy hour 2-for-1 with free snacks, so we
took advantage of that, saving the coupons for a more propitious.
moment. Lilli wanted Buffalo Trace, but not only was it not on
the promotions list (or the free list), they apparently had run
out some time previously and failed to restock. She had to content
herself with Ballantine's Scotch, a not-too-great tipple, but
whisky is whisky. Glenys had some kind of Sauvignon Blanc, and
I got Speight's lager, a mild brew from down south someplace.

Free snacks didn't come out for the longest time - you don't
order, of course, they just put stuff out on the bar when they
feel like it, and there's first-come-first-grab scrum among the
patrons. The choices were: triangular dumplings filled with a
similar pork mince to the shumai at breakfast, fried prawns
(decent fish with a thick batter), and overdone very spicy salty
but not sweet chicken satays. They didn't waste too much money on
this, but then neither did we. In any case we got enough calories,
so we toddled off fullly to our respective beds.
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