On Tuesday (13.12.2016) I flew to Christchurch. Somehow I liked the city from the beginning. It's just not comparable to other cities I know and has its own charm.
Christchurch is a mixture of old buildings, modern buildings, and above all construction sites. A completely normal sidewalk in the city looks like this:
The earthquake is still very present here. By that I mean the earthquake of 2010 (and its even stronger aftershock in 2011). The earthquake that was recently in the news mainly affects the area north of Christchurch. Anyway, you can see a lot of vacant spaces in the city, which are often used as parking lots, but sometimes also as small creatively designed parks. Many of them are currently being rebuilt, hence the many construction sites.
But the construction sites are also often interesting here, as there is a lot of street art.
First, I stayed in a hostel here. It was very nice and I met nice other backpackers, but unfortunately it was also more expensive. I then got to know a few people on Facebook with whom I will soon (probably Wednesday) travel south. One of my new travel mates organized a place for me in a so-called shared house a bit away from downtown. I now live here with several other backpackers (and pay significantly less :D ). Most of them are French and all very nice :-)