I spent a very indulgent couple of days with Regina Yau, a lovely friend from university who is currently living in her native Malaysia. I found the temperature in KL a bit of a shock to the system, as I had just left behind the Japanese winter – quite a transition from 7°C to 37°C! So as the heat wasn’t very conducive to physical activity, Regina and I had a great time wandering around air-conditioned places, like shopping malls :) And also a less air-conditioned one: the city’s fantastic bird park, where hundreds of different kinds of birds wander around freely. It’s funny to see species that would probably never have met in the wild all happily rubbing shoulders, but hey, it clearly works here!
As it happens, my visit coincided with the five-year anniversary of that second terrible quake, a day that scarred Christchurch and its people forever: 22nd February 2011. A few people I spoke to felt that still, five years later, not much has been done to repair the damage and rebuild the city, and certainly there’s construction under way all over the place. I lost count of the number of cranes I saw, and guard rails, fences, “keep out” signs and flattened spaces where something beautiful used to stand... |
Christchurch is clearly home to some very talented artists, who bring distinctive colour and verve to the city’s grey walls between construction sites:
The art gallery, which also took a battering in the quakes, is now making a positive, hope-filled assertion for the months and years ahead... a touch of colour against that dark grey wall: | And I couldn't resist the chance to capture this poetic tribute to one of the country's foremost rugby men, a towering giant whose presence and performance with the All Blacks will never be forgotten. |
Before leaving Christchurch I visited the botanic gardens, where the “Peace Bell” is a monument to more harmonious times and also a memorial, five years on, to some of the 185 people killed in the earthquakes. This place is alive with the sound of the crickets in the trees – listen! | |