We officially had our very first visitors in New Zealand.....Saturday Jocelyn's favorite college professor, John Hochheimer (or Hoch as he is affectionately referred to by his former students) came to visit with his wife, Chris. He had been invited to speak at a conference in Melbourne, Australia and decided to see more of the Land Down Under and its surroundings by taking a cruise which conveniently had a stop in Christchurch!
We picked them up from the port in Lyttelton in the morning and drove them through the port hills. They certainly did not offer THAT as an excursion on the cruise! LOL It was a little cloudy which impaired the view of the mountains in the background but it was still a beautiful day to see the REAL New Zealand. Next, we took them to the top of Taylor's Mistake - one of our favorite spots. We just enjoyed the scenery and each other's company. Some reminiscing and some new advice.
We decided they had to try the famous New Zealand green-lipped mussels so once the sun came out we headed into Christchurch city and ate lunch at the Belgian Beer Cafe which is known for their 1kg pot of mussels with frites. Mmmmmm. Delicious. They were amazed by just how huge the mussels were as were we when we first got here.
Finally, as we were leaving the restaurant, we ran into Sonya and Vinnie - Sonya is a co-worker of Jocelyn's at the Lemon. She recommended we try the traditional vanilla ices (no relation to the defunct rapper!) from a street vendor. How could we refuse!! She then took our photo to capture the experience. :)
Finally, we were running out of time so we took them on the Christchurch Tram. It was fine, but let's just say if anyone else comes to visit, we will not be doing that. Just easier to walk around we think. Sorry Hoch and Chris. The only other time we were on the Tram was for the hairyLemon Christmas party and I think we all know that our opinions MAY have been impaired! ha! ha!
The one funny thing we got to show them while on the tram was the unfortunately named "$5 bus" whose owners did not consider inflation!
We dropped them back off at the port. Their next stop was Tauranga and then Auckland.
Sunday we went to the Botanical Gardens across the street from our flat. We were able to take some really nice photos and enjoy a relaxing Sunday.
Today, Trey's friend Adnan arrives. Jocelyn is done with work until January 5th and we are preparing for Christmas Day at our friend Mark's parent's house here in Christchurch. We are excited for our very first Summer Christmas and Christmas bbq complete with lamb, crayfish (lobster) and prawns (shrimp)!!
