//differentness//

differences?????

:-)

I never knew that about Christchurch. Doesn't make me like it any better though...

//You obviously have never experienced christchurch with the right people. //

That's the problem. Isolated pockets of decent people...

//I have experienced plenty of freaky crazy Christchurch people.

ahem...

be prepared for another one.

Same! I really do! And the opposite is true for Wanaka and to a lesser extent Wellington. I really like Wellington.

If all the hustle & bustle does get to you, it’s so quick & easy to get away from it for awhile just by simply checking out the bays, I like just chilling out round the Shelly bay side of Evans bay just watching the sail boats & stuff, and you just can’t go past the southern coast bays in the evenings (with some fish & chips of course) . . . . man how can you dislike this city . .????

Yeah exactly, how do you know you’re alive if you can’t feel the wind in your face?

You can always pick an out-of-towner, they’re the ones with umbrellas . . . .

ooh crap, not sure?
I’ve never heard of Witi Ihimaera or Maurice Gee, or read anything on a little rock garden thing which sticks out into the lagoon at Frank Kitt's park, weird . . . might go and check it out now though.
If I have plagiarised it’s truly by accident.
Suppose it goes to show I’m not the only one who loves that view . . .

The story was about a Maori family moving to Wellington, told from the perspective of a young child.

There is a beautiful description of seeing Wellington upon coming out from the gorge... and knowing that everything will be OK... all his/her fears about moving to a big city dissappeared.

Witi and Maurice are NZ literary greats... Witi wrote The Whale Rider, and has won many literary awards for his many works. Maurice Gee wrote The Half Men of O (which is being made into a feature film, by the way - NZ fantasy films ahoy!) and In My Father's Den (a very good feature film, I hear.)

Maurice Gee at Bookcouncil.org.nz
Witi Irhimaera at the same place

//Maurice Gee a Bee Gee right??

Well you can tell by the way I use my walk
I'm a Welly man, no time to talk
Coffee's hot and wind is cold
I wear black, colour's too bold
And now it's all right, it's okay
Jesus Crux can go away
We can try to understand
The Dominion Post's effect on man
Whether you're a musician
Or whether you're a statistician
You're stayin' alive, staying alive
Feel the city shaking
the fault-line is braking
But we're staying alive, staying alive

Someone else get the next verse

Gold, Joanna. The musician/statistician line got me LOLing all over the show.

// can't we do that kind of stuff?

no linkee except in the box. only bold and italics...

In My Father's Den is a fantastic (but slightly bleak) movie. I really loved Maurcie Gee's kids work (and still do), but I can't get over how few people have read his grown up people books. There's another movie called Fracture (based on Crime Story), which I haven't seen. (Actually I hadn't realised it had been released -- the film company went bust along the way).

I sang it to offline NZMers. Much appreciated.

I had a similar experience with wellington. I had a hard time adjusting to it, but had a couple of brilliant years thanks to having some good flatmates, (and some bad but fun ones) and actually hanging out with local people.

The first year I was there I barely met anyone who wasn't from christchuch, once I got past that and was taken under the wing of a local person, who showed me there was more to wellington than just the city it was pretty good. (even if this local did live in Tawa at the time)

He dissing the wellington (and pimping The Garden City)...

Or do you mean Coddington?

what's worse: blogging about blogging or writing a newspaper column about blogging?

Quoting Coddington: 'I'd not visited the weird world of bloggers but a colleague last week told me my columns were the subject of much comment...'

Thing is, that's exactly how it reads- like someone who discovered blogging last week. What about JC getting a mention though, huh?! Wahey!!

Totally get what you mean but not entirely true...I lived in Unicomm when I first came down here, was in an apartment style situ, cooked my own food and noones washings done for them....however, it is like a boarding school - rules, alcohol confiscation that sort of thing......noone should let their opinion on Wellington be shaped by HOSTEL LIFE...its just not the same!
There are so many different facets to Wellington City, not all tall buildings at all....perhaps you should adventure out of Willis Street and maybe next year don't LIVE in a highrise building if you don't like them....you'd be a lot happier.