Joulien and I walked around downtown Christchurch which was demolished by 2 large earthquakes over the last year or so. A couple square miles of downtown are still cordoned off -- even after 7 or so months -- and we met a friendly guard at the checkpoint. She's in the reserve army from the north island and of Maori ancestry, and explained the spray paint notes on all the buildings we walked around outside the cordon. They indicate the search team (US, NZ, Taiwan, etc), the date of the search and rescue, and the number of fatalities. They also noted structural problems and warnings like "unstable wall", and bright spray paint on cracks. We stopped for coffee on the walk back to meet Jordon for dinner at a Lebanese sidewalk stand/wine garden area. So here are a couple pics of that walkabout.
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Saturday, we went back to the CDC got dressed in ECW gear (extreme cold weather), checked in for the flight, watched a briefing with maybe 40 persons: military (Air Force), scientists, and a few folks like the filming crew (for the telescope at the pole), and an 8th grade schoolteacher. We bussed to the C17 and got settled for the 5hour flight. The flight was noisy so everyone wore earplugs. The view out the one window only showed clouds and either water or ice. The bag lunches they gave us as we boarded were large (two sandwiches, shortbread, muffin, chocolates, apple, water). Here we are next to the cargo.
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As I said, we were lucky not to boomerang back to NZ.
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