Accomodation: Grand Chancellor Hotel - An older, but upscale hotel. I'd stayed here before but this time we opted for one of their remodeled, upgraded rooms. Definitley worth the extra expense! Nice location if you're on foot, everything at the hotel was well presented except for the strange smell in the bathroom, which I believe is from old plumbing and the floor drain. If you like the bar scene, there's a string of them just around the corner that really go off of the weekends.

Dining:

Dux de Lux
www.thedux.co.nz
Christchurch 8013, Canterbury, New Zealand
(03) 366 6919

A restaurant with an attached bar/brewery with live music at night. Phenomenal seafood & vegetarian food.

Indochine- www.indochine.co.nz

209 Cambridge Terrace
Christchurch 8013, Canterbury, New Zealand
(03) 365 7323

Highly rated and lives up to its reputation. They squeezed us in on New Years Eve and the food was excellent! Try the citrus-chili scallop appetizer.

Stunning Buns - 67 Worcester St
Christchurch 8013, New Zealand
(03) 366 4473

Outstanding food, family owned and well priced. Laura had the pumpkin risotto and I quote: "The best risotto I've ever had"-Laura

Joes Garage - www.joes.co.nz

194 Hereford St
Christchurch 8011, New Zealand
(03) 366 8317

Just like the one in Queenstown. Top-notch breakfasts & coffee.

Chinese Restaurant (I forgot the name) - two blocks from the hotel at the corner of the pedestrian mall. Possibly the best Chinese food I've ever had. Super fresh ingredients and not overly saucy.

Day 1 in Christchurch was tour the city/museum day. Christchurch as a tourist trolley which gives a good tour of some things to see and a decent set of museums. We've been to museums everywhere else so why not here too? However, the coolest thing about the art museum is the building itself. Some 200+ panes of colored glass cover the outside to mimic the Avon river. I have to say the highlight of the day (for Laura anyway) was the discover of "Stunning Buns".

New Years Eve in NZ would be our first "Summer NYE celebration". Bear in mind, the sun is setting about 9:30 and it's still light at 10 so being primed for midnight with barely two hours of dark would take some planning. We planned it all out, dinner early, an evening stroll, cocktails and live music at the square starting at 9:00.
We started out the night at Indochine which was nice enough to squeeze us in for dinner. We had five hours to kill before midnight so started with the walking around and then decided to rest a bit rather than head straight away to cocktails. Here's the thing, after a big dinner going back to your hotel is almost giving up on the evening. Lucky for us, even after really long naps, we still had time to rally for the midnight celebration.

Christchurch has a great square and the constructed stage was the tell tale sign of live music that night so we knew something interesting would be available and free!  Normally, NZ is quite liberal with the drinking restrictions however, this evenings function promised a four-block alcohol ban to keep things under control. We managed to get out of the room at about 11:30 and finally made it to the square. What may be a famous band, or maybe not a famous band was playing a mix of Celtic songs and other covers. Not the greatest band I'd ever heard, but 5,000 bouncing kiwis made for a festive atmosphere. I would say the alcohol ban just made everyone drink before arriving as the crowd was pretty loose. Midnight approached with bagpipes, fireworks and 5,000 people counting down.  So afterwards, while the row of clubs near our hotel warmed up, we went down & out.

New Years day in NZ. Here's what you may want to consider in NZ vacation planning. Almost everything is closed on new years day and what restaurants are open have a 15-30% holiday surcharge. 15% is mandated, but profiteering was clearly on the minds of many merchants. In hindsight, we should have made the first our travel day to the next city as aside from wandering around, as nothing is available for tourism. We grabbed breakfast at Joe's Garage where we shared the dining room with a group who hadn't quite made it home yet from the nights festivities. Flushed red faces & waivering posture sort of gave them away. That, and the six of them were hitting beers still at 9 am.  They were good entertainment and made us remember back when we might of been in the same situation. Half-way through the meal, the staff moved one of them to the sidewalk as it was clear the night's drinking was going to take it's toll and make a withdrawal on  his recently eaten breakfast. Sure enough, within minutes breakfast reappeared all over the sidewalk, no surpise really.   The shocking part was the friends of the vomit king requested hoses and mops and cleaned up the sidewalk for the restaurant!   Kiwis really are the nicest people.  

The rest of the first day of 2010 was spent just enjoying the warm weather. It was strange that all our friends & family were still getting ready for new years eve.