The new Pop Up Mall in the center of the "city"

The other day I decided to go for a walk into the center of town to see the new Pop Up mall (they have built a "mall" out of refurbished train containers where the big fancy mall in town used to be. They want to make sure that Christchurch residents don't totally get out of the habit of coming into the CBD etc. So, you drive in, park on the outskirts of the city and then walk into what used to be Cashel Mall. Ballantynes department store is on one end, and the Bridge of Rememberance is still standing at the other end (miracle). Here is a picture of my kids school as I walk away from it... You can see the church (which survived because it is wooden) and the old buildings (which are not in use as they are falling down)... St Michael's school is the oldest in Christchurch.

This is 2 doors down from their school... you walk thru a car yard (you can see it in the above picture) and then there is this... which is still a very normal sight.

Next door to the rubble is the new Centeral City Bus Exchange. This is where my children go to get the bus home (on the odd day where I can't pick them up) It is where the Kathmandu shop was, on Litchfield St. As you can see, they have made a waiting room, ticket selling place, and toilets - out of old train containers... Cars cannot drive down Litchfield Street - currently only buses can turn from Durham St North into this area... so the other other vehicules near here are cranes, bulldozers, police cars and demolition removal trucks...

And this gives you a good idea of what the Pop Up mall is made of. Train containers... stacked on top of each other... with ramps for access, and if you look below you will see the side walls have been removed and replaced with "shop front windows". It's pretty clever really. A good example of Kiwi Inginuity (especially since we see these same containers all over town propping up cliffs, buildings, huge heaps of rubble... and in the case of my children's school - they are placed beside the buildings and used as tunnels so the children can access the building without fear of masonary falling on their heads.

As you can see they have cute-ified it with plantings (they are not weeds, they are native NZ grasses and flax, thank you very much) and paving stones...

It's quite classy... and glassy..... Pity you have no idea where you are. There is nothing around you but these things, and you can't tell you are near the Cathedral or anything else... It's totally weird how you have no clue where you are and then you see the Ballantynes buildings and it is like "eh? what is that doing here???"

Those buildings in the background will be gone soon... Here's a view of how they are creating advertising space.

And just another shot so you can see how big it is. There has to be about 70 shops... Oh Sam, Johnston's Grocery is here. It looks weird because it is all light and airy and the shelves only have a few products on them (no fear of instant death by a can of imported British Baked Beans ever again) xxxx

PS I quite like it. I hope that they leave at least a part of it behind when they rebuild the city. This is the new Christchurch... Oh and the cathedral was issued a 10 demolition warning this week. They wanted to save parts of it and have it included in the new building but CERA (govt. department) as decided otherwise it seems....


I'm not sure you can see what is going on here... but they are "building" another train container into a shop, and the building next to it is all trussed up in case of more earthquakes.

See, I told you Johnstons is nothing like it used to be. I took this picture inside the shop. I was going to take a picture of the shop owner but I didn't want to get into trouble... just pretend his is in this photo

The outside looks normal, the inside is...... different. Kind of empty and like a warehouse. But it will come back to it's Nana-loved former glory.