It’s been a good day!

Today has been a busy day on the Motel front with a wide range of good news rolling in…..

Lonely Planet has released its new, post-quake Christchurch & Canterbury chapter from the upcoming Lonely Planet New Zealand guide,
 

We are there on Page 12 between the Jailhouse and The George.  Look at that! 3 top accommodation providers from different genres all together - ranging from $30 to $886!! Jailhouse – Top Backpacker, CentrePoint on Colombo – Top Motel, The George – Top Hotel!  Will also mention Orari B&B – Top B&B just to our left!! 
We congratulate Lonely Planet on producing a comprehensive guide to post quake Christchurch that can easily be said to be the best guide to our new city at time of printing!!  Most noticeable is that they have shown the central city area is alive and well and very much a place to visit!!
We are proud to be recognised in this way by one of the world’s top travel magazines and look forward to welcoming LP users to Christchurch!

A recent traveller, (Trip Advisor name; OmNomNomDePlume) who found us on twitter and drove in with ½ the South Island on his car reviewed us on Trip Advisor in probably one of the longest reviews we’ve ever had!!  It kinda summed up a lot of what we do and recognised the effort we put into helping the travelling public get the most out of their visit to Christchurch.  Made us laugh and smile! Have a read….here

Received the latest update for our all new motel website that we are working on.  Starting to come on nicely and that gave us an extra little buzz!!  Sorry but it’s all under wraps till we can get it together……..stay tuned.

Gotta live the good times and we did indeed today!!

Want to be first in the new Spa Bath?

Just who will it be? If you book to stay Friday it could just be you…..and your special other ½ too….it’s a double!

Here’s the story……

Sometime ago we walked into the garage to find ourselves standing in a puddle of precipitation.  The wall was wet from ceiling to floor! Ooops! Something obviously wrong here!

The cause not instantly obvious but it was definitely coming from the CentrePoint Suite above.  Oh….Nooo!!! Not a leaky spa bath?? We were able to confirm a few days later that indeed a hairline crack in the double spa bath was the probable culprit.  Bad Double Spa Bath!

 (Deluxe Man Cave with Double Spa Bath! How much would you pay??)

Or was it? We were actually able to ascertain that we have to blame the honourable guest who placed their gracious posterior (or other part of their anatomy) on the spout with a degree of force lacking any daintiness at all. (please……be more careful next time)

(In the Bathroom......It's starting to happen......)

But, whatever happened happened….. is all we can say and so it is that the spa bath be replaced. Waking up to water in the garage is not a good start to the day!

(New walk-in shower at the CentrePoint!?) 

Today was Spa Bath Day, or should we say, rip out the spa bath and get the new one in day!  We’re looking forward to day 2 tomorrow and ….if all goes to plan…..it’ll soon be all ready to go!

 (Yippee! New bath.......supported by a couple of hunks of 4x2......naturally.)

This could be some good trivia for your next pub quiz night but…. did you know that it is impossible to get a bath the exact same size as the one that was installed only a bit more than 5 years ago?  Hard to imagine but yes, bath makers appear to enjoy changing bath sizes – we think they may need to see a shrink!

You could be the first to stay in the CentrePoint Suite and bathe in the virgin luxury of our new spa bath – and that would be priceless!

Thanks for thinking of us in Christchurch

It’s been another interesting day here in Christchurch with 2 shakes, one of magnitude 5.5 and the other a 6.  We’d like to take this chance to say thanks to all those who have sent their best wishes to us and to say that we are still standing tall!

The smaller quake came first followed by the larger one just an hour or so later.  Both were centred just at the edge of Banks Peninsular.  Thankfully no-one was killed and this can be attributed to the decision to block off the inner city until the area can be made safe.  On the not so good side, the Cathedral and other buildings have suffered further.

The full extent of damage will become clearer tomorrow but there is widespread liquefaction damage in the eastern suburbs and there were more rock falls in Sumner.

We had minor superficial damage, which means things fell over scratching on walls etc. and we lost water for about 4 hours.  Talking about water, after a hard day we had just a little bit of fun, tipping out the dirtied well water we got as a back-up and videoed it cos that’s what we do!   

Thank you New Zealand, thank you!

 

 

Thank you New Zealand, thank you!

This goes out to everyone that has helped us here in Christchurch so far, even those who live here.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Let’s look at it, Christchurch is munted, in the east there are at least 10,000 houses needing rebuilding and 128 buildings in the Red Zone have had their lifelines cut short. On top of that, the locals are pretty much stressed out after 6 months of unannounced shakes.

Can we do the recovery by ourselves? Probably not.  The announcement of the formation of CERA (Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority) was greeted with trepidation by some because it may lessen the control we have over our own future.  But wait a moment, let’s think about it, can we do this by ourselves? The simple answer is, no probably not, there is simply too much to do.

In this way, we have to be aware of just how much the rest of the country is contributing to Christchurch’s recovery. And we need to be thankful to the rest of the country, because they are doing it hard too.

At the motel we have noticed 2 patterns of stay, the long term guest of 3 to 4 weeks and the Monday - Thursday guest.  The long term guests are here for the duration and often work everyday.  Monday – Thursday guests come into Christchurch for the recovery on Monday, stay 4 nights and then head home on Friday.  The easy thing to say is, “Hey! Stay for the other 3 days!” and help us put Christchurch together even faster.  But if you think about it, these people all have families too and at the moment they are giving over half of their lives to us.  Four nights here in Christchurch means only 3 nights back home, and that must be tough.  They are all working long hours here and then spend their down time in a motel a long way from home.  They need to go home and see their families, participate in their communities and relax on their lazy boys.  The other thing is that they still need to work in their own communities.  For every day they spend here, is a day less they spend in their own communities, working and playing and for this reason we must be very grateful to them for the efforts and the sacrifices they are making for us. 

For some of our guests this has gone on for 5 weeks now and will probably continue for a number of weeks to come.  In addition, long term guests are here for up to 3-4 weeks at a time before returning to their hometowns.

In this way it is easy to see that this Christchurch disaster will have a large effect on all of the country for many years to come.

Hence we are ever so grateful to those that are working here, by themselves, for us, away from their own homes, away from their loved ones, away from their comfort zones, for us.  This will go on for a long time to come and we are and will be for a long time yet, very, very grateful for their sacrifices for us.

Social Media at CentrePntMotel

We’ve been in here at CentrePoint on Colombo Motel for 3 years, 1 month and 6 days and considering the events of recent days we may well be here for quite a while longer. Anyone want a motel? #justjoking

When we took over this place, the office computer was not even connected to the internet and online bookings were a “We’ll get back to within 24 hrs.” Mmmmm….gotta do something here! Is what we thought!

Just to put the record straight, Naomi is the tech in the family and started blogging a couple of years before we left Japan in anticipation of the future, making this about our 5^th year of Social Media mucking in.  Jeff adds his sometimes unique view on life.

Front office social media HQ

Back office social media HQ

So what do we do? We blog in Japanese and English, we have 3 Facebook accounts, we’re on Twitter, we actively participate in Trip Advisor and have a great cms system that lets us tweak our website when we feel the urge! Woot!

Why do we do it….to sell rooms of course!  C’mon, this is a capitalistic endeavour!  Have we sold any? You may ask. Yuss! We can answer, we have, ask the next Bandicoot you meet about it!

But we also do it cos it’s a lot of fun and a good learning curve that is ever evolving.  As the saying goes…it’s fun to live on the edge!

Our exploits on social media do lead to connections on social media but also other media as well.  Recently Jeff has been interviewed on @NewstalkZB by @susimaclean about social media’s roll in the 4 Sep. quake and next was an article in the Christchurch Press about Jeff’s morning pic tweets of the Cathedral, before and after 222.

But it also leads to a bit of stress, some obviously don’t approve of some of the things we do and some obviously don’t approve of the way we say things and this makes us feel like the nail that sticks out a bit sometimes.   But we cope with it, we cope with it.

And today we got the Crem de la creme…..Motella wrote a blog about us….Awwww shucks……nice warm fuzzy feeling! Thanks Stu!

Christchurch Earthquake... again...

At 12.50pm on 22 February, 2011, someone decided that Christchurch had not had enough.  We will never know why this verdict was reached but the penalty was harsh.  We have been visited by a vicious ripping apart of the earth and much that we love in our beautiful city is no more.  This of course refers to both the poor souls who are no longer with us as well as the physical destruction.

Once again, we begin our blog journey as we start to get back to normal and will make periodic updates.  

Today’s message was written to reply to all those who asked how we were.

Thanks for the email and your kind thoughts.  We really do appreciate them and we do need them.  Our beautiful city is a mess, the Cathedral Spire is down, 65 are confirmed dead and many are still trapped in collapsed buildings.  Over 1000 people are sleeping in Hagley Park but at least the big tents are up for the Flower Show and they are out of the rain.

We are shaken but safe.  The Motel is structurally sound and we have power but no water 10 hours after the quake.  We should be back to normal in a day or two and we are thankful for that.  It is the wider city area and those trapped, injured and dead that our hearts go out to.  

The kids were both at school and we spent a stressful 3 hours until we got confirmation that they were ok.  Being kids they were excited and we let them go take some photos.  It was not the time to lay down rules, this was their way of coping and they are good, responsible kids.  Some cops told them to get out of the central city and go home….they said they live in the central city!  

In a word, it was massive, much bigger than the 4 Sep quake.  In that quake we did not have any damage in the rooms but this time we lost 95% of our plates, cups and glasses and a few other things will require repairing.  We will need a massive shopping trip but we should be back to normal in a day or two!

In September the quake was 30kms away and a magnitude 7.1.  This time it was situated pretty much under Lyttelton and it was only 5km deep.  The magnitude was only 6.3 but the shallowness and closeness made the result so much worse.

Just as we thought things were getting better after 4 Sep., we are back at step 0.  Tomorrow we take step 1, and then step 2.  One step at a time till we get back to normal again.

Thanks for thinking of us! We really appreciate it.

19th New Zealand Scout Jamboree

Mr15 and mr12 are with the more than 4000 Scouts and leaders who are taking part in the 19th New Zealand Scout Jamboree at Mystery Creek in Hamilton.


We are enjoying a staycation having the house to ourselves!

Mr15 went up in the Malvern Scout Group advance party to set the campsite up on 28 Dec and mr12 went up one day later. They are due to arrive back in 2 days after 10 days of fun and adventure. If you want to know more about what they are all doing, view the Jamboree facebook page

Mr15, Tak, who has recently been awarded his Chief Scouts Award, the highest award that can be achieved while in Scouts (as opposed to the next level, Venturers) got a special mention in the daily report from the Contingent Leader Adrian Price.


The following is some excerpts from the daily report;


“It was an exciting morning when the Governor General, Anand Satynand dropped by with RH Bill English and RH Phil Goff to see the Jamboree and to have lunch with Takuma Peters who has achieved his Chief Scout award.


Tak went along to the Chief Scout's Luncheon with around 120 other Chief Scouts who have been awarded their badge this year. Jo and I vetted his uniform and presentation last night and Tak organised cover for when he would be away from his patrol during the day. We borrowed a few things from amongst the troop to make sure he had some smarter pants, and a more modern shirt, but I felt like a proud uncle as he walked off to his appointment with the Scouting top brass as well as the top echelon of our political system, representing our group. Well done Tak.


He's become an aspirational goal for our Scouts and a number of them came up to us afterwards to ask just how they could get on the track to their own Chief Scout next year, a few of these were Scouts who'd expressed their intention to leave after the Jamboree.”


Reading that gave us a warm fuzzy feeling and made us feel proud parents! Well done to Tak for the commitment, perseverance and determination required in getting his Chief Scouts Award!


Footnote: Jeff is a Queen Scout (highest award in Scouting) and his Grandfather was a King Scout. Jeff is currently the Chair of the Malvern Scout Group Committee.


Interested in Scouting, call 0800scouts.