One Pesky Parrot: Progress

It was another damp weekend but Porter and I decided to make the most of it. On Saturday, we ventured to the Riccarton Mall…again. He likes the play area a lot, however, this time he decided that the shops were much more interesting. I’m always afraid he’s going to upset the shop owners/workers as he wonders in, announcing himself at the top of his lungs. But, he’s always greeted with a warm welcome. One 'welcome' I hear a lot is, "well, hello gorgeous!"…they’re talking about Porter, not me.

Also, the City Center (Town Square) opened up this weekend for the first time since the quakes. There is obviously a lot more work to do but it was a big eye opener on the damage that happened. I was lucky enough to get a tour of the Center with some friends who lived there before the quakes. They were overwhelmed with how much progress has actually been done. And, they were a bit emotional seeing everything for the first time in years. All in all, everyone is excited to be able to walk those streets again and everyone has wishful thinking for the future.

As you can see from some of my pictures, there are a few of the Restart Mall. When the quakes happened, business were very resourceful and used shipping containers to recreate their mall. I hope they keep this in the future. It was very neat to see!