Ghost town (Wellington Christmas)

This year's Christmas was our first in Wellington.



The build up to Christmas day was really similar everywhere I guess.. Shops offering Christmas discount and extending shopping hours (it's extended to 8 o'clock only :-) and some opened until midnight on selected day). It's not as bad as Christmas sale in Singapore though, where you need to squeeze through barricade of mad shoppers in orchard road (mostly Indonesian), here you can still have enough space while you're shopping.

On Christmas Eve, it was surprisingly quiet. We went to church, and only a quarter of congregation members turned up. We came late to the service and we had panicked that we would have problem finding seats as in Indonesia where Christmas eve services are always flooded with church-goers and sometimes people have to sit outside.

We drove around the city and it was reasonably quiet compare to usual weekend. It was a contrast to what happened in Singapore when I was still living there. I was out on Orchard Road on Christmas eve a few years back, and it was hell, it was really crowded you could feel people literally breathing down your neck. There was countdown to Christmas day which was really absurd to me. I don't know if they still have it now, but someone needs to stop them!

One of my friend mentioned that it used to be really quiet in Wellington on Christmas day as most of the population actually came from other part of NZ and they usually traveled back to their home town on Christmas day and as the shops are closed as well. In NZ, based on Shop Trading Hours Repeal Act 1990 there is restriction for trading on Christmas day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and half a day of ANZAC day hence all shops and restaurants are closed.

Apparently it WAS really quiet here, and I loved it!


The pictures above were taken on 25 December in Willis street and Lambton Quay area which are the shopping belt of Wellington.


There were only a handful of people, and the kids took the chance to skateboard on the road.


Even the ever greedy McDonald's 24 hour chains were closed.

Merry Christmas!
p.s. hun, thanks for the pics :-)