A walk through my city

As I was walking through my city this morning, I noticed things I don’t like:

• Our shopping golden mile has become Australia Mile, with endless Australian chains filled with clothes designed by Australians for the Australian climate and predilections, topped off by the recent opening of an Australian department store, replacing our much-loved and gone forever Kirkcaldies, the David Jones, which  is flashy and shiny and chic and utterly generic, indistinguishable from its stores in Sydney or Brisbane, pitched at a market that is well-heeled and cares more about the labels than the individuality of the item, and – until the cruise ship passengers (mostly Australian) arrived this afternoon – was eerily empty; though it does have good loos.
• Buildings are closed – even my doctor’s medical practice has had to move until their building is remediated after earthquake damage – and it makes me shudder to think about what happens if the Big One hits directly under us.

And I noticed things I like:

• In a former nightlife area, several green pedestrian traffic lights are in the unmistakable form of Carmen, a famous Wellington drag performer
• A kilometre or two north, near Parliament, there are other pedestrian lights in the shape of Kate Sheppard, our most well-known suffragette
• The plethora of Asian eateries, some larger, some tiny hole-in-the-wall outlets, all with amazing smells emanating onto the street.
• The plethora of coffee shops, some modern and cool, some retro and hip, and some tiny hole-in-the-wall joints.
• Since the earthquake, these two things have combined on Courtenay Place, where the Mojo coffee shop in the lovely restored St James Theatre is by day a coffee shop (and I enjoyed a flat white there this morning), and by night, its premises are taken over by Dragonfly, a modern Thai-Asian restaurant which has had to close until a building adjoining theirs is demolished.

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