Himalayas Himalayas Himalayas getting back to normal

Great news for lovers of Indian at it’s Best. Himalayas is preparing for a return to its original site, hoping to be open in a new building around the end of Jan or early Feb.


Getting our favourite Indian back within our 2 minute walk limit – gets a big tick from us!


JD (co-owner) dropped in yesterday with the good news and Aman (co-owner) came to see us today with some new menus and the latest news. According to them, the land under Himalayas Restaurant and the next door Pretty Things dress maker (before that it was a shop selling yesteryear items) is to be cleared and rebuilt. At this stage Himalayas is planning to have a wider street frontage but it’s still to be confirmed. Until then, Himalayas is happily providing takeaways and deliveries (no dine in) from 101 Main North Rd., Papanui. They will happily deliver after 5pm to almost anywhere in Christchurch.


JD and Aman have built up a restaurant with a reputation for good quality Indian food and so we were shattered to loose them from our list of recommended restaurants after the 4 Sept. quake. It was heartbreaking to see the glasses with the yellow serviettes sitting undamaged on the tables amongst the destruction that nature had wrought on us. This typified Christchurch’s disaster with some parts left untouched but others so close to ruins. We were buoyed soon after the quake when a “Reopening Soon” sign was up in the window and we are wrapped to hear that plans are in place for a reopening and getting back to normal. Yes, having great Indian food within 2 minutes walk is one measurement of normal!

 No doubt it’s been a tough 3 months for Aman and JD but they have stuck at it and not given up on their dream to establish a great Indian restaurant in Christchurch. So we say thanks for staying round, for taking the hit but standing tall and proud! Well done guys, your menus will be back in the room compendiums tomorrow and we look forward to getting some great Indian in the next few days!


Need your curry now? Call 377 8935 (deliveries from 5pm till late)

Our photo won!

 

Many thanks to all those who “liked” our entry in the TIA (Tourism Industry Association) Photo Competition.  We won!

Our photo has been selected to be the picture for September in next year’s calendar.  Very timely with the Rugby World Cup starting in that month!

The photo is of mr11 warming up for a game in the mist at Hagley Park one cold winter’s morning.  It was Naomi who was standing in the cold slowly freezing when she took the photo.  Our photo received a total of 57 votes.

So a really big thanks to everyone who supported our photo, our motel and Christchurch & Canterbury.  The biggest thanks goes to the older generation, who battled on to discover just how to “like” our photo (including us!!).  Be proud and happy - you’re now ready for next time and also ready to compete with the younger “click click click Facebook” generation who always give you THAT look when you ask how to do something online.

Anyone want a calendar??

How many friends do we really have?

It’s times like these you find out just how many real friends you have and it looks like we do not have that many.

We kind of knew that we are in the lower level of “friendliness,” meaning that while we don’t have a multitude of friends, we’re not in the single digits either.  49 people like our CentrePoint on Colombo Facebook page, Naomi Peters has 52 friends and Jeff Peters has 21 friends.  On Twitter there are 275 followers of our English account and 100 of our Japanese account.  So yes, we are low level friendly people, we thought.

But we are unsure if we are even that high up the “friendly” scale after seeing the number of votes for our Tourism Industry Assn. photo competition entry.  At time of writing, only 20 people have liked our entry despite our efforts to make our campaign go viral.  We have Tweeted, it’s on Facebook, we ask all our guests to log on and like it and have sent postcards to Aunties and Uncles.  We even asked mr15 to spread the word to his many “friends” but that was voted down – looks like we’re not cool enough (again).

Every year TIA has a photo competition to choose the next year’s calendar’s pics.  We entered one that Naomi took of mr11 warming up for a rugby game in Hagley Park one cold winters morning.  We made the finals, and now the last 12 (1 for each month) are decided by Facebook vote.  Easy, we thought! We’ll just get our multitude of friends to vote for us – but after 4 days we have just 20 likes.

So, what’s the problem here? Are our friends are not that friendly after all? Is the photo just not that likeable? Or are people having trouble with the double “like” process that is necessary to vote on TIA’s Facebook page? (first you have to like the TIA Facebook page and then the photo itself.) Or is our feeble attempt at viral marketing just that – feeble.

Time, and the number of votes will tell just how friendly we are no doubt. Voting closes 25 Nov. so click on this link and vote for your favorite photo - hopefully it will be ours!