No. 193

World Buskers Festival, Christchurch: By very happy coincidence, we ended our honeymoon trip in Christchurch during the ten-day run of the annual World Buskers Festival. Fifty or so highly skilled street performers, along with abut 300,000 tourists, invade the south island’s most populous city and the central squares of this leafy burg are transformed into surreal carnival scenes. Jugglers are tossing everything they can get their hands on, living statues are freaking out your elders, fire dancers are wiggling to world music and a peppy little guy with washboard abs is killing with off-color Jesus jokes from atop a wobbly 15-foot pole. Many of the buskers come to NZ with one-way tickets, hoping to earn enough in the hat to get home, or at least to Australia where they can continue the summer street show circuit. This event is one of those world travel checklist items that shows up on all sorts of cable shows and I’ve probably seen it featured a half dozen times, never expecting to experience it in person. But tight pants, back flips and the constant threat of embarrassing audience participation here we are, loving every minute of it.