Stories

Help! My borders have been breached! Are allergies starting to niggle at your nose? Your gut might be fighting off its own invasion. Deirdre Panapa from DP Herbals explains. Leaky gut sounds like a pretty scary condition, but there are herbs and nutrients that can help to restore a leaky barrier in your gut, and fixing this problem might provide a long-term solution for your allergies. An allergic reaction occurs when your immune system overacts to something harmless, like pollen or dust mites. Your immune system sets off an inflammatory reaction, which sends those nasty allergic symptoms skyrocketing. We would normally then turn to antihistamines, but they’re just an expensive, temporary fix. Maintaining a healthy gut can support your immune system and may help you build tolerance to those otherwise-harmless allergic triggers, providing a lasting solution to allergic conditions. Gut inflammation can occur when your gut barrier becomes permeable or ‘leaky’....

Veronica King, the queen of Grassroots Yoga & Health, explains just what yoga nidra is, and how this semi-sleeping state of consciousness can benefit us. Yoga nidra is a guided meditation practice designed to drop you into a deeply relaxed state. Often translated as ‘yogic sleep’, it follows the biological process of sleep and slows the brainwaves down to the alpha and theta states, and with practice, to the delta state. It’s a series of structured awareness techniques that optimise physical recovery and interrupt stressful thoughts. It’s generally practiced lying down, and anyone can do it – no prior yoga or meditation experience required. All yoga nidra asks is that you do nothing other than listen and let go of all effort – the hardest part is staying awake. There are different styles of yoga nidra, and ultimately all expressions of this practice support psychological, physical and spiritual healing. Just like...

Go extraordinary for your next big event. Here are a couple of Cityscape’s recommended off-the-beaten-path venues you might not know about, from the central city to North Canterbury. Pegasus Bay Winery The Donaldson family’s iconic Pegasus Bay Winery restaurant and breathtaking gardens are available to host private events for the first time in almost 20 years. This pioneering North Canterbury winery is widely regarded as one of the leading producers of fine wine in the region, turning out top drops with a truly distinctive house style. Pegasus Bay’s premium event space is perfect for picturesque weddings, milestone celebrations and corporate events. pegasusbay.com The Tack Rooms This boutique accommodation and function space is a springboard for living it up in the heart of Christchurch. The Tack Rooms are just two rooms – former army barracks – beautifully presented and available for individual or joint use as an event venue. The creative minds...

Entrepreneurs Mizuki Azai and Olexiy Meshechko have developed an online food ordering system to get any food for any event. Cityscape hits them up for details on their catering breakthrough. How did your careers lead you to the catering industry?Mizuki: I had been working as an administrator for corporate organisations including a government organisation, being in charge of a variety of tasks to support teams and customers. My favourite part of the day-to-day tasks had always been arranging catering for my teams. I really enjoyed people relying on me about catering arrangements.Olexiy: I have a background in software development, process improvement and education in large corporates in New Zealand. My relation to catering is I was mostly eating it while attending meetings and conferences or delivering training presentations, and was always curious about who organises it and how. These days there's a platform for most industries, from recruitment to international trades,...

We’re looking up from the captivity of screens to see a wonderful world of analogue alternatives. Real books, handmade homeware and off-grid experiences are everywhere, ready for us to reach out and grab them. The analogue rebellion started, quietly at first, with hipsters buying film cameras and the wine sippers attending mindful painting and home baking classes. During lockdown, Netflix bingeing was through the roof, but so were sales of knitting needles, power tools and real books, with that lovely bookish smell. Now we’re out and about once more, the analogue rebellion is forging ahead. We’re craving screen-free fun with our real-life friends, shopping for beneficial bits and bobs sold to us by the craftspeople that make them, and looking for books to fill the ‘rustic’ bookshelves we upcycled using old pallets and the decade-old box of nails in the garage. Christchurch has some wonderful opportunities to scratch those itches. The...

Too long have gamers been repressed by matte black headsets and grey mice, but no more. The Logitech G Colour Collection is a range of coloured headsets, mice and keyboards designed to celebrate self-expression and tap into gamers’ style and individuality. Further personalise the high-quality wireless headsets with colourful straps, mic covers and two customisable light zones. The gaming mouse is available in the same four colours as the headset, and the keyboard has fully customisable per-key lighting across the full rainbow of colours. We’re not saying you may never be satisfied with accessories in standard black again, but we’re not not saying that, either. Win! Cityscape has a black Logitech G733 headset with front-facing coloured lighting, and two Logitech G203 mice in blue or lilac to give away, adding some serious cred and unique personality to your setup. To enter the draw, head over to our wins page. Entries close...

All you budding Freddies can get on your bikes and ride in Christchurch’s month-long cycling festival, back this October with more than 40 events. Get active and join a community with group rides, workshops, social sessions and public talks. Now in its fourth year, this annual cycling extravaganza is for anyone who rides a bike or wants to give it a go. It’s your opportunity to step into the saddle, feel the joy of biking and explore Christchurch on two wheels. Gamify your exploration with the Biketober passport challenge, where you can win prizes by cycling to destinations around the city and checking in with your smartphone. Cityscape has picked out a few choice events, and you can see the full peloton of cycling experiences on the Biketober website. Festival top picks The Big Bike Film Night Get along to this cycling-centric movie night, packed with everything a good film fest...

Tony’s Chocolonely chocolate is freaking delicious. Cityscape's favourite is the milk chocolate and caramel sea salt, and the dark chocolate almond sea salt is pretty sensational too. It’s just landed on the shelves at Ballantynes. After three Dutch journalists discovered in 2005 that the world’s largest chocolate manufacturers were supporting illegal child labour and modern slavery, they created Tony’s Chocolonely, a now-beloved 100% slave-free chocolate brand. Tony's Chocolonely works in direct, long-term partnerships with cocoa farmers in Ghana and Ivory Coast and has a completely transparent and traceable bean to bar process. One percent of Tony's Chocolonely's net revenue is donated to the Chocolonely Foundation, supporting projects to eradicate modern slavery in the cocoa chain. cookandnelson.com

Moffatt’s Flower Company’s new owners are old hats in the growing business, having tended to mussels in the Marlborough Sounds for three generations. They’re enamoured with the flower-filled Halswell greenhouses, and new plans are afoot. For Ben S. Winters, walking through Moffatt’s sophisticated climate controlled greenhouses for the first time was inspiring. His memories of Moffatt’s go way back. “I was always interesting in looking at [the greenhouses] on the way to my father’s deer farm in Little River. They have a great company reputation, and are a family business like Aroma.” Along with his father, Ben G, and brother-in-law John Gallagher, Ben S is one of the directors of family business Aroma NZ, New Zealand’s largest green-lipped mussel health food company, and the new owners of the Moffatt’s operation. Aroma NZ has applied for international patents for a new botanical product to lower blood glucose levels in people with type...

The restaurateurs behind Indian Sumner have retired and passed the reins over to their friends at Coriander’s Ethnic Indian Restaurant. Dilip and Vanta opened Indian Sumner in 2002 and for 18 years they ran the establishment to be a part of the Sumner community. The Coriander's team say they are dedicated to continuing this relationship and serving up excellent Indian food at the Wakefield Avenue restraurant. At the beginning of October the restaurant officially became Coriander’s Sumner, and the new owners are looking forward to serving the Sumner community and beachgoers. The restaurant has undergone a renovation to take on the signature green and gold, and a beautiful hand-painted tiger mural now adorns the interior wall. Coriander’s Sumner is the fourth dining establishment in the Coriander’s family, alongside Coriander’s St Asaph Street, Coriander’s Bush Inn, and the original Coriander’s restaurant in Rolleston. The group speicalises in authentic, delicious North Indian curries...

Christchurch City Council had us doing a double take at the last lot of flyers dropped around the city. They’re running a campaign asking locals if we’ve ‘bin good’ with our recycling. Bin good? Get a sweet gold sticker on your bin. Bin bad? You might find some recycling reading material in your letterbox and a bad sticker slapped on your bin. Just like primary school! And thanks to the council’s handy-dandy recycling app it’s just as easy. This is all to help recycling get to the right place. If a recycling truck’s haul is contaminated with too much dirty or non-recyclable stuff, the whole thing has to get dumped in landfill, which costs a truckload of money and is pretty bad for the environment. Dirty pizza boxes? Those greasy badboys don’t count as recyclable cardboard, but they can go in your green bin for composting. Same goes for paper towels,...

Christchurch soprano Amanda Atlas sung her way around the world before settling back in New Zealand. She tells Cityscape about her upcoming performance of NZ Opera’s The Human Voice in her home town. You’ve performed all over the world. Where has been your favourite city to perform? The city I loved performing in the most was definitely New York. I travelled there to work as an apprentice artist not long after I finished my Masters in New Zealand, and the thrill of being in such a huge city, surrounded by incredible artists, with the opportunity to see some of the greatest singers in the world was just so stimulating and exciting. I’ll never forget my first production in NY, singing in the chorus of Cavalleria rusticana, and feeling the rush of emotion as the audience gave the ‘Easter Hymn’ a standing ovation. I just felt so lucky. I returned to NY in...

We round up three great films, reads, shows to bingewatch, new albums to treat your ears to and a couple of decent podcasts to enlighten. Watching Nick Paris from Lumière Cinemas reviews some of the best from the current crop of cinema releases: Rams In this rural Australian comedy-drama, feuding brothers Colin (Sam Neill) and Les (Michael Caton) are raising separate flocks of sheep descended from a breed passed down through their family for generations. When Les’s prize ram is diagnosed with a rare and lethal illness, authorities order a purge of every sheep in the valley. Hot-headed Les opts for angry defiance, while introverted Colin takes the subtler approach: hiding all the sheep he can fit in his farmhouse. It Must Be Heaven Elia Suleiman’s It Must Be Heaven is both a comedic and melancholy contemplation of his place in the world and the Palestinian identity. The film stars its...

Cityscape talks to House of Barber’s stylishly-dressed and slick-haired barber Jason Nguyen about the art of hair and beards. How did you get into the hair industry? I wanted to do what I love and it’s artistic. I learned and worked at a barber shop in Vietnam for two years and came to work in New Zealand four years ago. I feel happy that my talent allows me to make friends and share stories. What would you be doing if you weren’t a barber? I would love to go back to school to continue studying architecture. It was a dream of mine in days gone by. What’s the best thing about working at your barber shop? It’s a brightly-lit shop with an Xbox game station, chess, and a football table. You can enjoy the best barber shop vibe in the Christchurch CBD and it’s next to Riverside Market so you never...

Located in a heritage building with gold-plated tools and cast iron and brass barber’s chairs, Golden Blade epitomises modern vintage. Cityscape talks to owner George Toumazou about mullets, banter, and the secrets of men’s haircare. What’s the on-trend style? The old classics are in. Crop cuts especially – a tight skin fade, straight fringing and texturised up top. Mullets are back too. In the last Rugby World Cup there were about four All Blacks on the field with mullets, and now everyone’s into them. Kruiz, one of our barbers, hasn’t cut his in three or four years, it’s halfway down his back. What about in the beard region? Beards are very big at the moment, especially after lockdown. The older boys are growing these big lumberjack beards with twisty, curly moustaches. Moustaches alone are a little less common this year than last, but there are still some pretty cool looks out...

Pump up your pedi and enjoy classic beauty pampering while simultaneously treating your skin with an innovative ‘add-on’: mini LED treatment. Pain-free LED reduces fine lines and wrinkles, acne-causing bacteria, redness, sun damage and pigmentation, and helps scars heal. There’s no downtime afterwards – just a warm, relaxing moment to let this glorious light do its thing. LED treatments were originally developed by NASA to safely encourage wound-healing of the body and skin. These wavelengths of natural light don’t use dangerous UV rays or excess heat, and instead work to ‘recharge’ your cells in 10 to 20 minutes. Easy and quick with no recovery time, LED is the perfect add-on to any classic beauty treatment. We are seriously impressed that you can leave Nicola Quinn Beauty & Day Spa feeling great with not only a shiny new mani or pedi, but with plump, glowing skin to boot. quinnbeautyspa.co.nz

You’ve probably heard all about probiotics that help gut health in the form of supplements, kombucha or sauerkraut. We also have important ‘good bacteria’ on our skin. Support your skin microbiome with O Cosmedics O-Biome Hydrating & Setting Spray. The skin microbiome is an invisible community of microorganisms that act like a security guard to protect our skin from hostile bacteria and viruses. The skin’s microbiome, also known as the skin flora, harbours around 300 bacterial species and is the second largest microbial community after the gut microbiome. Think of it as a delicate ecosystem, like the rainforest. The diverse species of bacteria support the microbiome’s health and keeps the ecosystem functioning. Just like antibiotics and certain foods can mess with our gut flora – soaps, chemicals, pollution, weather, medications and environmental factors can throw off our skin’s microbiome by destroying good bacteria, leading to skin inflammation, acne and other conditions....

Chic destination beauty salon Le Plaisir recommends a treatment so gentle it can be done in your lunch hour: High Intensity Focused Ultrasound. Kaiapoi beauty salon Le Plaisir is your go-to destination for a non-invasive skin-tightening technique called High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU). It uses powerful ultrasound beams to create heat below the skin’s surface, leaving the top layer of skin protected. This heat causes minor damage to the dermal cells, which prompts the skin to start the regeneration process, boosting collagen production and leading to firmer, tighter skin. While you go about your business, collagen production continues over the next three months as the skin regenerates. It lifts and tightens your face, but without the recovery time or the risks that come with an invasive treatment, and many clients will only need one session. La Plaisir salon owner Aniko is a convert. She uses HIFU herself, and says you'll feel a...