Where 50,000 pedestrians would normally bustle on a Monday morning, a dozen or so tourists and a few men with clip-boards and cellphones on their belts, are on the street, looking up.
Contractors' vans and light armoured vehicles move past.
Fluro-vests and camouflage are the new black, here in the Square.
Each building carries a notice.
Green ones say it's OK to go in; yellow ones say stay out.
As we stroll near the cordon zone, an excited pharmacist rushes out to greet us, asking where we were when the big one struck.
There was a green notice on the front on his door.
"If it was yellow, I'd be running."
He had already righted his stock, and opened for business.
We can not imagine he will have many customers today.
Around the corner, a French girl sits in the boot of a car outside a back-packers and plays folksongs on a guitar, while 100m away young soldiers turn away people who want to get to work.
Maybe their power is out and they have not heard the news.
We watch an Iroquois helicopter fly past the Cathedral spire, while a digger at the other end of the street prepares to finish what the earthquake began, and we marvel, again, at the oddness of it all.
We begin to leave and will return later, to the one point of entry, with a ready explanation of our need to get back in.
We will not be allowed out again tonight.
There will be no deviation from the plan.
Welcome to lock-down.
Welcome to Christchurch.