So I went to New Zealand a couple weeks back to speak at a conference with the creative director of Adbusters, Pedro and the senior editor, Darren. New Zealand is amazing.

Black sand beaches. You can't tell at all from this picture, but the sand has this blue glittery sheen, because there is iron or steel in the sand (and rumor has it that they are starting to mine it for this metal)

You'll be in these amazing places and be pretty much the only people there.

 Pedro and I went to the zoo.

 All the animals in there, I could have watched them all day. These turtles kept climbing over each other  and they could never make it work but they still kept doing it over and over.

I went to a place 3 hours away from Auckland called Rotorua. There is a lot of geothermal and volcanic activity, geysers, sulphur pools, all that kind of stuff there.

I went to go see this geyser and in the brochure it said, the geyser erupts daily at 10:15am. I was amazed and really curious as to how they could time the eruption of the geyser (especially to the minute). Turns out, they actually stick this biodegradable chemical thing down the rocks to make the geyser go (although the geyser does go off naturally on its own, just not when anyone is conveniently around).

I went to this other place called Waitomo, where there are a bunch of glowworm caves and caves with stalactites and stalagmites. And a population of 42 people. Most of which who work as tour guides for the caves. I really liked it there, you would see more wild turkeys running around in a place then people.

David Attenborough was in this very cave. Or so I am told. It was funny. The cave was like being in space mountain. Even funnier, because the cave is so small, you're on this raft, and they take you back and forth 5 times so that you have enough time to experience seeing the worms. It was weird. But nice.

Back in Auckland, there were these art installations going on. This thing was cool cause I felt like I was in Tron.

The funniest thing I saw in Auckland.

 The scariest/weirdest thing I saw in Auckland.

The most elongated siamese cat I've seen.

 Happy faces everywhere.

 

I liked this light shadow because it looked like the carpet was worn at this one spot. 

Indeed.

I don't really know how to explain how I felt about New Zealand. Being there, it was nice because you felt really separated from the world, but still part of it at the same time because of the time difference. The world's day begins and ends there. Things are a bit slower there, but at the same time there's all these things there that you have at home and that get you wanting to live and act like you do at home, but the experiences don't quite match up and there's weird disconnects - like that they have a Denny's there. There is something kind and well meaning about the place, something small and manageable, everyone is so nice, and at the same time there are these great expanses, ones to get lost in, to get sentimental in - and oh man I hope I get to go back there again.