The landscape on the North Island of NZ is vastly different to here around Queenstown on the South. Especially so around the more northern parts, past Auckland… still beautiful though. Especially so at sunset.
The Guanyin of Nanshan is a huge statue of the bodhisattva Guanyin, located on the island of Hainan, just off the coast of China. You can perhaps see how huge it is by examining the size of the average Chinese tourist at its base. This island is a common vacation spot for the Chinese, and they consider it to be like their “Hawaii,” although it’s really nothing like Hawaii. The statue has three faces. One faces inland and the other two face out to the South China Sea. The one facing the land depicted Guanyin holding a sutra and gesturing the Vitarka Mudra with the other. The second face has her palms crossed holding prayer beads. The last face is one simply holding a lotus in peace.
From the Worship collection on Foundation.
Launching the quadcopter from a boat is always a bit nervy but the real problem is getting it back onto the boat when you’re done exploring. I would be lying if I said I’ve been successful every time… 🙁
… will now be Passport Monday for this week. Sorry for the delay!
When I was here on Laucala Island things were pretty sweet! It’s probably the nicest resort I’ve ever visited and I was completely blown away the entire time. I hear that this place has the biggest pool in the southern hemisphere and who am I to question that? It’s more than big enough to have a pool party. Everyone thought I was pretty cool in my arm floaties.
What a beautiful little island this is? For those of you that don’t know, this island is just a short ferry ride from Auckland in New Zealand. It’s not a huge island, but big enough to hold a bunch of houses and some little towns. This is also a favorite place for some of the wealthier Kiwis to have a second home that they vacation to.
God these guys crack me up… This human centipede episode is one of the best. It’s really about automatically accepting all the Terms & Conditions on Apple products, where you really don’t know what you’re agreeing to.
It’s always a bit frightening to fly a quadcopter out over the ocean. I don’t know why. If it’s gonna fall out of the sky, it will be ruined anyway from this height. Anyway, whenever I am out over the ocean and shooting back towards the land, I’m on an even higher-alert.
Most of the days in Gisborne were quite moody and full of rain, so as soon as there was a clear morning, I got out the quadcopter to see the beauty from above. On this farm, they created this sanctuary for all sorts of waterfowl. It was quite magical to walk around and hear all the native New Zealand birds going about their business on a calm morning.
Man, I just can’t remember the name of this place. It’s about an hour north of Gisborne and it seemed like the perfect time to get out the quad. There is this ridiculously long dock whose purpose I can’t quite discern. It’s not like there are cruise ships coming by… maybe they built it nice and long just for pedestrians.
After I dropped off my son Ethan for Outward Bound in Picton, I drove the long way back to take some photos. I got the quad out to get this one of these cool boat houses. Obviously, it was low tide, so I don’t totally love the photo, as I think it would be incredible at high tide with still water to make a cool reflection shot. But, you gotta take what you can get.
I don’t remember exactly where I heard this theory, but I kind of like it. I believe it had to do with street photography and capturing an interesting number of people. For some reason, an odd number looks more interesting than an even number. I don’t know why. I don’t even know if I believe it…but maybe. I try to do it with objects too… apart from here, where there are 6 cool trees…
