If you make it down to Glenorchy in the southern island of New Zealand, be sure to find this amazing walking path through the wetlands. It’s particularly beautiful in the morning just as the sun comes over the mountain to light everything with a yellow light. Another great reason to come in the morning is that it’s much more likely that the water will be smooth and reflective.
Sometimes when I get bored, I listen to all sorts of podcasts about the nature of reality. It’s also been influenced a lot by my morning meditations with the Sam Harris Waking Up app. Once you start to just notice things appearing in your sensorium, it can be quite the spectacle. So, I started working on this fractal based on a more organic formula to explore this idea further. The music I coupled it with is also a favorite that was introduced to me by a shaman in LA and it’s called “Devi Prayer” by Craig Preuss & Ananda. Enjoy the journey! 🙂
Daily Photo – Rainy Night in Tokyo
How awesome is the rain in Tokyo? It’s one of my favorite times to go out and take photos. The Blade Runner reflections go off the chart and all these cool Japanese people carry interesting umbrellas. I think I stayed up till around 2AM taking photos and walking the streets to find different subjects. By the time I got back to the hotel with Ethan, I was completely soaked and freezing, but it was worth it! 🙂
I’ve been lucky enough to take Ethan to Japan twice… I’m glad he has fallen in love with the country as much as I have! When we were in Osaka, we got into a pretty extreme street fight, since these kinds of things happen a lot in Japan. Unfortunately, Ethan lost the fight because I was too busy taking photos. I feel kind of bad about that, but he’ll always live on in my memory.
Daily Photo – Morning Winery Tour on Waiheke Island
When we stayed on Waiheke for a few days, we ended up heading over to try out a few different wineries. I don’t have a perfect memory, but I seem to remember this beach was the home to Man o’ War wineries. I didn’t know what was over on the other side of the dock, so I launched the quad to swing it around and get a sense of the whole coastline.
I ended up at this rather unique place in New Zealand, so I thought it would be a fun place to make a mini tutorial for you. If you’re a Passport Sunday member then you’ll get to see the making-of.
Editing the Yellow Carpet
I jumped across for you… Oh, what a thing to do… ‘Cause you were all yellow…
This area of New Zealand is about exactly halfway between Queenstown and Te Anau. What a cool spot, eh? You pass a little “Scientific Research Area,” which I thought sounded a bit mysterious and Area 51ish. So, I happened to park the truck to get out to pee, and I ended up walking into the bush to see this. At first, I thought it was all yellow because thousands of people were doing what I was doing, but that is not the case. And no, did not pee in this stuff… I went over to some dead bushes or something to make them, perhaps, more dead.
It looks like this lion is just kind of naturally angry. I suppose that is some sort of a natural selection trait. Lions that look super friendly and happy may be easily slain by other lions. However, I wonder if animals that look happier (like dolphins and dogs) are actually the ones surviving more because humans think they look more cute and affable, so we kill less of them.
Out on the island of Koh Samui, pretty much everyone seemed to have a boat, and pretty much everyone had a perfect upper body from moving the boat around all day. I thought, man, it might be fun to move here for a year and just get in super good shape and enjoy the island life. I can actually see the appeal of moving here for a while!
Who knew that Toronto had this medieval style castle? Well, I guess if you live in Toronto you know it… being a castlephile, I did a little research ahead of time and decided to come out here at night when all the lights come on. While there, I also discovered they host castle dinners on some nights… had I done more research, I definitely would have partaken in that medieval feast!
These hotels are always nice, and the Chinese sometimes take them to the next level of palatial. This is not even a ballroom or anything. It’s just one of a ton of different hallways… I’m amazed at the level of decor and quality in these places. It reminds me a bit of Versailles in a way. I got one of the ladies from the hotel to walk down the shiny floor to give it a little more personality.
We found a beautiful tree in Botswana where we decided to have a picnic in the wild while we waited on elephants. We didn’t know if they would actually come by, but, lo and behold, they did. There must have been about 50 of them, a collection of a few families. They would walk a while, get a drink, take a bath, and get back in the convoy. Fun fact you may not know… what is a grouping of elephants called? A memory. Maybe one of the greatest names of a group of animals ever.
