New Zealand: iPhone snaps

It's always exciting to collect freshly-developed film, but it's twice as exciting to pick up scans from a trip to New Zealand, like I did today. It'll take a while for me to sort through all those film shots though, so in the mean time, here are a few iPhone photos to kick things off! Isn't New Zealand gorgeous? I'm already dreaming about going back...

Back to school: Map Making class

Back in February, I signed up for Anne Ditmeyer's online Map Making class on an impulse. That decision turned out to be a very good one because I had lots of fun and the class got me thinking about maps in new, creative ways. And because everyone had a different approach to the map tasks, I got lots of inspiration just from checking out my classmates' projects.

Here's a snippet from my treasure-hunt-food-map final project:



The idea was to create a series of cards with clues & a map on each of them that would lead you to my favourite spots & restaurants around the E-dae area in Seoul, South Korea.

I didn't even manage to finish designing cards for all the locations I had in mind when the class ended, so it was a nice surprise to find out that my little project had been included in Anne's 'Best of Maps!' roundup. Thanks, Anne!

She'll be teaching the class again, starting on 28 May, and I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in travel, design, or maps! This post isn't sponsored, I just really enjoyed taking this class :) I'm sure it'll be a bit different this time around, but if you want to have a rough idea of what it will be like, have a look at my project page.

Happy mapping!

Local Tourist: Chinatown (and a bit of VivoCity)

Sanna and I have been friends since we were wee kids, but it's been ages since we last met. Back in March, we finally had a chance to hang out and since she loves taking photos and I wanted to finish up some film, we decided to do a mini photo-walk around Chinatown. All these photos were taken with the Olympus XA.

















We had guo tie & zha jiang mian at Tian Jin Fong Kee, explored Pagoda Street & Temple Street, ate mediocre shaved ice and hid from a thunderstorm. I didn't expect anything much shopping-wise from kitschy Pagoda Street, so it was a nice surprise to discover a Tintin shop tucked among all the souvenirs.

Later, we headed to VivoCity for some errand-running. It's just a regular shopping centre, but there's a nice boardwalk that runs between the sea and the shops, and we managed to catch some golden light while we were there. I really like the shot of Sanna by the sea - her amazing hair & that blue water make me think of Ariel from The Little Mermaid!

Head over here to see Sanna's photos from our day out. You should definitely check out her blog if you like wonderfully droll and/or thoughtful words about teaching 13 year-olds and other adventures. Her posts never fail to make me smile.

(more Local Tourist posts can be found here)