I'm currently on holiday from university (two weeks and I have homework to do... so is it really a holiday?!) and on Wednesday my boyfriend, Conaugh and I decided to have a jam-packed date day. This just so happened to fall on Wellington Zoo's Winter Wednesday where the prices were a third to get in, and the Lux Light Festival was on down the waterfront! Cute animals and light sculptures, this sounds like the best date day ever, right?! Well it most certainly was!

apparently the lioness in the middle is quite feisty

he keeps staring into my soul

I wanted to take this fella, such a cutie!

squad chill out zone

just hanging around

First stop was the zoo, which Conaugh and I have actually gone to a few times (we have managed to score a few free passes in the past) but honestly, cute animals never get old. I actually managed to see a kiwi in the kiwi enclosure, which I am pretty sure I have never seen a real one in person before, and it was running about and squawking! 

My all time favourite animals at the zoo are the meerkats, red pandas and the squirrel monkeys. In other words, if it's small and fluffy I'm in! Conaugh and I like to go up to the squirrel monkey enclosure and sticking our fingers up to the cage wire above the window and waiting for the monkeys to come up and lick our fingers. Their tongues are so tiny and soft I melt a little bit every time!

We managed to sit in on a Lion Talk where one of the zookeepers sat down and opened up a door within the lion enclosure to show a gated off area and he talked to us about the lionesses, whilst he fed them some snacks (raw horse meat, eww). He started off feeding one at a time, then all three lionesses got to the cage bit and started to bicker over who got how much food, the one in the middle slamming the cage a couple of times which scares the bejeezes out of me but the zookeeper didn't even flinch!

I definitely want to do one of the Close Encounters that the zoo offers where you can go feed and pet the animals, and unsuccessfuly try to sneak one of the animals out with me. I just really want one of the squirrel monkeys to come home with me and sit on my shoulder like Ross from Friends! (except less weird...) Or I'd like to snuggle up to the red pandas and feed them their veges, or or or cuddle all of the meerkats in my arms. The encounters cost around $100 per person, so if Conaugh and I both want to go we're going to have to save up!

Tessellate - Sasja Mazurkiewicz, Sarah Donnison, Stella Loi, Beatrice Rubio, Niki Chu

reflective panels that interact with the shape of the trees and their shadows

Feed The Kids Too - Donna Sarten & Bernie Harfleet

made out of 1,500 lunchboxes that will then be gifted to children in need

Spreading A Little Sun - Moxie Communications

an interactive wall of lights that the public can create shapes and patterns on

Aura - Philips Design

interactive light show experience that reacts to hand movements

Rube - Ian Hammond, Johann Nortje and BMD

street art meets light projection that brings the artwork to life

After the Zoo (and a whee nap for myself) we went down to the Wellington Waterfront to see the annual Light Festival, where a large group of New Zealand and international artists create beautiful pieces of art utilising light movement.

As I am a design student, artwork gets me so excited, especially something as modern and interactive as light sculptures! My favourite are pieces that interact with the public, that you can go up to and press buttons or move around and the lights flicker and bounce around. The show this year was absolutely incredible, my first time was last year and I really feel like 2015 blew 2014 out of the water! (geddit, because it's at the Waterfront... ha) 

A pair of street artists I follow, BMD did a collaborative piece with some other artists where a piece of street art that they painted had an animated projection on top that brought each character within the art to life! I feel like this was one of my top favourites as it was quite different to the other pieces that were on display.

Another piece that I really enjoyed a lot was by Moxie Communications, a local design company from New Zealand. This was a big wall of flower shaped lights, which had a sign "Please DO Touch", encouraging the public to create patterns with the lights. We saw a group of girls make a cute love heart symbol so Conaugh and I decided to do a "L+C" next to it, but it wasn't long after we did the "L" and the "+" that a group of children came and turned them all off and made their own pattern. Which I really loved, that this display wasn't a permanent one, that you could chop and change it all night.

~

Hope you enjoyed this post, I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while, things have gotten quite busy at my end, but I hope to make it up to you guys!

What are some of your favourite things to do on a day out or for a date? Summer's coming up and I really want to do a bunch of fun activities with my friends and boyfriend!

- Louise