Rotorua - This house is not on fire (yet)

Let's build a rather large city on one of the most active volcanic zones in the world, literally, where the earth beneath your feet is boiling. 

We'll call it Rotorua. The houses look like this (those are geothermal vents of various types):

And then after some number of decades we'll realize that we can't really keep up with all the moving venting action, so we'll just give up. 

And those tourist that came to visit will burn their vibram emblazoned tootsies. (Seriously, that's boiling water and steam seeping through the street.)

But your missing out on the best part. The smell. Rotorua takes that sulfur rotten egg smell to a new level. 

The geothermal venting results in the ground caving in and pools to form. This one was onsite at our motel, the "cozy cottage". In case you didn't know what it was, they added a sign for you. 

Rotorua does have some neat things though. The Thursday night market had a great selection of food - the port wine and blue cheese meat pies were very tasty.

And I think having to live in a smelly volcanic zone gives people a bit of creativity. These pillow cases were awesome. 

Rotorua is also famous for zorbing. Though we didn't go zorbing, we did do something arguably more dangerous, more on that in tomorrow's post.