I built a long hole through the nether in stone in advance of the 1.8 update. When it got a staggered release, I decided to finally step through to the new world, but to just spend my time building a redoubt/kraal to provision myself before setting out to explore my new world.

My first Minecraft world. I'm a noob to the game, but have been enjoying s far. Mainly uploaded to test mapping outside of the game. See if it's easier to navigate with a more detailed map then they give you in game.
Redone the map a bit. Built several portals in the nether to fast travel within the map and to establish new houses/bases in far reaching parts of the map.