Brisbane

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My plane touched down around 11PM; customs was a bit more laid back than it had been in NZ - I explained that I may or may not have a visa and had nowhere to spend the night and the guy simply waived me through. The Brisbane airport is by far the nicest I've ever slept in - it's equipped with large comfortable couches, satellite TV with remote, and free showers, and from midnight to 5am I had the place entirely to myself - I resisted the urge to dance in my underwear. Around 5:30 (which is well past dawn here), I started the 19km walk towards town. After about 10 minutes, some guy with a long pointed beard and flowing white robes decided I looked rather pitiful walking down the highway with my bags and picked me up and drove me to the nearest bus stop. When I reached the centre around 7, I immediately encountered a large Valentines Day gathering where 100 men wearing wedding dresses competed for a diamond ring; alongside this hilarity was a plethora of free breakfast foods - I liked this city from the start.

I next walked down through the botanical gardens that held tons of tropical plants, birds, and giant lizards, and proceeded to QUT which is immediately adjacent to it. Here I got plugged into free internet and began the painful task of getting acclimated. The first huge adjustment was the phone system - to make a local call costs a minimum of 30 cents (even from a home phone) and if you need to call a mobile (and you will, because no one uses land lines here) it's going to run you about a buck a minute; this was a bit of an irritation since I would need to make about 300 phone calls in the next week. At the accommodation office, they provided a list of a few hundred options in several dozen different suburbs that I could neither locate on a map nor pronounce. After a few days of walking around to random spots, I discovered a house in the neighbourhood of New Farm; this was a quiet spot a hundred meters from the river that was only 5 minutes by jet boat from the city. Since property values here are rather high, I shared the property with 29 people from various walks of life; it's an interesting environment, since each day when I walk through the door I meet someone new; on two occasions, I met someone on the ferry only to discover shortly after that he/she was living in my house.

Brisbane roughly resembles one of those futuristic utopias from sci-fi movies; modern office buildings and apartments spring out of lush, tropical jungles. Super-fast catamarans speed along the river, moving the residents from the bustling urban centre to the peaceful suburbs. At night, hordes of giant bats glide overhead while runners and bikers move along the seemingly endless riverside walkway, and climbers scale the illuminated, rocky cliffs of Kangaroo Point. Tourism guidebooks have for years overlooked this quiet country town, and chances are, before coming to this site, you couldn't place it on a map of the world; I think the comfortably spaced, 1.6 million residents would prefer it stayed that way.

The classes in the uni here are a bit different than back in the States; each class has one 2-hour block once a week, and there are virtually no tests, homework, etc. until the final written test in the month- long exam period at the end of the semester. Naturally, I arranged to have a 4-day weekend; it seems that everything is really far away in Australia so thus far I've struggled a bit in finding things to do. The school offers a wide range of student organizations; unfortunately, they don't have the same absurdly- funded student government over here, so all the activities cost money and none give away free food; I didn't sign up for my usual allotment of 30 but had to limit myself to the rock climbing, underwater, and surfing club. I'm also tempted to go out for the medieval club where you can apparently dress up in your best suit of armour and beat the crap out of people with archaic weaponry.

Australians never seem to turn down an opportunity for celebration and have an endless supply of festivals; getting into the spirit of things, I was the first person in the country to shave my head for "National Shave Your Head Day" at 6:30 in the morning, kicking off the drive to set the record for the largest number of heads shaved in a 24-hour period. I also attempted to get the free pancakes offered up for National Women's Day, but an un-advertised requisite of getting these was to give one good reason why there should be such a holiday, and my hastily devised "because pancakes don't make themselves" was apparently not sufficient.

The weekend before classes started, my school prepared a high-priced trip to nearby North Stradbroke Island. Around 120 international types (60% American, 35% German, handful of Scandinavians and others) were put up in a hotel right off of a long sandy beach. We spent three days surfing, partying, hiking, partying, and chasing down kayaks in a pitiful attempt at 2-person surf kayaking. The trip was led by a guy named Merlin who was apparently a major celebrity from Australia's "Big Brother" reality show and our tour was frequently mobbed by local middle school girls wanting pictures and autographs. Our meals were held at what appeared to be the only dining establishment on the island - the local Bowling Club (bocci ball, petanque, lawn bowling - that game that all the old people play back home) which offered live music by an aging band that played entirely American songs and donned fake dreadlocks at one point in the act to do their rendition of some of our reggae hits; next door was the "Local Bar" where all sorts of interesting characters spent their nights - the women in our group were strongly advised not to fraternize with any of the locals as they were all huge losers.

I bought an old racing bike from the classifieds and used it to aimlessly speed around town. There are apparently upwards of 500 kilometers of dedicated bikeways around town and for many destinations it is possible to go 10km or more along well-maintained pedestrian-free paths without ever having to cross a road - they often run along highways and have a similar exit system. These are major commuting arteries and during rush hour, one direction will be packed with suit-clad, laptop-backpack toting cyclists - no carpool lane as of yet.


The ever-popular Valentine's Bridezilla competition


Though the QUT campus itself is quite ugly, it does have a huge tropical garden next door.


Some sort of baby bird.


Some sort of ugly ibis thing - these are all over.


I think it's a turkey.


The gardens are home to myriad species of lizards, including water dragons and the desert lizards which run on their hind legs


A possum eating a banana out of the garbage - ah, the wonders of nature


One of the bats that frequents the fruit tree over our porch - if you're having an apple or orange for dinner, it's best to eat it in your room


My twice daily cruise aboard the CityCat... life is rough


"You get up every morning from the alarm clock's warning take the 8:15 into the city"


Our school sold us a river cruise that went half the distance and cost roughly twenty times as much as the CityCat


View from Mount Coot-tha in the Brisbane Forest Park.


"Straddie"


Shaving my head wasn't the best move given the number of head injuries I had as a child - the bald spot on the right is where I got hit six times by a ceiling fan


The largest St. Patty's parade in all of Australia, consisting of 4-5 high school bands, 2 sets of bagpipers and a Guiness float


A random Billabong skateboarding/concert thing at the river stage


I have raised sloppiness to a high art


Why didn't I just stick with public transport...


Only in Oz


They've even got these critters running through downtown




Doggie baggies are now a worldwide phenomenon but this is the most straight-forward sign I've seen yet.


Hmmm... I seem to have wandered into the sh#tty part of town.


These photos are not re-ordered, I actually did come across all these signs (and 16 others) in a single 2-hour block


This one made my day


And how are they supposed to read this??


25 people, 10 countries, 1 house - this might just be the next reality TV show


Lamington National Park




Climbing into the tree tops



Feeding random birds in the middle of the woods











Glass House Mountains


Australia Zoo


At 174, Harriet is a seriously old turtle - originally a pet of Charles Darwin


A really big komodo dragon


Weird amphibious things


Mucking with the crocs = death




The ferocity of any animal can take a major hit when you see it drink from a baby bottle





Freakish 6-legged, 2-tailed kangaroo


Tasmanian devils - these things never stop moving





Weighing in at a bone-crushing 2kg, this was perhaps the deadliest croc on offer


Quite inexplicably, this roo just couldn't jump.


Freshwater croc - completely harmless - until it bites your arm off

Brisbane? Never heard of it

Brisbane

<< Back to Australia Log

My plane touched down around 11PM; customs was a bit more laid back than it had been in NZ - I explained that I may or may not have a visa and had nowhere to spend the night and the guy simply waived me through. The Brisbane airport is by far the nicest I've ever slept in - it's equipped with large comfortable couches, satellite TV with remote, and free showers, and from midnight to 5am I had the place entirely to myself - I resisted the urge to dance in my underwear. Around 5:30 (which is well past dawn here), I started the 19km walk towards town. After about 10 minutes, some guy with a long pointed beard and flowing white robes decided I looked rather pitiful walking down the highway with my bags and picked me up and drove me to the nearest bus stop. When I reached the centre around 7, I immediately encountered a large Valentines Day gathering where 100 men wearing wedding dresses competed for a diamond ring; alongside this hilarity was a plethora of free breakfast foods - I liked this city from the start.

I next walked down through the botanical gardens that held tons of tropical plants, birds, and giant lizards, and proceeded to QUT which is immediately adjacent to it. Here I got plugged into free internet and began the painful task of getting acclimated. The first huge adjustment was the phone system - to make a local call costs a minimum of 30 cents (even from a home phone) and if you need to call a mobile (and you will, because no one uses land lines here) it's going to run you about a buck a minute; this was a bit of an irritation since I would need to make about 300 phone calls in the next week. At the accommodation office, they provided a list of a few hundred options in several dozen different suburbs that I could neither locate on a map nor pronounce. After a few days of walking around to random spots, I discovered a house in the neighbourhood of New Farm; this was a quiet spot a hundred meters from the river that was only 5 minutes by jet boat from the city. Since property values here are rather high, I shared the property with 29 people from various walks of life; it's an interesting environment, since each day when I walk through the door I meet someone new; on two occasions, I met someone on the ferry only to discover shortly after that he/she was living in my house.

Brisbane roughly resembles one of those futuristic utopias from sci-fi movies; modern office buildings and apartments spring out of lush, tropical jungles. Super-fast catamarans speed along the river, moving the residents from the bustling urban centre to the peaceful suburbs. At night, hordes of giant bats glide overhead while runners and bikers move along the seemingly endless riverside walkway, and climbers scale the illuminated, rocky cliffs of Kangaroo Point. Tourism guidebooks have for years overlooked this quiet country town, and chances are, before coming to this site, you couldn't place it on a map of the world; I think the comfortably spaced, 1.6 million residents would prefer it stayed that way.

The classes in the uni here are a bit different than back in the States; each class has one 2-hour block once a week, and there are virtually no tests, homework, etc. until the final written test in the month- long exam period at the end of the semester. Naturally, I arranged to have a 4-day weekend; it seems that everything is really far away in Australia so thus far I've struggled a bit in finding things to do. The school offers a wide range of student organizations; unfortunately, they don't have the same absurdly- funded student government over here, so all the activities cost money and none give away free food; I didn't sign up for my usual allotment of 30 but had to limit myself to the rock climbing, underwater, and surfing club. I'm also tempted to go out for the medieval club where you can apparently dress up in your best suit of armour and beat the crap out of people with archaic weaponry.

Australians never seem to turn down an opportunity for celebration and have an endless supply of festivals; getting into the spirit of things, I was the first person in the country to shave my head for "National Shave Your Head Day" at 6:30 in the morning, kicking off the drive to set the record for the largest number of heads shaved in a 24-hour period. I also attempted to get the free pancakes offered up for National Women's Day, but an un-advertised requisite of getting these was to give one good reason why there should be such a holiday, and my hastily devised "because pancakes don't make themselves" was apparently not sufficient.

The weekend before classes started, my school prepared a high-priced trip to nearby North Stradbroke Island. Around 120 international types (60% American, 35% German, handful of Scandinavians and others) were put up in a hotel right off of a long sandy beach. We spent three days surfing, partying, hiking, partying, and chasing down kayaks in a pitiful attempt at 2-person surf kayaking. The trip was led by a guy named Merlin who was apparently a major celebrity from Australia's "Big Brother" reality show and our tour was frequently mobbed by local middle school girls wanting pictures and autographs. Our meals were held at what appeared to be the only dining establishment on the island - the local Bowling Club (bocci ball, petanque, lawn bowling - that game that all the old people play back home) which offered live music by an aging band that played entirely American songs and donned fake dreadlocks at one point in the act to do their rendition of some of our reggae hits; next door was the "Local Bar" where all sorts of interesting characters spent their nights - the women in our group were strongly advised not to fraternize with any of the locals as they were all huge losers.

I bought an old racing bike from the classifieds and used it to aimlessly speed around town. There are apparently upwards of 500 kilometers of dedicated bikeways around town and for many destinations it is possible to go 10km or more along well-maintained pedestrian-free paths without ever having to cross a road - they often run along highways and have a similar exit system. These are major commuting arteries and during rush hour, one direction will be packed with suit-clad, laptop-backpack toting cyclists - no carpool lane as of yet.


The ever-popular Valentine's Bridezilla competition


Though the QUT campus itself is quite ugly, it does have a huge tropical garden next door.


Some sort of baby bird.


Some sort of ugly ibis thing - these are all over.


I think it's a turkey.


The gardens are home to myriad species of lizards, including water dragons and the desert lizards which run on their hind legs


A possum eating a banana out of the garbage - ah, the wonders of nature


One of the bats that frequents the fruit tree over our porch - if you're having an apple or orange for dinner, it's best to eat it in your room


My twice daily cruise aboard the CityCat... life is rough


"You get up every morning from the alarm clock's warning take the 8:15 into the city"


Our school sold us a river cruise that went half the distance and cost roughly twenty times as much as the CityCat


View from Mount Coot-tha in the Brisbane Forest Park.


"Straddie"


Shaving my head wasn't the best move given the number of head injuries I had as a child - the bald spot on the right is where I got hit six times by a ceiling fan


The largest St. Patty's parade in all of Australia, consisting of 4-5 high school bands, 2 sets of bagpipers and a Guiness float


A random Billabong skateboarding/concert thing at the river stage


I have raised sloppiness to a high art


Why didn't I just stick with public transport...


Only in Oz


They've even got these critters running through downtown




Doggie baggies are now a worldwide phenomenon but this is the most straight-forward sign I've seen yet.


Hmmm... I seem to have wandered into the sh#tty part of town.


These photos are not re-ordered, I actually did come across all these signs (and 16 others) in a single 2-hour block


This one made my day


And how are they supposed to read this??


25 people, 10 countries, 1 house - this might just be the next reality TV show


Lamington National Park




Climbing into the tree tops



Feeding random birds in the middle of the woods











Glass House Mountains


Australia Zoo


At 174, Harriet is a seriously old turtle - originally a pet of Charles Darwin


A really big komodo dragon


Weird amphibious things


Mucking with the crocs = death




The ferocity of any animal can take a major hit when you see it drink from a baby bottle





Freakish 6-legged, 2-tailed kangaroo


Tasmanian devils - these things never stop moving





Weighing in at a bone-crushing 2kg, this was perhaps the deadliest croc on offer


Quite inexplicably, this roo just couldn't jump.


Freshwater croc - completely harmless - until it bites your arm off