Brisbane

Sitting at the Brisbane train station.

Brisbane:

Let me start off by addressing the complaint that Brisbane has nothing to offer and is quite frankly, boring. This, however, is not true if you are judging the city on its own and not comparatively to cities such as Sydney or Melbourne. Secondly, if you do go to Brisbane, you HAVE to hit Southbank. It was such a happening place and simply beautiful. That said, I will return to my adventures there on holidays!

Mexican restaurant

Our hostel in Brisbane ended up upgraded us to an eight person room as well. It was freaking awesome. Someone was looking out for us. The bunks and room were a LOT nicer, too and the girls in the room were friendly enough. We decided to get settled in, and then we took off for the markets we’d seen while trying to find the hostel. Unfortunately, it was nearing five at this point and the markets were closing. So we decided to check them out the next day and explored China Town instead. We then got Mexican food at this little joint right next to our hostel. It was pretty snazzy, with a dance floor attached to the restaurant, but the prices were kind of ridiculous. Oh well. It happens. I got nachos, which I haven't had in forever, so I was happy.

We then tried to catch the Chinese Lantern Festival. I thought it sounded cool. But when we got there, it was kind of creepy. There was this masked guy jumping around on stage with a paper lion. Yea… great for kids I guess. IF they’re not afraid of getting eaten by a giant glowing lion thing. We snapped our pictures, listened to the Chinese drums, then left. Not our scene. We found out the hostel had free wifi UNLIMITED for 24 hours for only 3 bucks. Heck yes. They didn’t see it coming when I uploaded over 300 photos. It was about time I got to share our adventures with people. I didn’t even put half of them up haha. 

We also did important stuff like booking our Great Barrier Reef tour and jotting down the number of the Daintree Rainforest tour. Everyone has been super friendly so far. Anything from reading a map, to giving discounts, to asking if we wanted our picture taken together, Australians have been there to help out. I love this place. I really do.

Brisbane CBD

Woke up this morning to the strangest noise. The low tenor of a guys’ voice. It seems that by putting in an earplug last night I missed one of our dorm mates bringing in a friend. Haha. Awkward much. They didn’t care. So I guess we didn’t either. We got up around 9, got our crap together, checked out and went in search of some coffee. We decided to spend the whole day checking out Brisbane’s CBD. It was such a chill day and I loved it. Our flight wasn't until 9:40, so we were able to do whatever we wanted on our own time schedule. It ended up all of Brisbane’s markets were out on Sunday. So we hit like five of them. This was of course after we split a chocolate fudge delight and had our coffee and booked our rain tree adventure for tomorrow. SO EXCITED. Only a 100 bucks for a whole day. Not bad if I don’t say so myself. 

Chocolate covered fried bananas and ice cream...yum!

We then bought some Brisbane bracelets. I’ve decided I’m going to get a bracelet from every city I visit in Australia. I’ve already got one from Sydney and Surfer’s Paradise. Now I have one from Brisbane. And hopefully before long I’ll have one from Cairns and Melbourne. I picked up SO many souvenirs today for different people. But there were some good deals honestly. Much better than the generic crap you’ll find in souvenir stores. 

Crazy street performer juggling torches.

We walked through some more markets, came across a Saudi national festival and finally ended up at South Bank. It was beautiful. Apparently there was something called, Brisbane Festival, going on and there was everything from cello players to street performers. .

After splitting fried bananas with ice cream, strawberries and chocolate on top, Shayna and I watched a guy juggle knives and torches. Oh, and it was atop a huge unicycle. Yea. I thought he was going to die when he decided to juggle under his leg because according to the laws of gravity, both legs are usually needed to keep a unicycle from toppling over. But there you have it. Law defied. He was pretty awesome. We then discovered this tropical lagoon directly in the middle of South Bank. My god, it was beautiful. There were Australians with their kids, older couples, teenagers, youths. It didn’t matter, everyone was there in bathing suits or just sticking their feet in, or simply diving in face first. Shayna and I just sat there with our feet in the water, soaking in the sun, watching the people around us, reveling in the country we’d joined.

But then I thought I was going to die of thirst, so I had to get a water. We found this woman and man who made cool necklaces; after I’d bought a water bottle, that is. Anyway, everything was homemade and the benefits went to promote wildlife. She was so sweet that I bought two. We ended up walking along this flowered arch and finding this harp player. We sat down for a while and listened while the wind blew in our hair and the flowers gave off a pleasant aroma. It was serene.

After walking a bit further down a rain forest path and finding a Buddhist wooden house, we circled back around and walked through a fancier part of Southbank where all of the ritzy restaurants were. We came across what was labeled as the largest IMAX screen in the world. I’m pretty sure I read the same in Sydney. I’m going to have to check that out… We then crossed back over the bridge and ended up eating three rolls of sushi for 7 bucks. We sat out in the middle of Brisbane’s CBD and enjoyed whatever they’d decided to roll up in a sushi roll. The best one had lobster, cream cheese and pineapple. It was more like dessert than sushi. Ha.

A bridge over Brisbane River.

We came across this woman who sang beautifully, and I swear she preformed all of my favorite acoustic songs. Like ever. We sat for a good 30 minutes just listening to her perform. We then decided there was nothing left in Brisbane that we really wanted to do so we walked back to the hostel, grabbed our stuff where we’d left it in the locker room and were relieved to find it all still there (especially me since my passport was in my bag.) So we grabbed our stuff, got discounted train tickets and hopped a train back toward Brisbane airport. The train station wasn’t hard to find. We got there just as it was arriving, hopped on and were at the airport in no time. The security didn’t even mind our razors.

We then grabbed a big cup of coffee and chilled for a while, figuring out budgets and such. We got on the plane no problem, and I ended up having a lot of extra foot room since I agreed to fling open the safety hatch if the plane went down. I basically dozed the two hours and a married couple sat next to me. They looked bedazzled, if you know what I mean. But the man was nice enough to lift my backpack down and give it to me when we landed, so there you go. We got out and caught our bus to Gilligans for free no problem. Dropped off across the street from the hostel, we stared at the hub of activity in front of us. There were strobe lights, loud music and a line of people just waiting to get into the bar that was apparently a separate part of the hostel. Shayna and I looked at each other, smiled and started forward.

Now that's a REAL dad ;)

AND our adventures in Cairns will be updated shortly! Trust me, you won't want to miss that one ;)