OUTING TO BRISBANE

Well, took Jordie out to Brisbane today by train. Parked my car at the Robina train station and we headed off to Brisbane city today just for the fun of it. Up till noon time, I was still undecided whether to go but decided finally, what the heck, so I didn't even cook lunch and we headed out to the station. Found out that if you travel between 12 noon to 3.30pm on weekdays, you get discounted tickets for riding offpeak hours. Also, your train back must be after 7pm from Brisbane. So I took the offpeak option since I figured we won't have much time if we rushed back earlier than 7pm anyway.

So, armed with just some chocolate biscuits for lunch, we took our 1 hour 15minute train ride and u would think Jordan would be enjoying scenery or something but he took a fascination on the graffiti art on walls, buildings and rocks all along the train ride! I must say there is something about this place that somehow turns vandalism into a legitimate art form. There were some really ugly and badly done ones and some pretty ones too. But I didn't bother taking any pics of those stuff.

We hopped off at Central Station at close to 3pm and with croaking tummies, went to get our delayed lunch at one of the food courts in town. Apparently chinese foodshops were clearing stock for the afternoon, so we paid only $3.80 per box of fried rice and choice of 2 dishes,... quite a bargain. Jordan found the sweet sour pork lip-smacking. H1N1.. what me worry? no, it doesn't affect the food, silly.

Ok now got energy to walk, ...We crossed Ann Street to Anzac Square to look at this memorial monument set up by Queensland folks in honour of fellow Queenslanders who had died serving in the African war between years 1914-1945. The fire at the commemorative "Shrine" called the Eternal Flame was kept burning 24/7 in memory of those heroes. This shrine is an adaptation of the classical Greek shrine. Eighteen columns support a circular inscribed with the names of battlefields where Australian soldiers fought.

The plaque for the memorial

We also saw some interesting metallic kangaroos positioned on some of the benches along the street. They looked kinda comical actually.

Then, we hit Queen street, the main shopping area for Brisbane. Did mostly window shopping. They had David Jones, Target, Coles & lots of beautiful shops here and somehow, the feel was more of the sophisticated upmarket sort, not the "resorty/casual ,happy go luck" feel as in GC shops.

They were having stock clearance at Target and layby sales. Now, here perhaps I need to explain the oz culture of "layby's". You can 'book' the stuff you want now during the sale but pay up only 10% first and the store will hold it for you for about 8 weeks, with a minimal fee charge of $2.50 and you can collect it later when your pay is in or when you feel richer. Of course if you don't collect, you forfeit your 10% and Target is richer by that amount. Some stores will even let you layby up till christmas. ... it's just their way of liquidating stocks before june 30 tax deadline.

Brisbane is definitely on a faster pace than Gold Coast. People walk faster, talk faster, eat faster. I swear the escalators also seem to move faster. The laid-back culture in Gold Coast is well, not so evident here. This is after all a working metropolitan, 3rd largest city in Australia. More international faces and trade than in Gold Coast too. Students from QUT, U of Queensland, TAFE, Griffith, flood Brisbane from different parts of the world. Their families come to visit, like the place, decide to settle here.

We didn't get to go any of the parks or Southbank like the last time. Dog tired by the time we got back on the 7.25pm train. But Jordie still enjoyed himself much. His comment, "Ooh... this is definitely THE CITY area."

enjoying a bag of chips while waiting for the train to go home

So what is Gold Coast then ? It's home....