For the first few days that I have been here, I haven’t taken much initiative to go into the city since I’ve been busy taking classes and getting used to the time difference. Yesterday and today, however, I decided to go into the city for most of the day. Brisbane’s the capital of the state of Queensland, the north-east state and where I’ll be spending most of my time. While I’m leaving for the north on Monday, we’ll be coming back to Brisbane for about two days in October and then for two weeks at the end of my program at the end of November.
Brisbane’s quite a cool city. When I first got here, I thought it was boring because there wasn’t much to do according to the travel book, and especially compared to what I know about Sydney. But the city itself is a really nice city. It is clean and not too crowded and is overall a pretty modern city that’s surrounded by a river. The city center has great architecture, with a bunch of modern buildings and lots of bridges crossing the river. There’s a really cool cultural center in South Bank (south of the river) that has a bunch of state museums, including a Gallery of Modern Art (currently featuring a gallery by Vallentino), an Art Museum, and a Natural History Museum. I really enjoyed going to the cultural center; the architecture is really modern and there are a lot of lookout points where you can just see Brisbane’s skyline along with the river. There’s also the exhibition center and the concert hall. From what I’ve seen, a lot of shows happen in the city center, and many are free! I definitely plan to catch one either this weekend or when we come back.
We also stopped by a night market that sold a lot of artsy products. It was super expensive, but I realized that I especially enjoy going to markets to look around. I stopped for a salt bath for my hands which was AMAZING because it made my hands as smooth as my sister’s (who has tremendously smooth and soft hands). This is a big deal because my hands are never smooth or soft because I’ve had eczema on my hands for as long as I can remember. It was quite a momentous moment when I felt my hands become softer than they’d ever been, so momentous that I was about to buy the $30 jar of bath salts that was about the size of a baby food jar. Maybe one day. I did take a flyer.
There’s also a man-made beach in the middle of the center of the city that’s only a block away from the river. You can swim in it. It’s awesome, and I definitely plan to hang out here on a sunny day, although I’m sure it gets crowded then. There’s also apparently a mini Eiffel Tower. I’m not sure how mini it is, but I want to check it out. I’m assuming it’s taller than me, at least.
The night before, my program took a ghost tour around Brisbane city, which focused on older buildings. There was the treasury casino which used to be the treasury building and was (fittingly) turned into a casino. There’s also the old printing building where apparently a guy got squashed in a printing machine and all that was left was his hand and his skull. Of COURSE his skull. We also saw the executive building as well as the park. I’d never been on a ghost tour before, but it was entertaining.
The most awesome thing about Brisbane is its public transport system. There’s the standard bus and train system, but there’s also a river catamaran and ferry system. The CityCat (short for catamaran, not the animal) is basically a bus on water and is actually cheaper than taking a bus to the same locations. Buses come really often and there are a million buses throughout the city from what I’ve seen. Also, each transport system operates under the same company so you can use the same card for each form of transport instead of having to buy tickets every time you transfer from bus to CityCat. But, like everything else, public transport is pretty expensive. To get to school, it’s $2.30 by bus and it’s not far away at all.
I PROMISE to post pictures next time. I keep forgetting to bring my camera places or to the library where I get internet.
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