Brisbane – Philipp's TravelBlog

Sunday afternoon I checked in at the Yellow Submarine Backpackers where Nicole already awaited me. We share a cool 4bed dorm with another German. After unloading our baggage we headed to the next Coles to buy groceries, because the following day was a public holiday (Queen’s birthday) where the shops were supposed to be closed.

When we were back we had lunch and then headed out into the city. Of course we took lots of photos. At the Queensland State Library we met Sabi who was using the free WiFi. After running further around in the city we went back to the hostel where we had pizza for free at dinner. Really nice 🙂

Monday we picked up Sabi at her hostel and went into the City Botanical Gardens. It was nice, but not as great as the ones in Sydney.
Next thing was Queen Street, Brisbane’s shopping centre, where Sabi left us. Nicole and I had a look around, bought tickets for the Koala sanctuary at the tourist office, and then went onto the christmas market.

You have read correctly: christmas market! They had a winter festival going on for the first time ever. There were stands selling Gluhwein, “the famous german Currywurst”, fake christmas tree and a big ice skating area. And we had 21° and were sweating in the sun 😀

There was a big stand of Lipton where we got a free Chai Latte. Usually I don’t drink tea, but this one was really good.

When we had enough we continued and went into the Roma Stree Parklands just behind the Transit Centre. That was way better than the botanical gardens! A lovely park with all kinds of flowers and lots and lots of water features. Around sunset we made our way back to the hostel and cooked dinner.

That’s Brisbane!
A few things to note:

Almost everybody in our hostel smokes, I have no idea how they can afford it. Cigarettes/tobacco is even more expensive here than alcohol.
Monday we got another guy into our dorm. Where from? Of course. Germany.
In Queen Street was a group of young people, mostly female, holding signs “free hugs” and hugging everybody wholeheartedly who passed them. 😀
The traffic lights here are the same stupid design as in Sydney. I have designed more efficient traffic lights in yearlevel 8 in school!
It’s unbelievable. It’s stealing so much of everone’s time. Pretty much everybody ignores them and crosses the street when it seems to be free.

From 2011-06-12 Brisbane. Posted by Philipp Hübner on 6/12/2011 (120 items)