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I thought I should take a few photos of what 'Brisbane' means to me, seeing as how I'm going to be leaving it soon.

And of course, having decided to do that, I could come up with nothing. So I figured I'll just post a little bit about the city.

A warning for all you possible visitors: Do NOT use Southbank (or Mater Hill) busway stations between 3PM and 4PM during term time. Just don't. It's not worth your life! Seeing the time, I chose to take the long way round and get on at the city rather than walk across the bridge to Southbank from QUT. Why? Because about 4 schools let out in the same area at roughly the same time, and ALL the kids go to one of these two bus stations.

And they push and they shove and they yell and push some more...... It's not pretty. If you run past there when all the schools have let out, the ENTIRE outbound platform is just schoolkids (and about 4 adults looking hopelessly lost). They actually push adults out of the way, as well. I've seen bus drivers yell at the kids to line up, then let the adults on, close the doors and drive away. Usually I'd say that's unsafe and unfair, but really..... the entire bus thought it was great (we were quite full by that time already).

I decided to add a photograph of Parliament House, since it's the State Parliament and supposedly quite important. It's also right next to QUT, so it was convenient.

QUT (Queensland University of Technology) is my uni, and the only one with a major campus in the CBD (I think a few unis have 'offices'). There are three major universities in Brisbane: QUT, Griffith University and The University of Queensland (UQ). QUT's in the CBD and has this nifty 'you are now on level 3! Ooh, you're now on the ground!' architecture going on, Griffith is at the top of a hill in the middle of a forest (seriously) and UQ is, very foreign-like, situated over about 30 acres of manicured gardens and lakes.

Griffith actually has the larger campus, but UQ actually uses all of their campus - mores the pity for UQ students.

UQ is toted as the best university in Queensland, but really it's the best *research* university. That means if you're going to do something unpractical - like history - you should go to UQ. If you want to do a postgraduate degree in scientific research, go to UQ.

If you want to do ANYTHING practical, go somewhere else. Their methods of teaching haven't changed in about 100 years, and so business classes = theory, design classes = theory (one of my friends went there, they had to learn about ''I' Statements' in a multimedia course), education = theory......... pretty much everything's theory. And unfortunately a lot of UQ students go there for the prestige, therefore they study full time and don't really work, then graduate with no experience but a crapload of unusable knowledge and can only find a job worth $30K because the company has to retrain them. Sad, really.

Languages at UQ are very good though. That's about the only redeeming subject I can think of (aside from Arts, but you need training if you study Arts anyway, generally).

Griffith and QUT are the hands-on universities where you actually learn stuff. QUT Specialises in Business, Science, IT and Engineering/Architecture; courses in these are VERY full-on. Griffith specialises in Asian Studies (no idea why), Design and Medicine (Griffith have the BEST design courses, and their medical campus is almost entirely new equipment). Well, Griffith offers the full 'university range' of subjects but I'd say these are their strengths. They're also very good at Business, though their management courses have faaaaaar too much theory to be of much use.

Griffith're widely known for their Asian language courses, but being fluent in two I tend to find their courses too easy. and that not enough students enrolled in third or fourth-year courses can actually speak. This is where UQ gets one up, because, even though all of UQ's mandarin students have a ridiculous accent, they can all actually speak and aren't afraid to, either.

I'm heading to UQ tomorrow to say goodbye to a friend, so hopefully I"ll be able to get a picture from there too. I'll see if I can swing by Griffith on my way home to add to the collection (Griffith's up the road from where I live).

My last photo is of the MX Guy. MX is a free commuter newspaper (like Metro in London) that comes out every evening in Sydney, Melbourne and, more recently, Brisbane. Our MX Guys/Girls are the absolute best, because they literally chase you down with 'YOU MUST HAVE AN MX!!!' Great enthusiasm, a few miserable souls find them annoying though.

And I'm sure this guy thought I was crazy for asking for his picture =)

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