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Published: January 22nd 2006
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Brisbane City Hall
Look at the cool looking clouds. The Bribane City Museum is also housed in this building. Check out CBD
Museums & Galleries
They are all for free!
BrisVegas is cool
City with a small town feel
I like the river.
I had a good start this morning. I had a very nice sleep. I woke up by 8:30 and had breakfast and a shower and a quick check of my email and then it was outta the house by 9:45! Wow! A much better start than yesterday! I even stuck more or less to my intended plans!
Ann gave me directions to get to the CBD by bus which would take about 30 minutes. I remember Ann saying something about taking the train from the Toowong Village being only about 10 minutes. So I set out towards the TooWong Village - shopping mall. I actually wasn't sure whether to turn left or right from the main street but a quick inquiry with the pedestrian coming towards me reassured me I was headed in the correct direction. Oh yes, as soon as I got to the end of Rob and Ann's path I decided it would be wise to turn around and see what it looked like for the return trip home. lol
Armed with my bible - the Lonely Planet - I walked up to the ticket window to purchase a Day Rover pass that would give me access to all the buses, trains and ferries. He asked me where I was going. Umm...good question! Apparently the day rover passes have different rates for different zones. I could have saved even more money if I got the pass that expired at 3:30PM BUT I didn't want that time pressure. In the end my all day pass was less than $5! Pretty cheap in my books! Brisbane, just like Vancouver does not have turnstiles at any of their train stations BUT they do have people checking tickets at EVERY station. It's pretty easy getting around by train in Brisbane. They have monitors that indicate when the next train is due to arrive and the platform numbers as well.
I arrived at Central Station in about 10 minutes and headed towards my first stop on my walking tour, Brisbane City Hall. The Museum of Brisbane is located on the ground floor and has free admission. So as you can probably guess, I wandered around for a bit. They have two main exhibition halls with changing displays and a movie room as well with all of the history of Brisbane. The first exhibit was with Asian Artisans in Brisbane. Some of the stuff on display was interesting and some just strange...that contemporary art thing again! I did find the paper artist's paper sculptures fascinating but most of the other stuff was not so interesting to me. The other exhibit was based around Buddha’s. They had 1000's of Buddha's both big and tiny on display. All of the Buddha's on display were on loan from residents of Brisbane. Throughout the display were placards and quotes from owners of the Buddha's talking about their Buddha's. For example, what their Buddha meant to them, how and when they acquired their Buddha. It was all rather quite interesting to wander through this exhibit. I didn't realize there were so many people out there that have Buddha collections! There is also a Clock Tower at City Hall that gives you a pretty good view of the CBD. I kept seeing signs that it costs to ride the elevator up the Clock Tower but for the life of me could not find the ticket counter. I figured the elevator operator was collecting the money?? On the way up I was the only one in there and got a personal "tour" from the little Italian man. He was really funny. I don't think he meant to be funny but he came across as being really funny. Maybe cute is a better descriptor word. I guess going up and down that elevator all day long makes you a little off shall we say.
Next stop was a walk through the Queen Street Mall (shopping!) before walking past a few historical buildings and then onto Victoria Bridge to cross the Brisbane River to the South Bank Parklands. First stop was to the Queensland Museum (free admission!) It was just your run of the mill museum on all stuff related to the State of Queensland. They had one section with stuffed animals and birds of Queensland. Taxidermy is not really my thing but I saw a stuffed wombat and was surprised how big they are! Dead, stuffed critters are really creepy to me BUT I can't stop looking at them for some reason. lol Not sure what the fascination is. They also had an interesting display on pottery and musical instruments of the Aboriginals. I wasn't really too interested in their automobile display or the display on airplanes.
Next stop was to the Queensland Art Gallery - also free admission! There was an interesting exhibit by Fiona Hall. She's an artist that takes ordinary objects and creates something with it. For example metal from pop cans are flattened and cut and shaped into images. Video tape is unwound and knit/crocheted into different objects. Beaded creations intertwined with plastic objects such as funnels or bottles. Interesting to look at but not stuff I'd display in my house! I liked some of the 3-D visual art that some local art students produced but don't really appreciate some of the paintings both old ones and modern ones.
I continued my walk along the South Bank Parklands past the Performing Arts Centre. They had this cool path that had metal archways and flowers growing up the wires. Really cool looking. Apparently these lands were from the former Expo'88 site. A lot of the university seems to occupy parts of the area and there were some cute cafes and stores nearby. I was walking along this nice path when out of no where this guy comes up and says to me..."It's a pretty hot one today." And then starts chatting me up. Oh no, is he trying to pick me up? Confirmation of that when he asked more than once what I was doing in the evening...Thank goodness I came to the Goodwill Bridge (sooner rather than later!) that leads back across the river and in the opposite direction of Tony...But not before he asked me, "Do you want to go for a beer later?" I politely said again that it was my last night in Brisbane and I would be spending the evening with my friends and then hightailed it outta there! Oh yes, along my walk I passed by a manmade beach. It really reminded me of a movie set and even had a lifeguard on duty!
Upon crossing the Goodwill Bridge I was at the Botanic Gardens. I took a short stroll around but there wasn't too much to see there so I continued onto the QUT Art Museum - free admission of course! It is a pretty small museum. They were celebrating an anniversary (can't remember what number) and had some of their collection from years past on display and also some of their more recent works that they have acquired in the last 5 years. I really enjoyed the Architecture exhibit they had. As for the glitter glue art project, I didn't really enjoy that one too much.
At the end of my walking tour I walked through the shopping area again and passed by a store that had a sign, "Nothing over $20." Now how can a sensible girl walk by there and not go in?? So of course I cruised on in and found myself a $7 dress! It'll be perfect for that Caribbean cruise in September! I still can't believe it only cost me $7! I didn't do too much more shopping after that and started my way back home after riding on a CityCat ferry for a bit along the river. Well, I actually rode it twice to the original station that I got on since I didn't really know where it was I had sailed to first. LOL
On the way home I stopped off to pick up a bit of fruit for the next couple of days on the bus and also picked up a cake for Ann and Rob for dessert after dinner. Thank goodness I paid a little bit of attention on my way out of the house in the morning because on part of the walk things weren't really looking all that familiar! Glad to report I didn't get lost and found the path back to Ann and Rob's house without too much trouble.
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