The day started as a 4:30am wakeup, lots of rooting around in bags and drawers for last minute checks. For some reason every Uber driver thought it was a good idea to work last night, so there were bugger all of them around for our trip. Quite a few tense minutes waiting for a driver to be found later we were on our way to the airport, thankfully in an electric car that the driver insisted that everyone else at each light needed to see how fast his car accelerated.
Bag check in is so easy these days with the new automatic system, no queues or complications, just sparking screens and Xbox Kinetic modules. Still weird seeing the X logo scanning your luggage. Achievement wasn't unlocked though which was disappointing.
Food is a constant theme for my posts so I've decided to document as much as I can, starting with the Airport breakfast. Yeah, so this is what $27 of eggs, toast, average sausages and unasked-for tomato looks like. Yes, I ate the green because I was damn well going to try to get my money's worth.
We are flying JetStar because it was cheaper, it's as simple as that. Slightly more nuanced were the ways it was cheaper, especially for things I don't usually experience. First thing - no screens. We weren't going to be savages and talk to each other so most of the flight was spent balancing my phone in front of me. Just put it on the tray you say!
Yeah, nah. You see JetStar has saved money by putting an extra row or two into their planes, which means the seats are slightly closer to each other. This also means the tray front is slightly closer to you. Somewhere in this equation, the distance between the edge of the tray table and the front edge of me becomes uncomfortably negative.
Does this look awkward and uncomfortable? Not as uncomfortable as the front of the tray table wedged into my front, which is doing a photo-bomb at the bottom.
We bought our tickets just long enough ago to forget that we also added a "meal". It wasn't bad, but it was wrong. Toasties aren't supposed to be moist. And the damn cheese is definitely supposed to go at the top. Straight to jail.
Other than my frontage issues, the close seats affected Louie as well. He had absolutely no room for his knees so it was a repeat of the worst seats in a LATAM Rio - Santiago flight. Even before we had left the plane I had upgraded our return seats to extra legroom. It's almost as if they did this on purpose...
A bunch of flights landed at the same time, so we were treated to the Rock Star way, crossing the tarmac on foot. Luckily it wasn't too humid today, but it was definitely warmer than we are used to. It meant we absolutely got our steps in, especially as we were in the airport gate equivalent of the nosebleeds. Somehow all airports, despite having air-conditioning, seem to be quite clammy and you get all gross.
It looked like most of the flights that landed around us were from Korea going by the arrivals board and the look of those standing in front of the luggage carousel, blocking anyone else from getting their bags as they went past like an unwanted Bruce Forsyth prize. Today I have learned that they are a nervous lot, they give a hell of a jump when an abrupt New Zealander shouts "behind" as their bag approaches. Leaves a nice gap to reach in and grab your bag.
Not the most efficient way of processing passengers. Everyone who did and did not declare had to go into a line and have some cheery Border Force chap point their way to freedom or along further into the depths of the customs desks.
The declaration card is accompanied by this delightful photo taken in one of the most dingiest areas of any airport. There weren't really any lights on in the queue and just a row above the photo taking gate thing. Luckily they had my delightful face to compare this to, otherwise I'd be whipped off into a back room along with the usual Bolivian drug mules, Townsville cigarette smugglers and the French.
From memory, only Melbourne actually tells you which city you've arrived in, Sydney gives you a SYD and I think Auckland is AKL (I need to check now). Either way, we have arrived!
And this sign is the first thing you see when you head out of the building. Nice.
Weirdly the sign welcoming people to Brisbane wasn't over the road that people who have freshly arrived in Brisbane travel down. The other thing we noticed is that there isn't any traffic. Anywhere. It was fine. Either today was different for some reason, or Brisbane needs to come and see Auckland if they want to know what shithouse traffic is like. Because it isn't here.
We got to the hotel way too early for check-in so we took a wander to some sort of shop collection group area thing nearby. Very strange area, a lot like Newtown in Wellington with a mix of all sorts of socio-economics, ages and personal hygiene standards. This matched the buildings as well, with early 1900's restored, 1950's untouched, 2000's soulless and brand new construction.
We ended up at La Favolosa which was a Reddit recommendation. They had real drinks, and this definitely had real ginger in it, it burned like a bastard.
This is the Giotto, with prosciutto, stracciatella, tomato and "EVOO" which is what I've just discovered is an completely wank way of saying extra virgin olive oil. The sandwich was pretty wank as well, strange texture and under seasoned. I'll be giving my other Reddit sourced recommendations a second check.
Louie thought I was taking a photo of the Ray Whites here, because it was "The Original". After a bit of confused back and forth, I explained I was taking a photo of the "Aboriginal" flag in the middle of the road. He was wondering how I had hidden my love of historical real estate landmarks for the past three years.
I wasn't really, this just tells me they are lazy. And illiterate. Australian owned in other words.
Nice little forest / garden area around the shops, possibly asking for snakes and insane insects to live so I didn't step any closer. This was part of the strange mix of different worlds. Around this area were very bored rich people buying bullshit, a community group who had free BBQ food for the needy and a couple of people who looked like they find the real world challenging and had settled among the trees.
The whole area was like this, well looked after and plenty of greenery. Really liking it here.
We were hot, it was a hot day. It was 11am but our brains said it was mid-afternoon. Ice Cream time. Surely we would find ice cream in an Ice Cream Factory. No. We found offices.
This is not an Ice Cream Factory, it is where the old 1920's Ice Cream Factory used to be, and they just named the building after it. Wankers.
We did find Anita Gelato, and it was brilliant. It had high powered air conditioning. Five Stars.
The really nice gelato and restored period shop fit-out was a bonus. Plus there were no other customers, no queue!
Here we have berry pavlova and mango cheesecake. Absolutely fantastic. Louie had macadamia nut and watermelon with fresh cut mint. Not everything "fresh" is good. It tasted like lawn clippings, and was still repeating on him hours later.
Here is a part of our apartment hotel thing. Turn your oven on, open the door and look at this photo. Yeah, now you get the idea.
Not only is the Brisbane version of a tower pretty crap, they have the gall to call it the Skyneedle. I know everyone thinks the Sky Tower looks like a hypodermic needle, but this just looks like an epipen, and a used one at that.
The turgid Brisbane river. No, that's not the right word. Turd coloured, that's it. Australia loves their brown rivers.
We found wildlife! Water Dragon just hanging out.
Ibis aka Bin Chickens
Louie pointed this out to me and I said "oh yeah, it's a bush turkey", because it was in some bushes and it looked like a turkey. I did a Google image search and... it's called a bush turkey. Failed successfully.
A Nepalese temple left from the 1988 Expo. I can see why they left it, it is full of amazing carving work and the detail is mind blowing.
Every surface seems to have something going on and you could spend hours just taking it all in.
These maidens' backsides seem to have had their fair share of polishing. There was also a surprising level of detail on these as well. Pretty much the opposite of the "that's a penis" meme.
We kept on walking down the South Bank area, trying to keep in shaded areas and out of the sun.
I think this must be one of the world's best inner city green areas, so many amazing areas for people to relax enjoy the city. This is the rain forest section, you could tell we weren't in New Zealand because there wasn't a Pak n Save trolley dumped into the water.
The buildings along the waterfront are a lot smaller than in Melbourne, and a lot fewer but I really like these ones more. They are all roundy and nicer to look at.
Look at these mad bastards, I haven't seen skin cancer fan-boys and girls for years!
Now this is a beach. No nasty creatures, warm, white sand and fresh water. I think they dye the water blue though, I saw a few people looking a bit odd coloured underwater.
The Epicurious garden, full of all sorts of fruit and herbs. Coming from the feral state of Hawkes Bay it always amazes me, and fills me with envy that places can have nice things. And there are plenty of nice things around here. Probably not everywhere, but it's definitely better here.
Just your average wide shaded path alongside a brown river filled with sharks, crocodiles and snakes. Probably.
I liked this and you too can see it now.
Finally we got to put our feet up in the wonderful chill of an air conditioned apartment hotel room. They love their mirrors here. Practically one wall of the bedroom is filled up with a mirror. That's going to cause some terror screams in the morning.
The outdoor area is pretty great as well. There's piping for a gas heater (they are so weird here, people were wearing jackets today!). The neighbours across the way are a little close, and as I type this I am familiar with the cooking habits of several randoms. Including a bloke who either enjoys cooking naked (you'd only splash hot oil once), or owns a pair of very convincing skin coloured shorts. I didn't really want to break out the zoom lens so I'll just let that one be a mystery for the ages.
This is the pool for the complex. Looks insanely welcoming but we have water and snacks to get first!
Of course for our first night in Brisbane we headed to a nearby Brazilian restaurant.
They come in bottles! And it is the proper Brazilian Guarana! It is so good, I've missed the proper stuff dearly.
A burger or a hot dog. Bread, meat, maybe some cheese and sauce. No, let's put meat, three large slices of bacon, cheese, potato sticks, a fried egg, tomato and lettuce in there as well. Oh, don't forget the sliced hot dog franks. I ate about half.
Well, that's the first day over with, we are planning on having a relaxing day tomorrow, maybe go up Mount Coot-tha and do scenic things.