I actually decided to break up the last part of spring break into 2 separate entries, so this is part 4 of 5. I'm getting there! Since this is the portion of break that Jess and I planned ourselves and since we were starting to run pretty low on funds, we didn't have quite as many adventures as the previous week, but we still enjoyed ourselves nonetheless.
Day 13: Brisbane
After Jess and I woke up from probably our best (and cleanest) night's sleep, our only plan for the day was to explore the city of Brisbane. At every hostel I stay at, I always make it a habit to stop by the area lined with the brochures to have a look at possible activities and tours to do in that area as well as in other cities in Australia. I remember back in July when I stayed at my very first hostel in Cairns, I must have stared at the brochures for almost an hour with pure excitement and sparkling eyes thinking about the endless possibilities of things to do and places I could potentially see over the next few months. However, this time as I scanned the brochures, something was different. I realized that aside from a trip to the outback, I had been to nearly every place in Australia that there was a brochure for! Wow, I guess I have traveled more than I thought I did.
Anyway, we stopped at reception for a map of the city (which we eventually ended up ditching) and were off to explore. Brisbane (pronounced Briz-ben) is Australia's 3rd biggest city with a population of 2 million. If you're wondering about the title of my blog, "Brissy" is most often the city's nickname as well as "BrisVegas." However, I have NO idea why the city would be nicknamed BrisVegas because there was NO resemblance in any way, shape, or form. If it was up to me, the city's nickname would be "BrisBoring" because it was really just another city with nothing particularly unique about it. Before I came, I had heard that Brisbane was starting to become a more cultural and sophisticated city, but that backpackers generally disliked the city; however, I gave it the benefit of the doubt and thought that maybe I'd think differently. Not really...
Brisbane is situated on the Brisbane river, so there's about 3 different bridges you can walk across to get to the CBD area. During our walk, we did witness a few interesting sights such as a car accident between two ambulances and these 2 guys riding their bikes on rocks (see picture below).
For the next few hours we wandered around the South Bank area and Botanical Gardens, which was a pretty area. We saw heaps of business people walking around the area, probably on their lunch break. We also went inside the art gallery and state library for a little bit. We then stumbled upon Streets Beach. Since Brisbane doesn't have a beach, they built a man-made one in the middle of the South Bank area, which I thought was kinda funny.
One of my Irish friends that I met a few months ago in Byron Bay gave me a ring at this point. We had kept in touch since then and he was currently living in Brisbane and working. He had gotten off work early and wanted to know if we wanted to meet up. Since we were pretty bored, and had pretty much seen all of the city at this point, we were keen to do something else. He lived in a suburb only 4 train stops away from the city, so we made our way over to the train station to meet him. There I found this sign on the tracks, "STAY OFF THE TRACKS! Or cop at $150 fine. So don't say you didn't know." Haha, I'm really gonna miss these signs.
So we spent a few hours catching up with Kevin while he gave us some advice for the next leg of our trip. Jess and I then headed back to our hostel and called it a night.
Brisbane, slightly disappointing. Maybe I shouldn't have left the airport this time.
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