But beyond that my opinion of you hasn't really changed from yesterday... I did manage to not get heat stroke this time though.
Today has been a mixture of sightseeing and shopping... well, when I say shopping... being in places where shops are is probably more accurate.
First thing this morning was more or less a repeat of yesterday, except I got up earlier, got ready earlier and we were out the door by about 8am (even though I had to fix Ma's hair due to shampoo/conditioner malfunction).
Breakfast this morning was Starbucks... not exactly five star, but it was quick, easy and directly across the road from the hotel. I was kind of impressed though... I'd picked up both drinks and was waiting, along with a bunch of other people, at the counter for the food and the barista girl not only checked to make sure I wasn't waiting on another drink, but she actually called me by name again when she did it... it's the small things that make good customer service really.
After breakfast and a brief moment of poking around the Myer Centre, we wandered off on one of the "self-guided walking tours" we got on one of the maps at the Visitors Centre yesterday... the Art and Architecture Walk, naturally.
Just as another brief aside... I think Brisbane very definitely takes the cake for "statues of the human form"... you don't seem to be able to go anywhere without running into some human shaped piece of public art... kinda strange really...
Some of the stuff on the walking trail we'd already seen yesterday, but other bits and pieces were worth going hunting for. We didn't really follow the trail, we cherry picked bits and pieces, wandered down the Queen Street Mall (stopping off briefly at possibly the best Toy World ever... vinyl figures galore!), found the scrap metal kangaroos, got a little bit lost trying to find one or two other things on the map, but eventually ended up back at Anzac Square.
It's not helped by Brisbane City Council, since it seems like the majority of intersections either only have street signs for one direction (ie, they'll have Albert Street, but not the cross street), or no street signs at all. Very annoying.
There are bits that I'm okay with... like as soon as I see the Burger King on the corner of Queen Street Mall and Albert Street, I know which way the hotel is... and I know where to go to get to South Bank when we hit the end of Elizabeth Street... other than that I'm pretty hopeless.
I think that's kind of why I'm having trouble remembering what we did in what order...
I do know that from Anzac Square we crossed over to Queen Street and stopping into JB HiFi... because I always have to stop into JB, just to check on whether they have a Gay Movie section, and if so, what’s in it... turns out that this one didn't... but Ma did find a DS game she's been wanting cheap, so it wasn't a total waste of time.
Then we went looking for the other comic book shop. From discussions with Sugarmonkey last week, I knew there was more than one, and I knew one was the good one and one was the bad one... except I couldn't remember which was which.
It would seem that Comics Etc that we went into yesterday was the good one... because when we did find the other one, it was very naff, and we only spent a couple of minutes in there.
But that led to a return visit to Comics Etc... Ma wanted more of the Doctor Who figurines she got yesterday and I wanted another go at the Futurama figures... turned out pretty well actually... Ma picked out three packs and got exactly what she wanted (actually she got two Daleks, a red and a blue, so I ended up with the blue one)... and I picked Bender Bending Rodriguez in the Futurama blind box, so I'm happy.
Of course that doesn't mean that we won't go back there again tomorrow...
After that we swung back to the hotel to drop stuff off, then headed back out with the slightly vague plan of getting a burger for lunch (you know, a good burger, not fast food)... we ended up back in the Queen Street Mall and after doing a little tyre kicking in a couple of stores first, I noticed that one of the eateries in the middle of the Mall did an organic beef burger, so we stopped there.
It turned out to be really nice... not too much or too fancy with too much stuff on it... but just enough.
While we were there, there was this older guy, sharply dressed in a nice suit and carrying a white paper shopping bag... and he was completely and utterly BAT SHIT CRAZY... he just seems to wander up and down the Mall, talking very loudly to everybody and nobody about some bat shit crazy stuff. He has an accent, so it's hard to understand exactly what he's ranting about... but clearly you never want to make eye contact with him... he appeared to have latched on to two guys walking up the Mall at one point. I'm pretty sure they weren't the least bit interested, but he just tagged along with them, telling them whatever his particular soap box is.
Suffice to say we avoided both eye contact and got out of earshot as quickly as possible.
Our next plan was to head down to the Botanical Gardens, so after a quick stop in Target to get a hat ($4... bargain) and some sunscreen... and a couple more bottles of that yummy juice from the food court, we set off...
It helped that there were a fair few beautiful gentlemen wandering around the gardens too (which brings us back to the beginning of the post really)...
Also, using the zoom gives some really great shallow depth of field shots... of both greenery and men...
Anyway, after we'd rested and the sun was starting to set we headed back over the bridge to South Bank. I took my camera, just to try it out with some evening/night/city lights shots... it actually worked out pretty well... some of the shots are probably a bit blurry, but they look pretty interesting.
So a couple of days after we arrived we finally had our Brisbane Indian dinner at Gandhi's Curry Hut... and it turned out to be very tasty too... we pretty much had the usual of rice and naan and Lamb Rogan Josh, but added a vegetable dish I can't remember the name of now... and just enough to enjoy without ending up stuffed.
Our last stop was Max Brenner... actually, to be honest, the whole second trip across to South Bank was so that we could visit Max Brenner. We ended up just having hot chocolate (I remembered later that the incredibly thick stuff I had when we were in Melbourne was actually the Italian hot chocolate), which also was just enough without being too rich.
And then back here for lots and lots of typing on my part...
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1 comment:
I have the Brisbane Map problem too - the city isn't actually laid out north-south but yet many of the maps of the city centre show the main streets going up and down the page even though that means north doesn't point up. Hence confusion when you compare to iPhone maps!
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