Brisbane Time

Wednesday June 17- Thursday June 18

Arriving in Brisbane was a shock to the system after spending the last few weeks in sleepy coastal towns. There were so many cars and traffic and lights and people! Our hostel was brand new, which would have been great except it wasn't quite done and there was more jack hammering going on at 6 am under our window than I normally appreciate. That and it was right next to the transit center so the trains ran by at all hours. However, the rooftop pool with a view of the city almost made up for that.My sister Caitlin arrived early Wednesday and the three of us went out to explore the city. We got distracted by lunch, then went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary on the outskirts of the city. We had heard good things but it really exceeded expectations! We got to cuddle a koala (who's name was Kakadu- perfect) and got our pictures taken. We also got to feed a bunch of very friendly kangaroos that let us pet them. There were wombats and Tasmanian Devils and all sorts of birds- we were fully entertained until it got dark at 5pm as it does around here. Darn winter.

Thursday we spent the morning walking down the Queen Street Mall, where if you had tons of money you

 could spend it all, and poked around some souvenir shops. We walked through the city's botanical gardens and across one of the many bridges over the Brisbane River and into South Bank that has a lovely boardwalk and promenade. This is also where all of the museums and things are. We spent a few hours in the museum of modern art with an excellent exhibit on China with a number of Chinese-Australian artists and immigrant's work featured. Hannah is not so down with the modern art scene, but seemed to enjoy it in spite of herself. Coffee and cake followed at the library shop, and we walked through more gardens and saw the Nepalese Peace Pagoda that had been built and brought over for the 1988 Worlds Fair.

Thurs night we checked out the night life, which is apparently non existent during the week in Brisbane. We found a few backpacker places, though, and managed to entertain ourselves without too much trouble:)