My Travel Memoirs: Australia

Visiting Australia has always been one of my dreams. This time, thanks to the ICRA conference in Brisbane, it became possible. Ideally, I would have loved to go to the Great Barrier Reef and possibly include a tour of New Zealand and Hobbiton with this trip, but it gives me an excuse to come back and visit this continent again 🙂

My first impression when I rode in a shuttle from the airport to my hotel, was that Brisbane was very similar to the cities in the US and if it were not for the cars driving on the left side of the roads, I would not realize that I was not in the US. I was surprised by the concentration of ibis branded hotels in Brisbane. AccorHotels, which owns them, must be enjoying almost a monopoly for middle class tourists there. I was there for just over a week, and couple of days just went by getting used to the huge time difference, having flown there from Seattle, USA. The Brisbane river was very near to my hotel, and I used to walk over the bridge to go to the convention center, where the conference was happening. Beautiful views.

Food is great and varied if you know where to go. Go to Eat Street. This was probably the most unique place I visited in Brisbane other than the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. So many cuisines from all over the world in one place! Food stalls in containers. And that too with live entertainment with great views of the city and the river alike. But, go there on a Friday evening. Some of the most unique things I tried there were Tornado potato (spiraled potato on a stick, and the way they make it from a single potato is very interesting), Japanese Pizza (Okonomiyaki made with shredded cabbage), and Hungarian Langos. Here are some pictures.

Tornado Potato

Japanese Pizza

Hungarian Langos

Another very unique thing about Brisbane is the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. A must see for anyone visiting Brisbane. For the first time, I got to touch a Koala (So lazy creatures!), a Kangaroo and feed it, and an Ostrich. And I saw an Eastern Brown Snake (2nd most venomous snake in the world). I also learnt that Australia has many of the top 10 venomous snakes in the world including the most venomous snake, the Inland Taipan. Australia’s marine life is also very dangerous. Gives a chill, doesn’t it?

No trip to Australia is complete without going to beaches and watching the surfers do their magic 🙂 I did not have a lot of time to go to all of the beaches around Brisbane but a bunch of us decided to go to the Noosa main beach for half a day trip in the Sunshine Coast (more pristine) instead of the Gold coast (Buzzing Night life). Noosa has beautiful views and the waves are not too strong, which is ideal for beginner surfers.

One of the weirdest things I ever saw in my life was during my visit to the Patricia Piccinini’s Curious Affection Exhibition at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art (which also happened to be the place for our Conference Banquet). The exhibit shows works of curious mutations between humans, orangutans, machines, tools, genitalia etc. I have provided a link to the exhibit above in case you are curious but I have to warn you that some of the exhibits can be creepy and/or disturbing.

I was lucky to have visited Brisbane when their City of Lights project was going on. As a part of this project, they had bridges light up in different colors on different days, buildings light up with different colors at night every few minutes, as well as parks, trees, and different symbols light up as if there is a continuous festivity around. Beautiful concept. Beautiful views. City of Lights, indeed. Here are some random snapshots.

City of Lights

Patricia Piccinini’s exhibition at GOMA

City of Lights

City of Lights

Noosa Main Beach

Convention Center

City of Lights: This buildings changes colors every few minutes at night

Noosa Main Beach

All in all, Brisbane is a beautiful city. I enjoyed my walks beside the Brisbane river, not only because of the views but because people seemed to just casually stroll around, sit in open areas facing the river, and enjoy music with a sip of coffee. In fact, surprisingly, while walking I saw a coffee stall on the Goodwill bridge with beautiful views.  Amusingly, I found many Australians wearing flip flops (which I myself do a lot) compared to people’s fascination with sneakers in the US. Also, I may be wrong but they seemed somewhat fairer to me than the average American, and I just love their accent. Australia, I would love to visit you again and I look forward to that day!