I ♥ Brizzy

So now I'm on Brisbane! Which was where I spent the most time in Australia since this is where my "good mate" John lives. This will take multiple entries since we did a lot here, but to start. I arrived in Brisbane on Monday evening (9/3) and stayed until the next Monday morning. So here's the thing. Australia has been in a severe drought for the past 7 or 8 years. You're not allowed to use city water for your gardens (or as we'd call them in America, lawns) and you're supposed to take 4 minute showers. The drought situation, apparently is quite bad. However, as it would have it, as soon as I arrived in Brisbane, it started to rain and continued to rain until Friday night, when I did my anti-rain dance and miraculously enough, it stopped. This is how I discovered that I am a superhero with a power over rain. (Ya-ta!) John said if it kept up, he wasn't going to let me leave until the dams filled up.

Honestly though, I have literally had a dark cloud over my head for some years. I used to drive down to LA from SF when I was in college and the clouds were literally following me as I drove and the rain would come down south with me and then follow me back up after the weekend. And when I moved to LA in 2004, we had the rainiest winter we had in a very long time, remember? Also, some Londoners have claimed that we had more rain this year than before. (Which was like rain ALL THE TIME.) And the Korean monsoon season lasted extra long this year...just for me! BUT, once I discovered my powers and did my anti-rain dance, it all stopped! It stopped raining in Brizzy, and it was clear in Sydney. Honolulu had been predicted for rain, but after I did my dance, I checked the forecast again and it changed to clear skies (we had half a day of rain). Also, since I've arrived, Los Angeles has been ridiculously sunny. I broke the curse! (Although now Los Angeles is about to go into a drought...)

Anyhow, back to Brisbane.

So I stayed with John and his lovely family - Marcel (otherwise known as Mum), Robert and Petey (the dog). And they cooked up the barbie or whatever Aussies call it. It actually means BBQ, but they call that barbie. (I was a little confused because what Barbie had to do with food was beyond me.) It's weird because John's mum and dad are the epitome of the word "lovely" yet they supposedly bred John. Still, I'm glad that John somehow got lost and made it into this family because they're much nicer than his birth parents, Mr. and Mrs. Hitler. :)


My second night in Brisbane, John and I drove up to the Gold Coast area to see the AUSTRALIA OUTBACK SPECTACULAR! which is this super-touristy themed dinner and show about the Australian outback. It's super gimmicky and tacky, and you all know how much I love stuff like that. Poor John. He actually ended up liking it somewhat, too, and funny enough, he actually ended up being in the show! One of the guys who worked there singled him out when we walked in to be in some competition that's part of the show where he had to carry a boat made out of beer. (Kind of weird, yes, but John won!) It was really fun.


Another day, I went to GoMA (Gallery of Modern Art) with Mum because I wanted to see the Aboriginal artwork. I learned a lot about Aboriginals on my trip (more about that in Sydney), although I also unintentionally picked up a lot of derogatory terms as well. (Ah-hem...John.) The GoMA was really great. The Aboriginal art was great and there were also some pieces by Asian-Australians, which I thought were interesting as well.


A rather cynical, although perhaps somewhat true piece called "What They Wanted."


So I'm at the GoMA, wandering around, looking at art, thinking that John's at work like he should be, when he of course appears like magic. Honestly, this guy's just everywhere. Even now, back in Orange County, I feel like he's gonna appear out of nowhere.


John and I went on the CityCats, which are these boats that go up and down the river.


John doing "Icky moss!"


Me and John inside the CityCat. (Since it was still raining because of Hurricane Jen.) There was this family with three boys sitting in front of us. One of the kids was the most hyperactive, talkative kid in the world. He was hilarious.




Me and my buddy John! Doesn't he look nice in a suit? Not all bogun like he usually does. :P JK


Me at a wine bar we went to with one of John's mates.


So John works during the day so I decided to go on another tour group thing for the day to the Gold Coast region. Here's me on the river boat. It wasn't really that fun since there's just basically a lot of multi-million dollar houses (Australian real estate prices are insane).


Also, I ended up on the geriatric tour. Everyone on the tour, I swear, was over 70 years old other than a group of college kids from Hong Kong and Taiwan who are studying in Australia. Here's me with one.


They were kinda weird (here's two of the guys acting out the scene from Titanic), but they were really nice.


Isn't this cool? It's a chapel on a boat.


We stopped by in this quaint little mountain town. Here's me in front of one of the house/shops.


Then the tour took us to another rain forest or botanical garden kind of place where we were to walk around. Most of the old people couldn't walk very far so it was a really short little stop.






Me and my Asian touristo friends. (They "Icky Moss" too.)

So that's Brisbane up until Friday. Stay tuned for next entry where John and I go up north to the Sunshine Coast to the zoo!