Tag Archives: new farm

2high festival, UQ campus and long-lost family

It was the ideal Saturday. After a slow morning of breakfast and reading, Chris and I continued our exploration of Brisbane and connected with Chris’s (formerly) long-lost family.

We caught the City Cat ferry to New Farm to take in the 2high festival at the Brisbane Powerhouse. A showcase of dance, music, film and photography, the 2high festival was a hub of young, artistic energy. We enjoyed the bright colours and the fresh perspectives. Chris was especially amused by use of Glados, the voice from Portal, for one of the instalments. We’re both smitten with the building, which was hosting the festival and a wedding in the top levels.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon touring the University of Queensland. The UQ student union plaza was well-designed and well-resourced, their athletic facilities were extensive. The campus lakes were home to ducks, eels, and much to our delight, turtles. There was an avenue of Jacaranda trees, much like the rows of Cherry Blossom trees on West Mall at UBC. The ground was purple with fallen flowers. We were enchanted to say the least.

We enjoyed a delicious meal at Wagamama with Chris’s aunt, cousin and his girlfriend, meeting them for the first time ever and liking them instantly. Dot (Chris’s aunt) was hilarious and personable, Mason (Chris’s cousin) is a fellow ex-pat and Anna (Mason’s girlfriend) was great to talk with about all things Aussie. Anna shared lots of great shops and links with me, including the upcoming Good Food and Wine festival and the Brisbane anti-gravity yoga studio. For dessert, they introduced us to Freestyle Tout where we split three desserts among the five of us.  We were thrilled to connect with them; it was so comforting to spend an evening with family.

Ferries, trains, and flip flops

Today I travelled over 15 km by foot. I checked off three Brisbane neighbourhoods on my ‘to-see’ list: Kangaroo Point, Fortitude Valley and New Farm. I got blisters from walking in my Reef flip-flop sandals, but what doesn’t kill you calluses over.

Through the Botanical Gardens, over the pedestrian bridge and out of the city I ran. On the Riverside trail in Kangaroo Point, you can walk, run and cycle. If that’s not enough, you can climb the cliffs beneath the highway and have a company retreat in an open-air, sea-side park. I ran until I was sweaty and red in the face, my only gauge of the quality/length of my workout since I left my watch and iPod back at the hotel. To get back,  I hopped on the City Ferry, sitting on the bench at the back of the boat in the sun. An excellent way to begin the day.

I walked to Central Station with the pre-work crowd, stopping at Sam’s Cafe for a Flat White, my new favourite espresso beverage. Taking the train to Fortitude Valley was both easy and exciting. The train had a live conductor, unlike the remotely controlled Skytrains of Vancouver. I regretfully only rode to one station; I would have enjoyed a journey out to the coast on the comfortable and spacious seats.

My first stop in Fortitude Valley was Chinatown. Although smaller than Vancouver’s Chinatown, Brisbane’s Chinatown had a wide variety of Asian restaurants and two sizeable markets where I saw some familiar products, such as Nim Jom cough syrup and frozen pork buns. Although Fortitude Valley is known for the nightlife, it also has an established art scene, especially when it comes to hand-made wares. Two of my favourite shops were Gallery Artisan, which featured a show of 100 brooches, each made by a jewellery artist in response to International Women’s Day, and In.cube8r, a boutique that featured works by local crafters.

Brunswick Street, much like Broadway Street in Vancouver, runs through two large communities. Once Fortitude Valley ended, I was in New Farm. The eclectic mix of shops and restaurants in New Farm serve a sprawling suburb of young families and the elderly, from what I could tell by smiling at passersby. I browsed Black and Spiro, a home-wares boutique with loud prints, and wrote down a number of establishments to return to, including Ortiga, a cafe featuring Spanish cuisine. I walked to the tip of New Farm, where I found the Brisbane Powerhouse, which was recently renovated/converted into an Arts venue.  The exposed brickwork and steel beams gave the Powerhouse an avant-garde  feel. I hope that we can take in a show at the Powerhouse before we depart for Mackay.

When Chris returned from work, we made quesilldas and developed a beer score card to evaluate all the new brews we’ve been trying. Each category is worth 10 points, to make the grand total score out of 50. Here’s the first draft of the score card:

  1. Deliciousness a.k.a the taste of the beer
  2. Price vs. pleasure, a.k.a. value of the beer
  3. Drinkability a.k.a. how easy the beer goes down
  4. Drunkability a.k.a. the percent alcohol content
  5. Findability a.k.a. the quality of the packaging and accessibility

On the docket for tonight: Strongbow Clear. Although it’s cider and not beer, we feel that the score card can scale to fit your beverage of choice. After sampling Strongbow Clear, I give it 45/50, bonus points for being low in sugar, points lost for price and findability.

A good end came to a good day. During our post-dinner walkabout town, I enjoyed one of the best gelato flavours I have ever had the pleasure of eating: Macadamia nut and caramel. Brisbane continues to delight us.