Rkudo's Urban Blog: Notes from Brisbane

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Notes from Brisbane - Places (1)

"There's not much to see in Bris"
"Oh you need no more than 3 days for Brisbane"
...

(view from Kangaroo Point)

I just decided to book and stay as long as possible due to my schedule before leaving Australia. I was so lucky to have 2 local Vietnamese and 1 Brissy friends taking me around the small river city. Closer to the equator, Brisbane has a warmer climate than Sydney and probably this explains why life seems to be more relaxing here.

Places:

Australians know how to design river banks. Both Melbourne and Brisbane have nice planned river banks, coincidentally called "Southbank", with chains of public buildings. While Melbourne's Southbank seems more exciting with lots of large commercial space, contemporary designed bridges, Brisbane's is still very enjoyable to me with the chain of gallery, museum, performing center.

Even before exploring Southbank, it was easy and exciting for me to discover the city CBD. Just a short walk from Roma St station, I reached one of the main axises - Geogre St. No need to turn anywhere along this street, I passed by Brisbane Square, a part of Queen St Mall, the Treasury, to my long-to-see Queensland University of Technology (QUT).

Though small and modest in design, QUT lies in such a central location and next to the lovely riverbank of the Botanical Garden. This school was my second choice to study in Australia (the other is UNSW). When I walked from the Garden Point campus to the Garden and lazily sat by the waterfront, I doubted if I'd do well in this school as it would get me to spend hours hanging around the place after classes. One thing I noticed was the plants which are more similar with ones in my hometown Saigon than Sydney. Again, geography explains.

Below are some images along Geogre St from the Elizabeth Court to QUT, then to Botanical Garden. I'll post more images of other places on the next entries.