Brisbane Picture Walk

 

When I was in Brisbane, we explored the city under clear blue skies and sunshine.  Brisbane has a special place in my heart.  I met friendly and down to earth people, had delicious soy lattes, found an amazing book store, and generally wandered around and saw cool things while dodging the occasional flying fox and sidestepping around a massive cane toad.  Brisbane was our home base while we explored the magnificent natural attractions nearby (more on that soon!).

Watching Brisbane on the news recently, seeing some of my favorite places completely covered in muddy water, just made me so sad.  My heart goes out to Brisbane.  In honor of this awesome city, here is a little photo journey of my time there.

After flying in from Cairns, we checked in to our hotel and explored the Brisbane City Botanic Gardens, which was nearby.  

The mangrove boardwalk was really cool.  It was the kind of day that was just the perfect temperature for walking.

Model shoot!  This was in the background.

These birds were like the pigeons of Brisbane, they were roaming around anywhere people ate food outside.  I'm used to pigeons, but these guys are huge!  And their beaks!  I looked it up, they're Australian White Ibis.  We also saw two kookaburra right in the same spot.

We wandered over a cool pedestrian bridge and ended up in a little park that led to an amazing sculptural path covered in vines with bright pink flowers.

It seems like the perfect city for running!

Ultimately, the cool little path led us to a somewhat disappointing food court area.  I ate something unmemorable, and watched in quiet horror as these giant birds jumped onto tables and tried to eat people's scraps.  They're HUGE!  Just as annoying as pigeons but MASSIVE!  It was crazy, but this guy totally brought it onto himself because he was feeding them.  Yikes.

I was almost tempted to check out the views on the Ferris wheel, but my height tolerance met it's limit for the entire stay in Brisbane because of the fact that our hotel room had an open balcony on the 30-something floor.  I could barely sleep without dreaming about being on the very edge of a great height, so I had to pass.

Of course, we ate delicious vegan food there too.  After working up an appetite one night, we wandered to the Queen Street Mall and passed a Japanese restaurant.  We checked it out and ended up eating there.  Right when you walked in, there was an autographed photo of Willem Dafoe.  We were so hungry, and though we were a little out of our element (it was pretty fancy), I thought I remembered he was vegan, so we went for it.  I didn't take pictures of the avocado rolls I got, but I did take these.

I don't even remember what this was, but we were assured that they were vegan.  Sono is located at 202 Edward Street. 

Located at 124 Boundary Street in West End, The Forest is Brisbane's answer to the organic hippie vegan establishment.  Though we're not hippies in the slightest, we were more in our element in this downtown, casual place.  It was more in our price range too.  I didn't take food pics there because we met up with friends and I got a little shy.  I had an organic and really good burger and salad.  I loved being able to order absolutely anything on the menu!

This tofu and veggie combo was budget-friendly and most welcome. 

We ate at City Wok on 99 Elizabeth Street a few times.  They had meat dishes and vegetarian dishes, the setting was very basic, and the staff was very friendly and helpful.

Brisbane at night felt safe and was really fun.  This is the outside of the casino. 

Here is more information about the impact of the flood on Brisbane.