Several late friday afternoons ago, B calls me up and work and says, “How would you like to go to Brisbane for the weekend?” Hell yes! The flight was in the early evening, so there wasn’t much time to race home after work and throw a few things into a bag (the holy trinity of toiletries, underpants and socks, because you can never have enough of either). B had to go for work, but I who very fortunately got to go for free, was definitely going to do some exploring of the city. We weren’t actually going to the Gold Coast part of Brisbane, so technically, we didn’t go to BrisVegas. But anyway..

We had fantastic weather for the two days we were there; sunshine, blue skies. I got by on the map I found in our hotel room. It wasn’t very detailed, but the city streets are a little more straight forward than silly Sydney ones, so it was pretty easy to know where I was going. Being an unexpected trip, I didn’t have anything planned, and pretty much spent my time walking around seeing what I would stumble across. I didn’t see any interesting bakeries or pastry shops, but did come across a cafe specialising in desserts called Freestyle Tout at the Emporium.

The highlights :

1. The Buddha Birthday Festival at Southbank – Rides, food stalls, exhibitions, a rousing rendition of Michael Jackson’s Heal the World by a choir, dragon ice sculpture, lion dancing, street performers, karaoke, markets, now THIS is what I call a festival!

2. Visiting the Brisbane GOMA, especially the Asia-Pacific exhibition

3. Eating at Timmy’s and having tea at Batavia, both at Southbank – Great food, great service, in the relaxed cafe atmosphere of Timmy’s. B had a fantastic mussaman curry and I opted for some high tea which featured delicious crustless sandwiches and mini sweet treats. We also sampled the banana fritters with toasted coconut ice-cream which was simple and very tasty. Actually, I kind of already expected it to taste fantastic (and wasn’t disappointed), when we ordered it and Timmy nodded approvingly, saying, “Good! You’ll love that one!”. At the teahouse and shop Batavia, you can select a tea from the menu, or even coffee and hot chocolates, to have with a selection of plated desserts, mini cakes and biscuits or sandwiches. My tea arrived on a little bamboo tray with all the usual tea accoutrements. We settled back into comfy chairs, resting weary feet, taking in the many interesting items the shop had on display.

Also experienced :

1. Dining at ecco, Phillip Johnson’s well known bistro.

2. Chinatown and the Streets Beach – If I were 8, I would’ve been in heaven running around the Streets Ice-cream-sponsored artificial beach and water park. As I’m almost four times that age and childless, I had fun watching the kids having fun instead. I wanted to take more pictures of the kids, but thought it might look a bit dodgy to be randomly snapping children that didn’t belong to me, so put the camera away.

3. Fruit and Vegetable chips – While in Brisbane, I developed a fascination with fried foods, and came home armed with bags of various kinds of chips : Durian, Jackfruit, mixed vegetable (brightly coloured okra, carrot, greenbean and celery chips) and one of my cupboard staples, Wasabi Peas. Having tasted them all, I must say, there’s a reason why boring ole potato chips are so popular. All the other chips were a little weird – Jackfruit was kind of dehydrated, the mixed vegetables were so pretty but airy in taste and texture, and the Durian was the best of the lot, but only because it tasted like a homemade potato chip.

Wouldn’t recommend :

1. Caxton Street Seafood Festival – A taxi driver mentioned this festival to us, and we thought we were pretty lucky to be in Brisbane on the same day of the festival. We expected it to be a little like the Sydney Food and Wine Fair, but it turns out that it’s more of a live music, beer and fried food (chips, calamari etc, with a few overpriced oysters) party which you have to pay to get into ($10 or $20, I can’t remember how much exactly). The queues for the stalls were incredibly long and after standing in the hot sun for an eternity, we gave up and decided to leave. Late into the night, there were still tons of people queueing to get in. I can’t understand the enormous popularity of this “festival”. Maybe I’m lacking the party gene or had unfortunately arrived at this place expecting something completely different.

Batavia
3/167 Grey St
Southbank 5 Cinema Complex
South Brisbane 4101

ecco
100 Boundary Street
(Corner Adelaide Street)
Brisbane 4000

Timmy’s
Shop 4B Galeria Complex
Cnr Grey & Tribune Street
South Brisbane 4101