Upside down in Brisbane

Upside down in Australia

Got here at last! I immediately noted that the baggage carousal at the airport turns the wrong way and that Brisbane is a serious place on the move. I think it increased in size before my very eyes! Buildings are springing up alongside pretentious coffee shops faster than they can find the land to build them on - the reason why most new buildings block out the sun from the last one that was built.

An example of theThe Building Spree

Not many overly-large people around, also not many Mcdonalds or KFC joints to blot the horizon - in fact I think most people could have done with putting on some weight! Stress? Lots of skinny secretaries tripping behind balding and thin yet slightly macho bankers (insurance agents?) as they head off for some power lunch with an emaciated builder perhaps.

A Business Power Lunch in an expensive joint with a view

But Brisbane is a nice place it seems - lots of Asians kept on stopping me to ask for directions so I must have looked very localised - must have been the can of Victoria Bitter in my hand! A nice place indeed apart from the inane Americanised security measures that the port area was weighed under. No photographs allowed. Special bus from the security gate to the ship - no cars allowed. It took extreme time to get to the vessel as the bus was only allowed to drive at 20 kilometers per hour, then they found out that I did not have a safety helmet so we had to wait at the bottom of the gangway whilst a crew member came down with one. I put it on, climbed out of the bus and climbed up the gangway only two metres away. Strange thing was that the crewmember who gave me the safety helmet gave me his own.

And wow, have you ever seen a root vegetable as large as this one?