Yesterday, I went ashore for liberty in Brisbane, Australia. The rain had stopped, although it was cool and cloudy all day. In conversation with a shopkeeper, I learned that the rain was desperatly needed. The region is in the worst drought recorded in the last 120 years; it's only June, but the city reservoirs are at 18% capacity. Severe water restrictions are in place, and the decorative fountains are dry. But I get ahead of myself.

Three of us signed out together, just after 9 AM. A one-hour bus ride took us from our ship, moored at the grain pier near the ocean, all the way to the city center. We strolled around the Queen Street Mall for a while, a pedestrial shopping district in the middle of the city's financial district. We had lunch at a food court. I had sushi, to the amusement of my companions; why would you sail from Japan, to eat sushi in Australia? But it was locally styled sushi, stuff that one would never see in Japan. I had several maki (rolls): ginger beef, tuna salad, salmon, and beef teriyaki. Quite nice.

After lunch we wandered the Brisbane City Botanic Gardens, which serves as a downtown park. It's origins are interesting; it started as a produce garden for the penal colony, then was converted to a researching botanical garden to test imported plants for Australian suitability.

Many birds and some lizards lived there, along with the plants. The birds were used to humans, and clearly expected handouts, despite signs forbidding feeding them. I guess the birds don't read the signs. I took lots of photos, as did one of my companions. Thus there are a few photos of me taking photos; I'll see if I can get ahold of them from him.

After the refreshing stroll in the park all afternoon, we found a local steakhouse and tucked in. The place was what I'd call "Wild West Style", except that it was Australian history, not American. The salad was much better than I expect from that kind of restraunt in the US; it had at least a half-dozen types of greens, none of them iceburg lettuce. For a main course, I had a steak cooked medium rare, with sausage, meatballs, veggies, and a baked potato. In another difference with the American experience, the steak actually was medium rare. I put away about 1500 kcal, and threw in the towel with plenty of meat left.

After a bit more wandering the city, we went to the Conrad Treasury Casino, a facinating place. It's a modern gambling casino, built inside what was originally the Brisbane Treasury Building, a four story monster of italianate neoclassicism. The place used to hold most of the Queensland goverment, but was sold off and remodelled. Wandering among the gambling tables and the slot machines, I was downright pained by not knowing what all the spaces had been used for originally. I love old buildings, and while I'm glad it wasn't just torn down, it still seemed like a fall in circumstance for such a great place.

For the record, I didn't do any gambling. I considered the poker tables for a while, but the low limit one that I could afford, cost too much per hand for me to want to play there.

As the evening went on, we left the casino and meandered back towards our bus stop. My companions were considering the club scene, but we decided that they'd be packed with Marines and sailors on a Thursday night, and it would be better to conserve energy for Friday.

So we stopped in an internet cafe to check our civilian email accounts for a few minutes. We stopped at a couple of musicans busking in different styles, caught our bus back to the ship, and I went to bed.

I slept about ten hours, and when I got up, I declined to go out again today, instead going back to the rack for a nap. While walking to the shop to write this, I discovered that today is bright and sunny, and much better suited to tourism and photography then yesterday was. Pity, that.

Posted by: Boviate at 03:55 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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