Brisbane stuff & Heading for New Zealand

Writing in my journal.

Overall I like Brisbane. It's pretty laid back for a major city (the second largest in Australia) the cars wait for pedestrians, the bus drivers make change, the people are friendly and helpful, but the roads suck.

You'll be driving along looking for a street and they won't tell you until you've past it because the road signs on on the opposite side of the intersection, always. There are street signs, but as I've said before if you don't catch what street you are currently on they won't put up another sign any time soon. Plus you'll be trying to find some place and get on a one way street, so, naturally, you think the next street will be a one way going the other direction. WRONG. It will be another one way going the same way as the one you past. So frustrating. But they do have some nice architecture.

This is the Queensland House of Finance. City hall is also located in this cool building.

This city also has some interesting art work. Like on the transit Center:

There are also some cool parks and gardens free and open to the public. Like the Roma Street Parklands. I went with my friends Tomi from Japan and Doris of Germany (she stayed up until 3 AM watching the German soccer team play in the World Cup. The nut.)

Tomi and Doris (Doris had never seen a snap dragon flower before).

I don't know what kind of a plant this is, but I found it strange (something else strange about Australia) is that even in winter there are flowering plants. Crazy.

I bought my plane ticket to New Zealand today. It wasn't cheap but this is the real big tourist time there (from what I've been told) school is now out and the skiing is supposed to be world class. Even though I have no equipment or really warm clothes, I'm heading for those slopes! Hopefully this trip won't dig too deep into my money for Japan.

When I was first deciding about where to go on this trip there were only 2 countries that I really wanted visit ; Australia and Japan. Why? I don't know, they've just always had some kind of an appeal to me. So even if I have to cut back on my time in Thailand in order to stay in Japan longer is fine with me. But what is really cool about going to New Zealand is how often do you hear anyone from The States say they went snow skiing in New Zealand? Huh, huh? Be jealous my skiing friends, be very jealous. Dale? Biekers? Candace? I'm talking to you!