Oweek Adventures

Brisbane from the CityCat City Cat - Spider Bridge



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So it's Thursday Morning of Oweek, and I'm running off about 3 hours of sleep in the last 24 hour period (or something equally ridiculous) Oweek is the Oz version of Fresher's, and unlike Nottingham where I spent the majority of the week ill, I'm actually really enjoying this one...

We have been up to allsorts; from fresher games which take the awkwardness out of meeting people, to learning a full dance routine to Britney - I wanna go..that song is like a nightmare going round in my head because of the amount of times we have to practise..all good fun though. We've been woken up at 6am to go for a 5K run, and to practise the dance, had a round the world party which I went to as Pippa Middleton, and 3 other Brits went as Kate, Wills and Harry....We've been exploring the city some more, and it's nightlife (stupidly expensive!)...

Yesterday was ice-skating, followed by a bar crawl which started at 7pm, and then on return to IH we were forced to stay awk till 4:30am when we went to Mount Coo-tha to see the sunrise over Brisbane - the views were amazing, and the pictures really don't do it justice, we were freezing and there for about two hours before returning to our beds at 7am this morning. We did get pancakes at the top of the mountain though, and were proud of ourselves for making it all the way through...

Tomorrow we're off to Dreamworld, a theme park on the gold coast and then it's back to IH for a Rubix Cube Party...these jam-packed days continue till Sunday evening when we finially 'become a housie' and then term begins...

It's lots of fun, and a lot less pressure and alcohol orientated than England Fresher's week - not that i got to experience much of it, I'm enjoying myself but also missing those at home, and wishing you were all here to do these activities with me :) :)


At 4:30 on Mount Cootha Dawn at Mount Cootha


Love G xxx

Koala Lone Pine Sanctuary

Today was exciting :) - pottered off to Lone Pine Sanctuary which is the biggest foala sanctuary in the world - wahoooo, while quite expensive, it's well worth the $24 dollars + $16 to hold a koala. It's a really interactive sanctuary with Kangaroo's, Wallaby's, Crocodiles, and of course KOALA's :) - for the first time it really felt like we were in Oz as we pottered around in dusty ground, feeding and playing with the wildlife that is so heavily linked to this country...The sky is SO high here, (very random I know - maybe it's because we're actuall upside down) anyway...enjoy the photo's :)

Love G xxx

City Cat, Centre and Southbank...

My first full day in Brisbane (and every day since) I have been on the city cat and explored Brisbane City Centre and Southbank...Once registered as a student here you get given a Go Card transport card with $15 of credit, this allows you to access all Queensland transport (busses, ferries and trains) for half price :) a single is $4.60 across zones 1 & 2 (city centre to university) so the 50% off is a must have for students!!

The CityCat is slower than the bus, but the better journey into the centre, it is a ferry boat along the Brisbane river which is impressively wide with amazing bridges and lots of sky. My favourite bridge is the 'spider bridge' which has an impressive number of web like structures. You see Brisbane grow on the horizon as you travel along the river which is a wonderful view.

Get off a North Quay for the city centre or an easy walk to Southbank. The main shopping area (and really the main hub of Brisbane city centre) is Queen Street which is a long pedestrian strip filled to the brim with stalls, banks, shopping mall's and small boutiques...it seems to go on forever and is a shopper's dream! One thing I love about Brisbane is that the streets that go To and From the river have (english) Princess names, so apart from Queen street, you get (elizabeth, charlotte, margaret) and then the streets that run parrallel to the river are (english) Prince names (edward, albert...) It's something really simple but really cute, and means you always know which way you're heading.

Southbank is my favourite area of Brisbane so far, it is on the opposite side of the river to the City Centre, and known as the 'Cultural Hub' of Brisbane - it's got a theatre, a museum, a ferris wheel, art gallery, cinema, and then rows upon rows of cafe's and restaurants. It's got such a cosmopolitan feel, with wide walkways, a river and beautiful flowerbeds and architectual delights. At weekend's it holds a market, while not very Australian in the things it sells, it is swarming with australians and internationals a like and is the perfect spot for people watching and enjoying cultural delights from around the world.

Another attraction of Southbank is the 'man-made' beach - confusingly enough Brisbane isn't actually on the coast, and you have to travel down to the Gold Coast or up to the Sunshine Coast. The man-made beach is really maintained, and while too cold to swim in at the moment, will be fun to hang out at in the coming summer.

(Man-Made Beach)

I enjoyed a lazy sunday in Southbank, with bright sunshine and a cloudless sky, I also went back there on Monday afternoon with two american guys and a french girl...here I made my first blonde moment; there is a man suspended on a unicycle over the central square of Southbank restaurant area, he reminds me of the human statues in Covent Garden, and I was convinced it was a real man - after arguing with all 3 for several minutes that i KNEW it was a real man, and that he would frighten them if they didn't believe it, they forced me into the local newsagents to prove myself right....needless to say that the newsagents found it a hilarious question and weirdly enough rarely get asked it - 'how could you think that was a real man' was the common response from both shopkeeper and other customers...I'm now known as the 'he is real!' girl, which I suppose is better than 'glandular fever girl' (from when i started Nottingham).




Love...G xxxx

Brisbane Beginnings...

(my new room (before unpacking))


It's now 1:30pm on Tuesday 12th July and I have been here for just under 3 days. The last 3 days have been a roller-coaster of emotion and exploration and new cultures. After (changing) rooms I now have a beautiful one on the 5th floor of G tower in International House on the St.Lucia campus. They do not have great insulation here or heating because for the majority of the year it is surplus, but at the moment (middle of winter) it is quite cold!!

My room is sort of like a more dated Nightingale without a double bed haha. It is quite large, and 12 of us share bathroom facilities, at the moment it is the week before O-Weel (equivalent of freshers) so it is quite quiet, but more people arrive every day. In some ways I'm quite glad I came early as it has allowed me to settle before things really get going.


(view's from Balcony)

The food options here are really good - far better than Ngale, although I am not particularly hungry at the moment - you can have as many servings as you want at mealtimes, and it's a lot healthier than I remember Ngale being. One thing I have noticed is that Oz doesn't seem to have any 'signature dishes' - atleast not in Brisbane, it seems to have quite a heavy asian influence, and european.

So far, I have got my uni card, been to a getting started session where they warned us about different types of birds on the campus, got my 'Go card' (which gives discounted travel), been to Indroopilly (a local suburb) shopping centre, explored the campus a little, and been to the city centre several times. I am going back in a few mintues to get my bank account sorted and hopefully by the end of the week I will also have a working phone and be all set up :)...

Love G xxxx

Auckland Adventures...

Auckland continued to be very special and beautiful. Friday we spent getting matt settled in, finding somewhere for him to buy things cheap, getting his bank account sorted and a NZ sim card...we were struck by just how frienly people were, everyone wanted to have a chat and find out more about us and our lives in England, it was a beautiful friendly city, surprisingly small in comparison to the UK and yet so similar to the UK in so many ways, it was a wonderful place to recoperate and spend some time together :)

We decided to go up the Sky Tower on the Friday afternoon and bought Sun&Star tickets which meant we could go back to see it at evening. The pictures really don't do it justice, the views were stunning, and you could see so far beacuse of Aucklands low skyline. There was so watch and then city and then park that it made the most beautiful scene.

We found a great cafe for breakfast which we ate at on both Friday and Saturday - I had french toast with syrup, bacon and grilled banana nomnomnom :) so yummy! Sushi is very popular in auckland - with almost every other cafe selling sushi (although we THINK sushi might be cafe in maori - even so there was still a lot of sushi). The last evening was beautiful in the sky tower, watching the flickering lights of Auckland over a glass of New Zealand wine...a lovely beginning to our new adventures.

And the next morning, Brisbane was calling my name....

Auckland Dreams....

We arrived in Auckland at 7:00am local time (8:00pm Wednesday 7th July in UK). It felt strange that only 26 hours previously I had been on the phone at heathrow gate saying a final goodbye to M&D...so much time seemed to have passed since then, and I was on the other side of the world. I had no understanding of time, I couldn't tell you what time it felt like, it didn't feel like early morning, or evening. It felt like limbo.

Customs staff were so friendly - they had a nice chat with us and waved us through with huge smiles - a much nicer welcome then the stone cold faces at Heathrow immigration. After passport control you picked up your bags and then went through Biosecurity - we were out of the aiport within a half hour, and on a bus to Auckland city centre.

We arrived at Rydges Hotel Auckland at around 8:45am local time, by this time I had been up for approx 34 out of a 36hour time period. The hotel kindly let us check in (very) early and we dropped our bags, had a quick shower and went off to explore and try to ignore the jetlag. That morning feel's very surreal looking back, but was really lovely while living it. We went down to Auckland harbour and grabbed a coffee and waffle for breakfast - the harbour looked beautiful with sunshine sparkling on it. One of the first things that hit us when arriving in Auckland was how cold it was; it was winter so only about 10C so we huddled up in (ski) jackets and enjoyed the crisp winter morning. The sky in Auckland is beautiful, almost silver in colour, and there is so much of it - in big UK cities, skyscrapers mask your view the majority of the time and create a grey atmosphere with dots of sky here and there. Auckland's highest building was the Sky Tower which towered above the rest of the skyline, but in comparison to UK buildings was really not that tall.

(Matt at Breakfast)

We pottered around Auckland for a few more hours, exploring little parks (with autumn leaves which felt VERY weird - having just come from summer) finding Auckland Uni (nestled right in the city center) and looking at palm trees in winter?! At around 1pm local time, having been up for 38hours out of 40 we began to start crashing. With lack of sleep I became quite dis-orientated and confused. We made our way back to the hotel and slept till 6pm when we tried to wake ourselves up for a few hours, but the call for sleep was too strong and by 8pm we were fast asleep once more. We woke up around 3/4am the next morning, and spent the morning snuggled in a comfy bed, watching weird NZ cross Australian TV.

22 Hours in the Sky.

Did you know...that currently there are 500,000 people in the air. At this very moment. HSBC advertised this to me as I was walking down the gate towards the plane that would whisk me away for 6 months - it didn't really reassure me, but clearly excellent advertising.

Matt and I were on the Tuesday 6th July 19:35 Korean Air flight from London Heathrow to Seoul (South Korea). Getting on the plane was emotional, It hit me getting on the plane that it was now real, that combined with a fear of flying and the fact that the plane was HUGE and the inside quite different to anything I'd experienced, resulted in a few tears (well a lot) and a very supportive matt.

Korean Air had excellent service, offering a free blanket/pillow/slippers/toothpaste. They were early to both destinations and swift through both check in and boarding. Breakfast's were much better than dinner's, but that was
(Me before leaving England)

probably because I didn't feel like spicy food. Our two-hour stopover in Seoul felt very dreamlike, we managed to grab a shower in their excellent facilities which was a god-send, and before we knew it we were re-boarding for another 11 hour stint to Auckland.

Spending 22 out of 24 hours in the air is a very surreal experience, it doesn't feel like 22hours, but still feels very long, looking back now it sort of seems like a dream, I don't know how I filled the time...when you finally touch down to your destination, there is a sense of relief, excitement and re-adjustment as you get back to life outside of an areoplane....

Loveee G xx