South Australia

I realised I have been MIA like anything, having 0 entries for February and just 1 for March! That's insane! I was hoping to blog more this year given that I thought that I would have more time on my hands but I guess not. Anyway. Just before summer holidays ended, I was given the chance to set foot on South Australia for the first time ever! Imagine the excitement in my bones when I got on the plane. It was a comfortable 1.5 hour flight, and was 30 minutes behind from AEST. Thank you, dear brother for the plane ticket and thank you JetStar for cheap flights (I'm becoming a loyal patron aren't I)

Much of my time was spent eating (as you all know it's my favourite thing to do) and resting. It was a very laid back holiday and I didn't do much running around to see sights like I would usually do. Admittedly there are too few photos from my stay in Adelaide. I did see a few gorgeous places though, and I think it would be terrible not to share.

Christies Beach, which is 30-45 minutes from the CBD.

Christies Beach shoreline, on the way to O'Sullivan Beach

Close to O'Sullivan Beach (if you look closely there are a lot of tractors and other construction equipment - new developments are coming to this area! Prime property I'd say)

Glenelg's Town Hall's classic architecture maintained. LOVE IT

More of the Glenelg Bay

Very nostalgic sunset at the jetty in Glenelg

Outside the South Australian Museum - I like the blending of the old and the new structures!

Outside the Art Gallery of SA - the collections aren't that impressive compared to the NGV but it's all right. Still worth a look.

Pigs lurking about in Rundle Street Mall.You know what's coming next, Adelaide wining & dining! Cyasssss!

Going local

Brisbane has been a great adventure for me, as the entire year has been. I thought that immersing myself in the local sights of Brissy was the best way to wrap things up. It's like taking myself back home, wherever that is in my heart of hearts.

The day before we left Brisbane, we went to the North Pine Dam just for some down time and some quality chit chat amongst friends. We were pretty lucky cos it was deserted that day, and it was sunny and bright.

Caloy the talented, trigger happy boy enjoying the lush greenery

The dam. Wonder if you can go for a swim here lol

Of course my blog wouldn't be complete without an old tree

We spent hours on end there, until we got hungry and got some Cold Rock ice cream at Chermside (our first choice was a Mexican fiesta at Montezuma's but it was closed, so, sad face). Then, we waited for Tippy to finish TAFE at 9 in the evening. We drove straight to Mt Coot-tha, which is Brisbane's best lookout! Going up there at night was mesmerising - we saw the entire city lit up.

Tippy took this beautiful photo :-)

Before she got all melancholic and dramatic. Jokes

After that, we randomly thought of going to Shorncliffe one last time. As I may have mentioned before, this is where some scenes in the movie Aquamarine were shot. :-) The first time I went to Shorncliffe was in Autumn 2008 at night time. Then we went on the first night of our Brisbane visit this year. We saw a shooting star then. It was magical and enchanting. Then for our last night, we hung out here again. It just brings everything together beautifully. I say Shorncliffe is some piece of magical land.

There's no better way to leave Brisbane than being at Shorncliffe.

The ebb & flow of the water, the orange lights and the cool breeze just leaves you clear-minded and ready for another adventure.

(edit: I know this has been already posted as a 2010 entry, but I meant for it as a year ender one. Sorry for the timezone change, I'm in the Philippines and it's only 11:30 here and I still have an hour 'til 2010. LOL)

Welcome to Brisbane!

When the spring semester ended, my friend Caloy and I decided to go on a 6-day adventure to Queensland. My best friend was kind enough to give us a roof to live under and good food to eat throughout the trip. It's funny how we're all from different cities. I live in Sydney, Caloy in Melbourne and Tippy in Brisbane. Because of this, we have had a lot of chances to compare Queensland to our places of residence. Of course Tippy has her own biases being a Queenslander.

Caloy and I took a plane up to Brisbane (Thank you, JetStar!) and after a hearty breakfast and a long early morning nap, we decided to first explore Brisbane's CBD. We took public transport which I may say is quite different from Sydney and Melbourne. The QR trains are one level as in Melbourne, but they're all pretty vintage. I actually liked it but I assume there might be a lack of seating capacity come rush hour. It comes out really cheap though, right about $5-6 for FIVE ZONES! Even much less if you have QLD concession.

Me enjoying the train ride.

In the city we went to see the Anzac Square. We had our photo taken at the Shrine of Remembrance. I think it's one of the places that are really worth seeing because it has a lot of history behind it.

Shrine of Remembrance with Caloy

Close by was the Central Station, but I wasn't able to go inside. Here's a photo from the outside:

Central Station is not their biggest station, but Roma Station

I must say their CBD is quite quaint and definitely much smaller than the Sydney one. It also isn't overflowing with people during lunch. What I like most about it is that everything is close to everything else. For examplem, The Cathedral of St Stephen's is merely a 5 minute walk from the shops where we had lunch.

This is the interior of the church where we said our prayers before going to Southbank.

Crisp white, classic structure. Notice that there are individual seats and not pews

At the dock you can see Story Bridge, which is something like the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It is much smaller, and its main difference from the Sydney Harbour Bridge is that it is a cantilever bridge where as the latter is a steel arch bridge. I heard you can also climb the bridge just like you can in Harbour.

The Story Bridge

We tried to catch the CityCat to get to South Bank but failed miserably so we just caught the usual ferry. The CityCat is bigger and it just sounds so much cooler.

City view from the ferry :-)

At South Bank, we walked until our legs gave away. Lol jokes. We went around the South Bank Parklands and it's really pretty. Seems as though it's so easy to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life in Brisbane. It's like a 10 minute ferry ride!

This is what welcomes you to South Bank!

What's even more awesome about it is that there is a man-made beach called Streets Beach (click on link for 360º view). I find that such an insanely gooooood idea. In Sydney, you can easily hop on a bus to get to Bondi or other nearby beaches or get a ferry that can take you to Manly in half an hour. In Brisbane it takes like 10 minutes, and there aren't any sharks!!! Haha I'm so sold to this idea since I can't swim properly but love the beach anyway.

Super awesome, right?

As we continued walking towards the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) & Queensland Art Gallery (QAG), we passed by the tourist attraction Wheel of Brisbane. It is, of course, like other ferris wheels in other countries, a great (aerial) way to view the city.

Didn't want to try it cos I get insane dizzy spells!

Tippy & Caloy on the bridge to the Galleries. This provides such a good view of the city!

Our last stop for the day was the GoMA and QAG. Unfortunately, the GoMA was still in the process of being set up for the upcoming exhibits. The Queensland Art Gallery, however, had quite a selection of artists and artworks, ranging from indigenous Aussie art, Picasso, Warhol, to Queenslander art. I really enjoyed our visit there but maybe not as much as I had enjoyed the National Galleries Victoria in Melbourne. What I loved most of all about it though is the very modern look of the building!

I love the colours they used! So easy on the eye.

This may be rather weird but this is one of the highlights of our city trip ---

Ceiling decor made of paper & clips (!!!)

This simple decoration of the GoMA looks really really good in real life. The best part is that it's simple and anyone can do it. I swear, I'm considering putting the exact same thing up when I finally have a house (with a high ceiling to match)! :-)

For the lack of coherence I promise you better entries about the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and many more of Queensland's pride! Happy holidays, all! :-)

Sculpture by the Sea 2009

When I went to my Aunt's workplace some couple of weeks back, one of her workmates told me about her plans to go to Sculpture by the Sea with her family. She told me that it was an annual public art exhibit on the coastal walk from Bondi to Tamarama. All of it sounded interesting and I obviously wanted to go, unfortunately, she knew for a fact that the day that they were coming to see the installations was the last day of the exhibit.

Disappointed, I went home trying to figure out how to get there on that same weekend. However there really wasn't time to go. I thought that I wouldn't be able to go this year, but when I searched for the website, it had been extended another weekend. I excitedly asked a friend if he had wanted to come. He wasn't the type to go to art exhibits and such but he willingly agreed to accompany me.

The following weekend we decided to catch the train to Bondi Junction and when we got off the train there were signs that led to the busses to Sculpture by the Sea. I liked the fact that it was well organised, especially for those who take public transport. When we got to Tamarama there were also shuttles/cars that brought people down to Bondi for free.

We took the Tamarama bus without knowing that it was the end of the walk, hence we kind of had to start at the last set of sculptures. I first noticed the beautiful rock formations along the area and I was really amazed by them.

See how I mean?

It was over a hundred although there were some that were missing. These are the ones from Tamarama:

A skull made out of plastic bottles

Huge timepiece made of wood & steel

The biggest diamond I've ever seen in my life! Haha

This is what I would call a good representation of living in technicolour

I honestly thought this was a real naked baby from a distance. Hahaha

Over life-sized soy sauce container. Took me awhile to realise this

Then we walked up the coast, until we reached a hill - I have already forgotten its name but it's the biggest place where the sculptures were installed and where most of the people were. A lot of the pieces were interactive and I really enjoyed this section the most. Here are some photos:

This oddly reminds me of the homunculi we drew in class

Literally, a sea of shoes! (Pun intended, hello, seaofshoes!)

In detail: these are actual shoes covered in sand

Such intricate woodwork!

One of the crowd (yes, not just the young ones) favourites - a playhouse!

In detail: lots of little toys stuck onto the house - can you name them all?

Such an interesting wood & steel piece. One of my faves.

Lacquered tree stumps

Reminds me of Mayans

Concrete underground sewage things painted neon (my arms were to short to stretch out to the diameter... many of the guys were able to, though...)

A massive domino effect

Flags marking the beginning of the way down to Bondi

After that, we moved along downhill, going closer to Bondi. We took a few photos of rest of the pieces there until my camera's batter gave away. Since it was scorching hot, we rushed down to the beach. Luckily, the water was really cold that day but the undercurrent was too strong and as everyone knows, I'm vertically challenged and easily wiped out by waves. Haha. Here are the rest:

Love this 3D piece of a human face

Another pretty rock formation!

Last but certainly not least, a giant straw in the ocean!

All in all, it was a 2.5 km walk full of creative, contemporary pieces on such a beautiful backdrop - the Sydney coast. I'm glad I was able to go to Sculpture by the Sea this year. It's one of the most fun, interactive art exhibits I've been able to visit ever and the best part is that on either ends of it are 2 awesome beaches that you can chill out at after enjoying the art made available to the public. I can't wait to go back next year because all the pieces will be different yet again, and that's something to really look forward to.