Down The Rabbit Hole

Left: The City, and Brisbane's Victoria Bridge, from the South Bank's Melbourne Street.


I spent Thursday wandering around The City - the financial district of downtown Brisbane. Interesting....interesting - the place is a pedestrian madhouse. Nice big buildings, and disciplined, harried, young office workers cadging smokes on the sidewalk (newly-restrictive smoking laws are causing grief). Wandered over by Parliament House and saw the Falun Gong protestors with their signs.

Spent the afternoon shopping at the downtown five-level mall, Myer Plaza. I had been told to look for a shopping mall called Maya Plaza, which I thought would be SO exotic, but I forgot about the Aussie accent - nevertheless, it's exotic enough in its own way, and full of young shoppers. Bought some kangaroo-lined dress shoes.

Got a haircut by a young English woman who relocated here just this October. She had travelled through the U.S. just recently, as part of her world wide tour, and despite the assistance of strategically-located U.S. relatives, she lamented how the absence of youth hostels in the U.S. made it the most expensive country for her to travel through. She said the prime backpacking traffic was going to South America instead, as a direct result of the cost.

I'm very impressed by the willingness of the people I've been seeing here to just drop everything and travel around the world. It's an amazing thing that air travel has wrought. Every shop clerk I've talked to has visited relatives fairly-recently in California.

Walked back to the South Bank. Saw a youth talent group singing Christmas carols, but it wasn't clear whether it was a very-poorly attended concert, or a microphone check. The kids and their stage moms were surrounded by an ugly chain link fence in the middle of a beautiful mall. Weird what places stage business gets you into.

On a whim, decided to see Queensland Performing Arts Center's (QPAC's) "The Pirates of Penzance." What could be more fun than seeing Gilbert and Sullivan at their silliest in a nation of the British Commonwealth?

Since I had some time before showtime, I wandered across Melbourne Street and through the vast cultural center on the south bank. They had life size humpback whale models singing whale songs along a long breezeway. But the time was late and the place was basically empty....

Then, in the side of the State Library of Queensland, there was an open door, like a modernistic rabbit hole, and a friendly bearded man was passing out programs.... Like Alice in Wonderland, I went through the rabbit hole, and suddenly I was in an entirely-different world.....

Oooo-weeeee-ooooo!

Multimedia Art Asia Pacific (MAAP) was hosting its new art show "Out Of The Internet." The Asian avant-garde of Brisbane had all turned out for the opening, and the place virtually roared with conversation. Really weird and interesting stuff!

Had to leave for 'Pirates' just as the festivities were getting underway, but I got a taste....

As an aside, and speaking of rabbits, when passing through, I saw a sign at the New South Wales border at Woongarra stating that if you raise rabbits in Queensland, the authorities will fine you $30,000 AU. Watch out, Cloudy!