Brisbane - Wed 5 Aug 09

The family heads down under to Brisbane for my brother's wedding and nope, the bride isn't angmoh in case you're wondering why the wedding's being held all the way in Aussie Land.





Arrived in Brisbane at 10am and headed straight to DFO which was a few minutes drive from the airport. DFO stands for Direct Factory Outlet and not Duty Free Outlet which we'd quickly assumed.





HY and Joy dropped us off at our apartment, Oaks Festival Towers, conveniently located right smack in the city centre along Albert Street, just perpendicular to Queen Street Mall, which is kinda like our Orchard Road, except it's permanently pedestrianised but more of that later. First of the markets we checked out was the Wednesday Food Market at Brisbane Square, just a 5 minute walk from our apartment.























We're still at the Brisbane Square and we see this sign that says Reddacliff Place so now i'm a little confused what to call this place. Anyways, i think we bought like every kind of fruit that was sold here... okay not really but our harvest included pineapple, rockmelons, pears, grapes... i believe we ate a couple of strawberries and bought a few loaves of olive bread.



Preview of Queen Street Mall which was just across the road from Brisbane Square, as we were making our 'fruitful' way back to our apartment.





Hungry Jacks soon easily became our regular meetup place, and the marker for which we had to turn the corner from Queen Street Mall into Albert Street and head straight to our apartment.



Borders was the other corner building at the traffic junction which we always passed on the walk back from Queen Street Mall.



Back at the apartment, ZY has just woken up and we're now getting ready for dinner with HY and Joy. Some pics of the apartment in the meantime...









Dinner tonight was at Sunnybank, one of the suburbs which could easily be mistaken for Chinatown. We ate at Little Hong Kong BBQ Restaurant, but the portions though delicious, were far from little!











Tagged along to HY and Joy's wedding rehearsal at Runcorn Christian Church after dinner, before calling it a night on our first day in Brisbane.









next day

Brisbane - Thur 6 Aug 09

Woke up to home-made breakfast of coffee, tea and olive bread from the market yesterday.

HY and Joy drove us an hour or so to Sanctuary Cove, a resort kind of place complete with a marina and waterfront alfresco dining. Nice!





























Fantastic seafood lunch at George's Paragon, recommended by Joy's dad. Mm-mmm.










A dozen fresh oysters for A$14 - what a steal!


Happy as a clam!


My barramundi!







Another half an hour drive to Harbour Town for some afternoon shopping.



Visited HY's place at St Lucia, which is near the University of Queensland, which i'd visited the last time i was here. It was kinda odd to see familiar looking bedsheets lining the mattresses in the house. Teehee...







Then headed over to HY and Joy's matrimonial home, just a little further down the road.







Seeing the hardcopy wedding invites that i designed for the first time! *beams*



Dinner at a cozy little family run chinese diner near HY's place called Ironside Family Restaurant. The food took ages but was very tasty when it finally arrived. And the apologetic owner fried us some spring rolls as we waited. ZY had all of us chipping in to help on his newspaper crossword puzzle in the meantime.



The footpath leading to the City Cat stop at HY's place was super dark and super quiet, not to mention it was super chilly too. I think i'd be scared to be waiting for the ferry all by myself. But the stillness of it all had a rather nice tranquil homely feel that i liked.





From the North Quay ferry stop, we walked up a flight of stairs and emerged across the road from the Treasury Casino. Checked out a couple of game tables but no one was feeling particularly lucky that night to try their hand at a few rounds. Oh and security checked my ID cos he didn't think i looked a day over 25! hahahahahaha...

next day