Good day!

Good day!


While I was waiting in the car park

First things first, a big thank you to all for sending me off! I think I had the biggest group of "wavers". haha!


Amanda & Val! So nice of you guys to come!


The "wavers"

The flight took abt 6 plus hours, was really quite sleepless then. A flight attendant woke us up at approximately 4am Brisbane time to force feed us some Continental breakfast. A good thing the cinnamon and apple bread they served up was warm and soft inside, so it was the most comforting thing at close to freezing point. A quick check on the flight information on my personal entertainment system revealed that the temperature outside the plane was -15 deg C! I'm guessing we weren't doing much better on the inside. After some cold orange juice (not exactly a good idea, it just made me feel colder), I rested a while more before realizing that it was already 6am. The pilot's voice crackled over the PA system, mentioning that we were slightly ahead of schedule, and that we would reach by about 645am. That sounded like a good thing, except that it wasn't.

I was the 127th person. One by one people were herded into something like 10 rows of immigration checkpoints, where they would X-ray your luggage to ensure you didn't carry any contraband items, one of which was food. Well of course, they didn't permit anything that was already open, and other produce like fruits, fearing contamination or spread of some plague. Whatever. Just get me across! They should have ‘no food items like fruits and other produce that will screw ours’ lanes just to speed things up a little.

After we got out of the checkpoints, Mike, our liaison staff from Queensland University of Technology (QUT) greeted us with a white piece of paper with 5 lines of scribbling. I recognized him from a photo that was given to us, and later realized that the scribbling on the paper was actually our names. Mike then told us that the early flight was no surprise, as the winds around that time pushed us toward Brisbane. But that pushed 3 other inbound flights as well, hence the crowd.

We then took the AirTrain, the local train service, to Roma Street Station, and then took a minibus aka maxi-cab to our accommodation called Campus Living Villages [Kelvin Grove]. These ‘villages’ were actually small self-sustaining living environments, having a variety of living quarters and shops around the area, somewhat like HDB hubs. Our accommodation was named as such due to its proximity to QUT’s Kelvin Grove campus, only a mere 100m walk uphill.


On the train


In the maxi-cab


Colorful streets of Brisbane


Bicycle shop!! Dicky, Suan, Marian, Nick, Noel!


Cab fare for about 4km. Gulp. Good thing Mike paid for it.


Our accommodation; Mike's on the far right.


My bedroom, and I laid the bed!


Living room, just beside kitchen/dining room


Electric stove! Cool!


Kitchen/dining room; Raphael's room in background

After all the unpacking and laying of the bed, we decided to stock up on our groceries from Woolworths, a nearby supermarket. Our first shopping spree went well, though most things were more expensive than home. We bought a whole bunch of boring stuff and food, but as we were all lacking sleep, we couldn’t think of what to buy and thus bought only a little food. Then it struck us; we haven’t eaten a proper meal since touch down! Making haste, we rushed back to keep the groceries and then went out to buy lunch cum dinner. Our all seafood platter came from Carraway, an eatery that specialized in Fish n Chips. A generous portion of dory fillet and thick strips of chunky chips came with other sides like prawns, crab stick, crab claw and calamari, all fried. Nonetheless, it was a pretty good first meal. Oh and I bought my pre-paid card as well.


First grocery shopping spree


First dinner


Fish n Chips with sides


The whole spread


My pre-paid card

That was the end of the first day. The second was more of a tour around city central area by Mike, and that was where our workplace was. We then ate at Nando’s, a not-so-fast food restaurant in Myer Shopping centre, which makes great chicken wraps and burgers! On our way back by the QUT shuttle bus, which travels to and from QUT’s Gardens Point and Kelvin Grove campus, I found the magic hour for photography! Ah ha! So you can expect more photos soon. Yay!


390ml Sprite?! Cute bottle though.


Service number tags at Nando's


Some love it; some don't


Supremo Chicken wrap, yummy


The magic hour

One more thing! We had our first home-cooked meal today. Even though we couldn't multi-task very well, which resulted in cold dishes, it's still a good start!


First home-cooked meal