Some of the sunrises we've been having recently have been gorgeous - like someone has taken a giant blow-torch to clouds and left them smouldering.
Following on from yesterday's post....80 tonnes of timber from a Nepalese Jungle went into making this beautiful building. I recommend a feel.
This is one of the entrances to the Nepalese Peace Pagoda, a hand-carved wooden building in South Bank given by the Nepalese government to Brisbane. Apparently, it took 160 Nepalese families 2 years to craft! They made it in sections and shipped it over from Nepal in 1988 in time for the World Expo which was held here in the same year. The detail is stunning.
I only noticed this flyer on a telegraph pole outside my place on saturday so I was a bit too late for the meeting. And there was free food!
There are some beautiful Art Deco buildings around Brisbane. This one, an apartment block on Vulture Street in South Brisbane, is one of my favourites.
This guy lives on Blunder Road in Durack and brightens up the busy road no end.
You can't really call the weather we are having "winter". Today is going to be 29 degrees and flowers everywhere are starting to perk up.
Here we are at the Queensland Art Gallery on the south bank of the Brisbane River. Not to be mixed up with the Gallery of Modern Art, next door. At the moment they have a huge exhibition of impressionist and realist works from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. I can't imagine the care that must go in to transporting that precious cargo halfway around the world. Grudgingly, I agreed not to take any pictures.
Chinese Chess (also known as Xiangqi) is a board game for 2 players popular in China, Vietnam and Inala Civic Centre on saturday mornings. There were several games going on at once, with groups of spectators that looked like they may have been dishing out some serious advice.
In Australia, regardless of whether you smoke or not, if you work outdoors your tea-break is usually called a "smoko".
Inala is one of those neighbourhoods you get in cities that doesn't have a lot of wealth but has a really diverse population. Notably Aboriginal, Torres Straight Islanders, Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai and Indonesian. I went shopping there yesterday and had a ball. We picked up a barramundi and a snapper for a BBQ. Mmmm!!
I have gone on about these trees before I know... but I just think they're beautiful and deserve going on about. In my local park here, they line the path by the river and are lit beautifully in the evening sun, emphasising their big old knarls and tendons.
This is looking up at the sky from inside the tropical dome at the Botanical Gardens in Mt Coot-tha. You can be on the outside looking in here.
A flower commonly seen in Brisbane all year round is the Strelitzia, more commonly known as the Bird of Paradise flower, so named because it's petals look a bit like a bird of paradise's plumage. They also come in bright orange. In my local area, they have planted a large patch of them on the edge of a footpath on a busy road. It makes the walk past much nicer!
The life and times of Sir Thomas Brisbane in 10 concise and over-simplified bullet points:
This is a statue of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. He's sitting casually out the front of the Planetarium at the bottom of Mt. Coot-tha. He was a Russian rocket scientist who is credited with inspiring those who led Russia into space.
This is the new bridge over the Centenary Highway which links the bikeway with Mount Coot-tha. It cost $10 million to build - much to the outrage of certain corners of the media - but it's a step closer to making this city more workable for pedestrians. I think it was much needed and makes lovely shadows on a sunny day.
Brisbane City Hall is a beautiful old building (1920s) in the centre of Brisbane. It houses the fantastic Museum of Brisbane as well as various concerts throughout the year. Hundreds of people become Australian citizens here every year in a big grand ceremony and you can even go on a tour up the clock tower. At the moment there is a problem with a lot of the concrete walls within the building in that they're falling apart. It's going to cost A$120 million to sort it out. It cost A$480,000 to build... I wonder what that is in today's money?
Brisbane showing its multicoloured neon ripples, soon after a Citycat has glided past.
At every set of traffic lights in Brisbane, you will see an original art-work painted by a resident. Any resident can submit a design. This one, on the corner of Elizabeth and Edward Streets is by Tom Campbell, who has a few dotted around town. Eventually, they are painted over with new designs.
The little town of Mount Nebo is just beyond Brisbane's north-west boundary. It's altitude is 550 metres so it's much cooler than in the city. The surrounding forest goes between eucalypt and rainforest and is home to cockatoos, kookaburras, rosellas, budgerigars, king parrots, whip birds, bellbirds and many others. The sound with all these birds calling, echoing through the forest, is fantastic.
This one was taken by my 6 year old. Chip off the old block!
I thought I'd milk another picture from the Up 2 U bunch - a group of dancers I managed to catch practicing in South Bank recently. They're representing Australia next week at the World Hip-Hop Championships in Las Vegas next week and if they dance like they did at rehearsals, the judges are in for a treat.
There have been some glorious blue skies over Brisbane this week. Yesterday we clocked 26 degrees celcius which isn't bad for the middle of winter.
The west face of Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art. The glass sparkles in the afternoon sun and the flat surfaces are a canvas for crisp shadows.
Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art is very minimalist in design - lots of clean, straight lines in dark and neutral colours. The new trees that surround it provide an interesting contrast - especially with the long winter shadows... but it was the red coat that caught my eye. I wish it had been more in focus!
As the sun dips down behind Mount Coot-tha, bathing the evening in gold, 4 masochists get ordered about by someone in a tinny.
Australian magpies bear no relation to the northern hemisphere ones except that they are black and white. They are much bigger and have a very distinctive warble. I like their no-nonsense walk and the way they swoop down and pick up little lizards and insects from the ground, often without stopping.
Here's the Nepalese Peace Pagoda at South Bank. The traditional hand-carved building was a gift from Nepal to Brisbane during Expo '88. I think it contrasts quite nicely with the new wheel of steel - especially in its lovely pink get-up!
Roma Street, 7pm. A sea of maroon-clad rugby league fans marching towards Suncorp Stadium (or "Lang Park" as it is often still called) for State of Origin, Game 3 of 3. If you are a Queenslander and into sport, this is a very big deal.
1. Single storey houses - brick.
Brisbane's observation wheel is getting the pink treatment this week as part of Think Pink Week, raising money for cancer sufferers and their families. I think it looks fab!
Brisbane Square is quite a striking place. There's the library building (pictured with the scaffolding-y bit up the side), the Treasury Casino building, funky restaurants and cafes, the new Wednesday farmers' market and these gigantic metal balls made from welded vegetable steamers. (hmmm. I'll do a post about them sometime soon) I took this picture about 11 or 12 days ago as part of my 100 Strangers project. Ali was standing on top of one of the balls, posing for his friends. It didn't occur to me to ask him how he got up and I had walked away before he got down but while he was up there, he looked very comfortable. He must be a dab hand at Pilates.
Sunday's sunset in Brisbane. It was one of those moments where my fella was doing the dishes and staring idly out of the window.. then he must have snapped out of his daydream as he noticed the sky and he was suddenly calling me. I was scrambling out the door trying to cram my feet into my shoes and shoving the battery that had been charging into the camera, hair all over the place and clothes completely disheveled. All this was of course of minor importance. My mind was set on getting to the corner so I could look west with an uninterrupted view and when I finally did, I was not disappointed. The colours were stunning in their saturation and their luminosity.
