Randy's Visit

Friday morning I got a call from my brother Randy letting me know that he'd made it to Sydney and was hopping on an earlier flight up to Brisbane and would arrive around 10AM. He was supposed to get in on Saturday afternoon, so I had to scramble and get some work done before I picked him up! I hopped on the train to the airport and managed to collect him without any troubles. He was feeling great after heading over in business class, so we stopped at my place for a shower and then headed over to Southbank. I showed him around my favorite place here, and then we hopped a CityCat over to the University of Queensland campus so that I could get a few things done there. I think he liked the campus! We took the bus back to the city and poked around Queen Street Mall before heading back to my place for an early dinner and 8PM bedtime.Saturday morning I took Randy for a little walk down the street to the farmer's market that happens in Woolloongabba every week. We stopped at this cool little cafe, BrownDog Cafe, and had a really great breakfast. This is randy with his breakfast bruschetta:
I got all the fruit and veg i needed for the week, and we headed back to my place. After dropping everything off, I took him across the street, down the Kangaroo Point Cliffs, and over the river on the ferry. We took a walk through the City Botanic Gardens, where he got to see all the little ducklings and my favorite tree that is covered in spiders (that was a big hit).
We hopped a bus over to Fortitude Valley, which sits at the eastern side of the city and is the grungy-yet-hip area of Brisbane. The Valley (as the locals refer to it) is also the location of Chinatown, and another pedestrian mall called Brunswick Street. There is another market run here on the weekends that is really fun to go to. I dragged Randy around for a few hours doing some shopping. The Brunswick Street markets are where all of Brisbane's up-and-coming fashion designers sell their clothing, you can also find jewelry, palm readers, used books, plants, and all kinds of other stuff. I bought a great dress by a designer called Ortarky that I'll be sure to post pictures of later!

Today we got up and made the trip out to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary for some more fuzzy bears. Here are a few pictures from the day:This is one of the emus that roam around the enclosure with the kangaroos and wallabies. They are native to Australia, are similar to the ostrich, and are pretty common here except in the cities. They are really freaky looking up close! This bird is called a Cassawory, which is related to ostriches and emus. These birds are endangered species here, with about 1500 thought to be living in the wild. Isn't it crazy that you can be driving in northern Queensland and see one of these on the side of the road?! They are really striking, and the blue in the picture isn't half as bright as it really is.