Brisbane & Gold Coast Express

After a long week of work, creating the most sophisticated and amazing visibility board, I ventured north to the state of Queensland.  Queensland is where they had a substantial amount of flooding last year in 2011.  It's also the state where the Great Barrier Reef is as well as lots of places where OZ's go for some fun.  I took one of Australia's budget airlines, Tiger Airways.  Think Ryan Air (Europe) or Spirit Airlines (US). No frills and don't have high expectations for service or anything as everything is charged.  It also is one of Australia's airlines with the most fines and safety failures....  Oh well, I made it to and from safely and it was the cheapest way to go. No frills.

My co-worker and I flew from Melbourne to Brisbane on an early flight.  We grabbed a rental car, Subaru Forrester (yes they have them here), and drove the 70 km to Surfer's Paradise.  On our way to Surfer's Paradise we stopped at the Lone Pine Sanctuary.  This Sanctuary is known for its Koala's and the ability to get up and close, personally with the animals.  I was surprised to see that they were all decorated for the Halloween festivities!  Totally for those under 10 years old, it was quite out of place for us older folks.  Halloween is not celebrated here as it is in the states, so this was a pleasant surprise.

Lone Pine Sanctuary is known worldwide for its Koala cuddling...as you will see many famous celebrities have cuddled (held) a koala.  (The Pope, Taylor Swift...etc...)  I got the chance as well!  Ill post the photo soon, its on my co-workers camera, in the meantime go to the provided link to see it online.  http://i.koala.net/2710603762.htm

Not only did we get to hold a koala, but we also were able to feed and pet kangaroos and other animals.  It was an exciting yet very touristy thing to do.  All in all it was the best part of our weekend.

After this fun animal experience, we headed to our main destination, Surfer's Paradise near Gold Coast.  Known for its Las Vegas tackiness and entertainment, we were set to hang out on the beach and worship the sun.  However, as we soon learnt, the weather forecast changed and high winds and rainy weather dampened our experience and expectations.  

High rise hotels, dance clubs, bars and beaches are what Aussie's come here to do, Party!  

The winds were blowing at 30 mph and it was blowing so hard that the sand was like sandpaper.  So, no sun   worshiping or hanging out on the beach.  Instead we took refuge near the beach and watched Net Ball.  Net Ball is the Common Wealth's sport of basketball.  A women's only sport, essentially similar to basketball, but the baskets have no backboard, you don't dribble the ball and you can't run with the ball.  We attempted to learn the rules during our hour long observation, but still we left without seeing why they just play beach volleyball or basketball instead.  

Our time at Surfer's Paradise soon turned to rain and we headed for shelter and walked around the small tourist town.  As what my managers would say its very cheesy and tacky.  It is a tacky sorta place but its where you go for partying, surfing, sun bathing, and shopping.  Since the weather was a disappointment, that left us with partying or shopping.  Shopping was out of the question so we tried to party, but that too became old and after a few hours in several bars we turned in.  This place was crawling with uni students (University) who go out for fun.  The drinking age is 18 in Australia and this is the place where they all come for spring break.  In addition, Buck parties (Bachelors Party) and Hens parties (bachelorette parties) come too, which there were plenty of them around, they all seem to dress up in uniforms too.  Highly entertaining.

After our evening in the party city, the next day we drove to something less known and highly a tourist activity, glow worms.  Only native to Australia and New Zealand, glow worms are highly endangered and are related to the firefly.  Their bio-luminescent bodies glow in complete darkness and are only found in deep dark wet caves.  The place where we went here was at a winery where they are breeding the special bugs to help produce more and help maintain the native colony found in the Springbrook national park caves.   On our way to this winery which has the unique critters, we drove through the rain forests of Queensland and wound our way up a tall mountain and mountain town of Tamborine.  There was a small Sunday market where we stopped for a quick coffee.  The cave that we went into was man made and our expectations were low as we thought this was going to be very tacky....however, after the 15 minute video explaining what they are and what they do, we walked in complete darkness through the cave where the ceiling literally lit up like the night sky! It was very amazing and worth the 11 dollars...even though it was a man made habitat.

  We continued our drive through the rain forests of Queensland which were all full of Eucalyptus trees and koalas.  We drove to Brisbane for the rest of the remaining time before our evening departure home to Melbourne.  

Brisbane, Australia's third largest city seemed super sleepy compared to Melbourne.  With roughly 2 million it didn't seem as bustling but very laid back with flip flops and shorts as the norm, where as Melbourne is all about the fashion, slacks, dress shoes and sport coats.  

The city is famous for its Bridge just like Sydney is.  The Story Bridge.  In the middle of downtown, they have a huge arcade covering the main shopping strip.  A stage is there for music and performances, as well as a nice transit bus tunnel similar to Seattle's.  We walked around town for a couple of hours and along the river we ventured near the Brisbane Wheel (Ferris Wheel), Nepalese Pagoda from the 1988 World's Fair as well as the skyline of the city.  A nice place to visit and probably a more relaxing place to live.  Boeing's Defense headquarters are here as well.

Once we were done here, we returned the rental car and flew back to Melbourne with a late arrival back into town.  Hopefully my trip to Singapore will be more eventful and succesful with teh weather; however, temperatures there are in the high 80s with 70% humidity....should be a good time!

Day at the Races

October 20th, was an all day affair at the Horse Race.  The Caulfield Cup, is Australia's second largest Cup Race.  To me....all I could think of was Emerald Downs in Auburn....where it is very boring and hardly ever has a sold out crowd.  I was in for a big surprise.  Everyone who attends the Spring Carnival Horse Races dress up and hats are in, big time!  As I didn't have a suit jacket I was a little out of place; however, as the day's weather warmed up I was glad I didn't have an extra layer.  The Caulfield Cup experience is all about dressing up, wearing fancy hats and drinking and betting.  It begins with classiness and then ends a little less with a few chaps passed out on the grass.  For me it was all about the people watching and enjoying the atmosphere.  The co-workers that I went with had it all planned well.  They had a picnic all set and ready as we waded through the crowds.

Caulfield is about a 20 minute train ride from where I am staying in the Docklands. So it was short and easy trip out to the rack.  http://www.melbourneracingclub.net.au/spring-racing-carnival  You can visit the race courses website if you want to see all the results and what the fashion dress code is.  The Melbourne Cup is Australia's largest horse race which is twice as large and twice as glamorous as the Caulfield Cup; however, Ill be out of town that Tuesday which is a public holiday just for the races in Melbourne.

The Hat Fashion Show, all you had to do was enter if you wanted to take part.  Most of the hats were homemade or were name brand for thousands of dollars.

The "Wingman" program which is similar to the Designated Driver program; however, this is to ensure that your "mate" wouldn't get into a violent fight....  So we posed, swore the oath that we wouldn't let anyone in our group get into a fight and got free aviators for committing to the program.

The Caulfield Cup

Co-workers

Picnic Set

 Next weekend will feature a trip to Brisbane and the Gold Coast, so stay tuned!  Following that weekend Ill be summarizing my long weekend trip to Singapore and their incredible food!

Great Ocean Road and the local animals

10.15.2012

It’s been a while since my last post and I have quite a lot to summarize and share with you all.  Partially it is to blame for the internet access here….its roughly very slow and everything here has a data cap.  As I upload photos and stream Netflix here…..that limited my ability to access the internet here.  Luckily I subscribed to DSL which is fairly common here….broadband internet is only in certain areas of Australia…not yet fully established.  You will notice that I got an overdose of the local wildlife and the majestic landscapes of Victoria. 

The weekend of October 5^th was my second full weekend in Melbourne.  And it was the completion of my first week of work at Boeing Australia.  To put it in short summary, the “One Boeing” vision has quite a way to go in order to ensure a seamless transparency between Australia and the U.S.  It has been a shocking, frustrating and rewarding in trying to get as accustomed to the culture of the new workplace.  As I have no completed two full weeks I can assure you that with every day it has gotten better and as I get to know my co-workers better things are becoming more optimistic. J

Enough of the work related material and more onto the fun stuff.  Docklands the neighborhood that I am staying in has lots of particularly highly rated restaurants…not something you would eat out daily or weekly…but maybe monthly.  It’s particularly expensive….but the expats here love to dine here and do have a favorite called Woolshed.  It’s a nice casual steakhouse with great wine pairings.  The expats who I have gotten to know are frequent visitors and have made good friends with the owners who have shared lots of free samplings of their 200 dollar and up bottles of wines.  Its  a great dig and next week will be a great wine sampling night with food pairings.

To conclude my first week of work my work group of Industrial Engineers gathered together and went out for happy hour at Watermark a fairly trendy restaurant/bar in the Docklands, but where Happy Hour has $5.00 Pots.  A pot is a size that is between a pint, and a schooner.  The Pot came to be only in Australia as a Pint became too warm before it could be fully consumed in the summer heat and a schooner was too small.

The following Sunday, my co-worker the other expat who has been here for almost 2 years ventured out to a sanctuary run by the Melbourne Zoo organization in Healesville.  Roughly a 1.5 hour drive out into the Yarra Valley (think wine country).  Lots of rolling green hills, vineyards and sheep.  Also think lots of torrential rain…..it was probably one of the worse days to go to this outdoor sanctuary as I also forgot to bring an umbrella.  Luckily the gift shop offered $5.00 ponchos.  J  This was a great time, we got to see lots of Koalas, Kangaroos,Wallabies, local birds, platypus, …etc.  We could walk right up to them which was a surprise as in the States that would be highly prohibitive.  All the animals in Healsville Sanctuary have been bred or were injured and have since been kept in captivity.  It was fairly neat to see all of the local animals even in the rain. 

My second week at work went smooth and even though it was still mostly getting to know the processes and learning all the Australian vocabulary, i.e. Canteen = cafeteria, arvo = afternoon….etc.

My third weekend, consisted of meeting up with some family friends from Seattle who were passing through Melbourne on their epic New Zealand and Australian vacation.  I got to spend a great full day with them exploring and sharing Melbourne with them.  It was great to hang out with them and discover a few new places that I hadn’t been before such as the Shrine of Remembrance (A memorial to all the fallen Australian and New Zealand Soldiers). 

The previous night, I discovered a Mexican restaurant with my American co-worker.  We heard from the locals of this great Mexican place called Mamasitas.  We went….waited 30 minutes and were thoroughly disappointed at our 6 dollar taco and 34 dollar pitcher of watered down sangria….we were so disappointed at this posh and trendy Mexican tapas place that we went to the Azteca equivalent fast food Mexican food joint called Taco Bills.  Small portions yes, but Mexican beers for 7.50 is a deal!  Normally most of the beer here starts at 10 bucks a pint or higher.  Mexican is hard to find in Australia and its just starting to get popular….it probably will never be like the Mexican in the states… no big surprise there!

The following Sunday my American co-worker and I jumped into the car and drove the Great Ocean Road, one of the world’s most scenic highways.  The road begins about 1.5 hours west of Melbourne.  Prior to driving part of the Great Ocean Road, we wanted to play 9 holes of golf at Anglesea Golf Club, where they are known for their Kangaroos.  It was quite impressive to be able to play golf at a great course with Kangaroos hoping around you.  My round of golf wasn’t great, but getting to experience and see the Kangaroos around you was!

After our golf round we hopped back into the car and drove to the beginning of the Great Ocean Road.  This long and windy highway goes all the way to Adelaide, which is at least 6 hours or more to get to from Anglesea.  The beaches and landscape was spectacular.  A lot of I reminded me to the coastline of Ireland.  Majestic white sand beaches with great surf and steep high cliffs and bluffs are on every bend.  It’s a narrow highway…only two lanes and luckily no semi-trucks pushed us close to the side…   We passed a beach called Bells Beach which is one of the first beaches to host a  surf competition.  Lots of surfers on this beach.  We continued our way and as the road came to a point where we had to drive inland, we came to Otway Lighthouse.  We didn’t go to the lighthouse, but instead halfway there we stopped and pulled over to the side of the road.  We looked up and there were hundreds of Koalas in the trees.  Eucalyptus trees are everywhere in Victoria and wherever there are Eucalyptus trees there Koalas.  It was great to see so many of them in their natural habitat.  One was luckily just beginning to climb a tree and I was able to get a great photo.  After a good 30 minutes capturing photos of Koalas we continued the great drive until we reached our destination, the 12 Apostles.  These giant limestone cliffs, not as high as the Cliffs of Moar in Ireland, stood tall against the raging surf. No longer are there 12 of these towering limestone columns, but now less than 7.  These impressive rock formations are great and are a world wonder. 

After a few good hours walking around to different vantage points and being super touristy, we departed around 7.30pm in the evening and took the inland highway back to Melbourne, a good 3 hours, instead of taking the windy road back in total darkness and taking  5-6 hours to do the same trip home. 

This week of work has gone well again and I am finally getting involved in the local projects, should be  good going from this point on.  Also, booked a trip to Singapore for the first weekend of November, booked another trip to Brisbane and the Gold Coast for some sun before it gets too hot in the summer.  The next big event is this Saturday when I will be going along with a good group of Aussie co-workers to the horse race, the Caulfield Cup, not the largest like the Melbourne Cup, but maybe the 3^rd or 4^th largest in the country.  Horse racing is big here and everyone dresses up.  I too will be dressing up too, photos will come soon.