Brisbane Christmas, 2011

We have had a beautiful Christmas Day this year in Brisbane.  Last year it rained like crazy and we were lucky if we could get outside for more than 10 minutes at a time.  This year we had a long walk from our place to the CBD along a brand new walking path that has just opened up and had a chance to see the normally bustling CBD quiet and lovely.

A beautiful Christmas Day in the sub-tropics

We expected the CBD to be completely dead.  In Canada everything is closed on Christmas Day so we were surprised to see many of the pubs open for business.  The only difference is that on Christmas Day one can't just go in for a drink, there are rules about buying food, and it has to be food that requires a knife and fork, not just a bowl of chips (that is almost verbatim from all the signs we saw).  Still, it was nice to see the city was still busy and open for business.  (By the way, CBD = Central Business District...the same thing as downtown, if you are new to the blog and Australian-speak.)

Brisbane Arcade, built ~1910

As it was so quiet we actually had time to look around and see the buildings that line the mall.  There are some lovely turn-of-the-(last)-century buildings here.  Most of them have been completely redone on the inside but it is nice to see that where possible, the facade has been maintained.  Normally when we are walking down the mall we have our heads on swivels and are on full alert so we don't get run over by gaggles of teenaged girls and people who would rather text and walk than look where they are going.

Once we got back home we had a veritable feast of seafood!  It sounds nice, but unfortunatley we had to spend 45 minutes ripping the heads off prawns and pulling out their poopers, but the meal was delicious, nonetheless. 

Tomorrow we are off to Sydney for a small holiday, then back in Brisbane for New Years.  Merry Christmas!

Sunshine Coast

We just had a fabulous four day weekend on the Sunshine Coast, which is about 2 hours north of Brisbane.  We stayed in Sunshine Beach, a small village that is part of the Noosa area.  This is our second stay in this place and it won't be our last.

Ocean View from our apartment

We had good luck with the weather and didn't get a drop of rain, unlike last year when we were inundated for all three days.  We had a great hike from Sunshine Beach through the national park to Noosa, about 5 km or 2 hours of easy walking.  It was a beautiful walk through forests, along beaches and some nicely kept trails.

Looking back at Sunshine Beach from the Noosa trailhead

The water was a little rough for swimming but it was great fun to run into the waves and get pushed back towards the shore.  Right now further north it is stinger season, when the jellyfish are a real problem for swimmers.  We saw a few little ones but nothing too major.  Their bodies are small but their tails can trial out behind them for almost a metre!  It is the tails that get you, not the the jelly part.  Even long after the jelly has come up on the beach and died, the tails can still sting if they are rehydrated.  These little ones are okay, JT stepped on one by accident and didn't feel a thing.  The big Blue Bottles can be deadly so happily we didn't step on one of those!

Stinger with a very long tail (the long blue stringy thing)

We are now in our last week of work before the Christmas break.  Like everyone else, when it comes to the end of the year we are very ready for a break and cannot wait for our Sydney trip next week.  We just need to remember to relax!

Hang-glider at one with the birds

December

We were a little worried that we were starting another drought, as there were less than 10mm of rain in the entire month of November and it was over 25C every day.  Then December hit.  Here we are on December 12 and already we've had 97mm of rain.  This weather is crazy!  The humidity makes the ambient air temperature feel 5 - 10C hotter, which is no treat when the temperature is already more than 30.  Plus, JB's hair is about the size of a small school bus.

Oddly enough, however, the hotter weather has made us feel more Christmas-y.  We spent more than 40 years having cold, white Christmases and suddenly we don't feel the festive spirit until the temperature spikes and the humidity soars.  The one thing we haven't seen are real Christmas trees or a Christmas tree lot.  There are lots of fake trees and plenty of trees in yards have lights.

The front lights are Santa and a snowman on a seesaw

Icicle lights

We really like the look of the "icicle" lights that people have on the outside of their houses.  Last year we thought it was a little strange but now we really like it.  Not enough to actually put in the effort to decorate our own house, but we like for other people.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...sort of

Christmas Tree in King George Square

This is our second Christmas in Brisbane.  Christmas is still a time of year that we associate with winter, as do most other parts of the world.  Even here, where the temperature is in the low 30s everyday with high humidity, the Christmas carols are all the same and the decorations have a winter theme.  The main Myer store here has fantastic window displays at Christmas every year (Myer is pretty much the same thing as The Bay or any other national department store).  Last year the theme was the Nutcracker and this year it is Santa's Workshop.  The windows are entirely anima-tronic, with constant Christmas music and singing elves. 

Santa's Workshop, Myer window

There are a few differences, of course.  The carollers that one would normally expect to see walking around in groups wearing Victorian-style winter garb are replaced by some rather svelte looking ladies in small red dresses.  There is an atmosphere that goes beyond festive, too.  Today JB saw two acrobats performing next to a group of carollers and two ladies on stilts, dressed like flamingoes!  It was all very impressive, if not overly Christmasy.  There is one Christmas tradition, however, that we did not hesitate to embrace: the Christmas feast!  No turkey, no stuffing, no cranberry sauce, just as many prawns and oysters as you can possibly eat.  Last year the unthinkable happened and we actually got tired of eating all the fresh seafood.  This year we might try to control ourselves a bit better, but we all know that anything covered in melted butter is impossible to resist.  It just makes it easier to come up with a "butter-free 2012" New Year's resolution.  (Like that will ever happen.)