MUNICH FOR LUNCH

On Boxing Day we went out for lunch with friends from the village, Karen, Eddy and their son, Danny. Karen grew up in Germany so we took them to a German restaurant in Brisbane called
'Munich Brauhaus'. Sorry if the title of my post misled you. It would be nice to go to Munich for lunch but when we live on the other side of the world the 'Munich Brauhaus' will have to do.
The restaurant is in South Bank Parklands in the heart of Brisbane. We arrived early in case the parking was difficult but most people must have been in the stores for the Boxing Day sales because the carpark was half empty. Since we were early we took a stroll around the parklands.

There is a water park for children

The dishes fill with water and empty on the children

There is a man made beach for families with our State Government Building
towering in the background.

Then we found the street with our restaurant.

The Munich Brauhaus. We had a beautiful spot outside. The weather was not too hot.

When in Munich!

After German sausages and pork knuckle, we made our way back to our cars.

 (L to R) Danny, Bill, Karen, Eddy.

The park is colourful

I like the huge, colourful, flower pots

OTHER STUFF

My time for blogging has been eaten up by other stuff. Sorry I haven't been to visit regular readers lately. I am sorting through hundreds of slides, scanning them and processing them ready to include in my book. I had a trial run at publishing the first chapter, only to find the photos were not at a high enough resolution for printing. Back in 2009 I didn't know things about DPI or pixels. So I have to go through all the old posts and rescan the photos and repost them. So I am blogging but rehashing the pages needed for my book. I'll be back when I've redone the posts and scanned more slides for more stories/posts.
In the meantime come for a walk with us.We went for a walk around the city park, South Bank Parklands. We intended doing a long walk along the river side but the temperature shot up to over 30°C so we opted for a stroll around the park instead. I thought summer was over but not yet. We even have another big cyclone heading for North Queensland again. We don't usually get cyclones as late as April.

We emerged from the underground car park to find the street closed and full of market stalls.

The other side of the street are wall to wall restaurants.

 The market offered a variety of goods.

Next to the market is the park, we walked across the grass and joined the pretty arbor which winds from one end of the park to the other. It is about a mile long. It is covered in bougainvillaea and provides well needed shade even in Autumn.

 It wasn't long before TOH was in search of a coffee. We found a table next to a little canal.

 After coffee we continued our walk and came to the man made beach.

 Nearby is the swimming pool.

 We would walk along the arbor until there was another place to visit like the rainforest walk. There are also lots of picnic and BBQ areas too.

 Occasionally we could see the city peeping through the trees from the other side of the river.

The end of the park opens onto the Queensland Performing Arts Centre and the Brisbane Wheel. Out of the shot is also the Conservatorium of Music and Queensland Ballet as well as the ABC broadcasting building. Across the road is the museum, the art gallery, the state library and the Gallery of Modern Art. It is a nice area of town

PRETTY PARKLANDS

Today we visited South Bank Parklands in the city on the southern bank of the Brisbane River. Parts of it were badly flooded in January but tireless workers are getting it back to it's former beauty. It is a great community park with lots of areas for walking, cycling, playing, swimming, resting and having picnics or BBQs. It is close to the cultural centre, restaurant precinct and university campuses.

The Arbor walkway

Confucius

Uni campus on the edge of the park.

The statue of Confucius was given to the people of Queensland from the people of Ji'nan, Shandong, China for QLD's 150th birthday in 2009. 

There are streams and ponds all over the park, with fish. ducks and lilies.

 There are a few Banyan Trees with their unusual aerial roots, which drop down from the branches, take root in the ground and then help support the huge branches. This is only a small tree compared to others that I have seen.

 The common Bird of Paradise plant is flowering at the moment.

 The water dragons were sunning themselves. This is a baby.

The road at the end of the park is pretty too. We walked from the park over the bridge to the old Botanical Gardens.

Another Day, Another Park, Same River.

In the last post we walked along the Brisbane River in New Farm. On Thursday we walked along the same river but in the city at South Bank Parklands. We had to go to the city for a seminar promoted by our superannuation company. The speaker, Michael Pascoe, was interesting and entertaining. He basically was telling us how lucky we are as Australia's economy hasn't been hit as hard as other western countries and I guess we were supposed to feel happy even though we've lost thousands from our superannuation but then everyone is in the same boat and we just have to manage as best we can.

After the seminar, where we got a free lunch, we went for a walk along the river in the parklands.

Looking across the river to the CBD

Looking up river......
 and down river.

We walked through the arbor........

and the mini rain forest......

past the swimming pool. Then we turned back .......

past the tourist wheel and the.....

Performing Arts Centre (street side)

Performing Arts Centre (park side) At the back of the park is Little Stanley St. which is an eatery street under the shady trees, which is nice in summer but not today as it is very cold. (Brisbane cold 17C). The interior of the long apartment building was designed with the help of Carol when she worked for Mirvac.