Another state, another city, a chance to see another side of Australia. Now I had heard that Queenslanders were ‘mad as snakes’ but I didn’t really get that impression at all. In fact, I probably wouldn’t have even found that many flaws if locals didn’t point them out to me. Of course there are a number of obvious maladies inherent to the river city, but then Sydney and Melbourne are not without their trip-ups as well.
The world expo visited Brisbane in 1988, my birth year, and as far as history is concerned, it was one of the best things to ever happen to the city. No given, I had no clue that this ever took place until someone in Brisbane enlightened me, but obviously somebody was paying attention because it brought visitors from all over the world to the state capitol of Queensland. The city blossomed and development followed in its wake. However, one negative souvenir it left the city with was a giant phallic structure that lights up every night with a Technicolor collar and a set of four searchlights that continuously scan the night sky for God only knows. The world expo council meant this carnival monstrosity to be a gift, but in my opinion it only remains as a blemish on an otherwise beautiful cityscape. Many have tried to remove it over the years, but to no avail. The Sky Needle, as it is called, stands in all its post-modernist glory for people to cock their heads sideways at still today.
The name ‘Brisvegas’ was coined by Virgin Blue airlines as a marketing ploy a while ago, but the name stuck, and people all over Australia will refer to the city by this pet name. In a city of cheap and speedy development along with an immigration rate of about 1000 people every 2 weeks, perhaps the name is relevant. Politics is a joke and organization seems amiss, but most of these accusations are not my own. A local architect named Timothy Hill of architecture firm Donovan Hill describes his hometown in this manner. So that’s my quick and dirty on the Bris. More adventures to follow!
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