feliz navidad on the barbie

time for the annual blog post! this one coming in live from Brisbane, Queensland, Down Undah. hate leaving wifey, love paid travel.

jetstar serves it up with class, aussie accents, smooth flying, and the guise of low fares. extra charge for bags, entertainment, food, and seats. ain't my dime, but damn.

the digs. larger than the spot back in the J, with almost a full size stove. rental wheels to the left. picked it up upon arrival for the duration. best move ever?

 it's possible that I'd not laid hands on a microwave oven OR dishwasher outside of the US of A. check it off the list!

pretty solid view as well. from the 32nd floor. looking northish.

CBD, as pertains to me

view from the oh-fiss, southish.

interesting house of worship

 interesting flora abound

 part of the South Bank river walk. likely completely fucked in the '11 floods. abnormally active rainy season ended up saturating the ground completely, and an upstream reservoir went from something like 95% to 140% capacity in a matter of days. rated at a measly 150%, the dam possibly would've failed had they not loosed the wooders. the meander that forms the pinnacle feature of the city couldn't handle the elevated levels, and most things bank-side ended up being rebuilt.

only koalas I've seen so far.

artsy-fartsy solar panels. application unknown.

night view

community bike repair station

looking across the river to the (city-sponsored?) rock wall

wheels, rental or otherwise, are now required for the majority of my travels. cruised out to Mount Nebo last weekend. for all the ups and downs, I only came up with this photo.

today I rode from town out to Shorncliffe on the Moreton Bay. pretty good ride. there seemed to be a wool factory off screen to the left, possibly explaining the chrome sheep.

the route took me straight up the gut o' the Boondall Wetlands, a.k.a. croc country. god-damned miracle I made it back alive.

more wetland-o-zu

back end of some driving range

some of the curves could easily land one in the muck were one ill-prepared

wildlife!

these red guys are all over the place. Royal Poincianas I think.

the bay, with a whole bunch of para-surfers getting their schwartz's twisted.

caught some nice ocean spray

wind was ripping. this wasn't down on my way out. roughly 2.5 hours to the bay with head wind, round about 1.5 on the way back to town.

whiny little bitches

don't know much about occupying shit for sure. certainly feel like i was born into the richest percentage of the world. i'll most likely stay there, employed or not. i'm also fairly certain that i won't head to some sweet spacious park in new york with my fancy fucking computer in my fancy fucking toyota to complain about some dude having a ferrari.

i haven't seen a complete list of countries what's bein' occupied by the rich and all, but i'm gonna jump to conclusions and wager that they're all quite well off.

PRIVILEGED
1: having or enjoying one or more privileges
2: not subject to the usual rules or penalties because of some special circumstance; especially : not subject to disclosure in a court of law 

HYPOCRITE
1: a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion
2: a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings

i could go on for hours, but nah.



hit up the safari the other day. with my money. it was sweet!!

lazin' around. don't be fooled, apparently some woman was dropped a few years ago. left the car for 30 seconds.

herbivorous

these guys were fighting. pretty sure it was the rut.

fat fucks.

homeboy wanted a piece o' my lady. almost got ugly...

whitus tigerus

i gave this thing grass and carrots. it gave me handfuls of saliva.

rode the hell out of this thang! pretty badass i must say.

bundles o' joy

upon arrival in this wonderful, heathen land, i didn't have much of what one might consider "work". sure i had my hands full exploring new places and learning how to communicate in the local fashion and all, but nobody was paying me to do so. the gainful employment started tricklin' in after much ado, and the momentum gathered gradually.

not being the type to say no, one day earlier this year i realized "holy shit, i've got way too many jobs, i'm working seven days a week, and host one of the most inefficient daily schedules imaginable." well, it was about that time that i got a random tip about someone needing a sweet, sweaty dude what kicks much ass to come regulate at their tiny-ass escuela. i initially wrote it off, what with the last thing i needed being another goddamn part-time job and all. after a moment's deliberation, i decided to follow through with the formalities. the interview process proved successful for both parties. the owner of the school is probably one of the sweetest folk ever, and she digs my vibe as well. the only trouble was that the schedule directly conflicted with most of my other scattered action.

being the type that loves solving problems, i set about a grueling two-week effort to reschedule, revise, and compress seven days of work down into six*. it's a goddamned miracle that it worked, and i must say i'm quite proud. new schedule (from here on referred to as the new hot shit) went into effect last week, and i fucking love it.

mostly teaching kidzu at the new spot, i spend most of my time jumping up and down, making jokes that no one understands**, and making arts and crafts and shit. behold:

this is the pineapple express. 'tis a seaworthy vessel.

i like pineapple a lot.

the little'n's are great i must say.

here go some of 'em drawing a photo of me and the sista'.

otherwise things are good. i'm enjoying the dregs of summer and the weekly day off and all. now i'm sleepy though. all i can do is muster some photos fer y'ins.

excellently tasty pizza, all for lil' mikey.

interesting view of the "natural house". organic fruits and vegetables, every one individually wrapped in fucking plastic. heart's in the right place i suppose, but the freshness culture overrides.

interesting view from the not-so-natural house. this was something like "french fries wrapped up in savory pork and then seasoned all to hell."

i recently discovered that kobe is the "friendship and cooperation city" of philly. who knew?

relics from a once great capital city.

ummm.... these are just some flowers that i saw.

shit exploding!! whoo!!!

one of the greatest parts about the new hot shit is the exploration opportunity. i think this is the First Holy Diocese of Post. complete with stained glass windah.

this was pretty wierd.

over-sized gee-tar.

sweet promenade to the east of the general downtown area. view of the general downtown area.

clockwise from bottom left: fish, fish, mammal.

sunset-ish view of harborland. this is the site of my main gym action until next month. the new hot shit forced/allowed me to broaden me ol' 'orizons.

apparently one of the three most impressive giant buddha statues in the J. mighty close to home, mighty sweet.

*i've reserved the executive power to further reduce this number to five should i see fit, but mostly just because i'm not too keen on making decisions.

**this is nothing new. it's extra fun to do in front of children though.