Relax weekend in Brisbane

In August last year, I participated at a competition at Bond University for PhD students. We had to present our PhD research in 3 minutes using 1 slide. I won the first prize for people's choice! This was a voucher for one of the Stamford Luxury hotels for 250 dollars! To thank Philippe for his patience  and listening when I was practicing my 3 minute speech, I took him with me :-)

Finally, after a very busy period at Bond for both of us, we found some time to relax! We decided to go to Brisbane during the Easter Weekend. The weather was beautiful, so we took the motorbike to go to Brisbane!

The weekend was amazing! Delicious food, nice weather, tandem bike trip, deluxe room, Japanese dinner with show cooking, chilling at the pools in South Bank,... The highlight of the weekend was the tandem ride. We had so much fun on the bike! I wanted to be in the front, so that I could choose where we were going, but it was too difficult :-) So, Philippe took over... And I had to trust on his riding capacities as I had no brakes or could not turn the bike.

Another highlight was the Japanese restaurant. All the guests had to come at 8.15 and the tables were in half circles around the cooking BBQ. One of the cooks was cooking in front of us, and giving us a show with his knives, fire,... He also threw eggs at us, and we had to catch them in a bowl! Very funny! We also talked to the other people who were sitting next to us. Very nice Australians.

Here are some pictures:

Tandem ride

Japanese restaurant

Philippe just caught the egg

Find the flying egg!

Brisbane by night

South Bank

Breakfast

Buffet Breakfast

I have made a compilation of our weekend (including the hotel, botanical gardens, tandem ride, japanese restaurant,...) ! Just see it below!

Now it is working time again! Lots of work... Collecting surveys, sending emails, transcribe interviews, revise and article for a peer reviewed journal, write progress report,...

Last days of Kristina

Last Friday Kristina, the friend from Belgium who stayed here for one and a half month, flew back to Belgium. I think she had an amazing time; she stayed with me at the Gold Coast for a few weeks and went with Lynn, Jonas and Jill up north till the WhiteSundays. Unfortunately they could not go further north because of the rain. But instead going North, they visited Sydney, where I joined them for 3 days. She also went to Melbourne, Tasmania and then to Cairns as the weather was better. I am so jealous!!!!

As I had too much work for my PhD... and Phil was in holidays, Kristina and Phil went to the Twin Falls at Springbrook on the motorbike.

Cosy little Cafe

Phil @ Twin Falls

On Kristina's last day I went with her to Surfers Paradise... to surf... or at least try to :-) The weather was perfect for the beach and after the beach we did some shopping.

Surfers Paradise

Practising on the sand

Practising

Chilling

For dinner we went to the restaurant where Philippe works and we had our desert at Max Brenner, the chocolate place.

Delicious brochetta @ Cucina restaurant

@ Max Brenner

Chocolate Fondue!

Enjoy!

I will miss you Kristina! :-) It was nice to have you here!

By the way... for the people who don't know it yet... I will come back home (Belgian home) the 23rd of May till the end of September for the data collection of my PhD! I will miss Australia!

Bond Uni

I forgot to write some things in my previous posts!

When Jill, Kristina, Jonas and Lynn were here, I showed them around at Bond University. Now they understand why I love this university so much :-) I showed them my building, the faculty of health sciences and medicine, my office (shared with 3 other PhD students) and desk, the multimedia learning centre, the arch,... Here you can see some pictures that Jonas took with his good camera:

First a picture from the balcony at home around sunset

Me in front of the faculty of health sciences and medicine

My Faculty by night

Bond Fountain and bridge

Under the arch

Jill - Jessie - Kristina - Lynn

Me @ Bond :-)

View from the Bridge: Fountain & the Arch

Things you haven't seen: the 50m outdoor swimming pool, 5 tennis courts, rugby fields, Bond cafes and restaurants, library, the gym,....

So... this is Bond

Cheers,

Jessie

Themeparks

I still have to update on the last weekend which were also the last days of my Belgian friends Lynn and Jonas. Lynn, Jonas and Kristina went  to Dreamworld during the week. Unfortunately, I could not join them... too much work and tennis classes to coach. But in the weekend, I could have fun too!

I spent an amazing day at Wet 'n Wild with Jonas, Lynn, Kristina and Jill! We could go with the huge car of Jill which she bought last week from a Swedish girls, Liv who is leaving Australia. It is a Ford Falcon. Very convenient to have someone with a car... It is a bit hard to transport all the people on my bike. :-) We went from one slide to the other, but the Kamikaze (2 persons), the Tornado (4 persons) and the Mammoth Falls were our favourites. This weekend I made a little video of all the waterfun we had when Jonas, Lynn and Kristina were here. The first part is filmed at the swimming pool at our house and the second part at Wet 'n Wild. Enjoy the video below!



On Sunday we went to Sea World. We saw the dolphins show,  the seals show and a pirate show and of course lots of other animals: bears, sharks, stingrays,.... We also did the two roller coasters and some water attractions. Here some pictures:

Sesamstraat (hoe lang is dat geleden!)

lunching Polar Bear 

The aquarium:

Splash!

Kristina, Lynn and Jonas

Seals show

Seals show

 The dolphin show:

Penguins

After Sea World we went to the fish and ships restaurant, Peter's Fish Market. In the evening it was time for Lynn and Jonas to start packing! On Monday morning I dropped them off at the airport! I had a great time with them on the Gold Coast! Kristina stayed a few more days and now she is in Melbourne and then she will go to Tasmania.

Yesterday, Saturday, I chilled with Jill in the garden!

Yesterday night we also had a party in our house! Lot's of people and drinks and some music. We had good fun, but I miss the parties at the VUB!

Today it is raining... so it will be a cleaning day (all the mess of the party...) and working day.

Cheers!
Jessie

Sydney!

Friday


After my week of work and tennis coaching, I left on Friday night to Sydney to join my Belgian friends Kristina, Jonas and Lynn. I took the airport train to Sydney Central Station and then it took me almost 30 minutes and four phone calls to find my friends. Conclusion: the Central Station of Sydney is huge!


Saturday


On Saturday we woke up early to visit the Blue Mountains! I only have one picture and as you can see it was beautiful!

Lynn, Jonas and Kristina and one of the tree sisters in the background

NOT!!!  It would have been... if there were no clouds and rain... We gave up after seeing one of the three sisters. We decided to go to Bondi Beach and we visited Tuur, a friend with whom I studied at the VUB. He gave us a short introduction to Bondi Beach. We walked on the beach and then to the cliff to make lots of pics.

VUB @ Sydney

Beach

Bondi Beach

We visited Tuur's place and then we had a drink at the bar where he is working: FREE cocktails! :-) We had dinner all together at a pizza place! It was nice to see Tuur again. The VUB goes down under :-)

VUB 

We moved to another hostel located close to Paddy's Market. Small hostel but everything ok.


Sunday


After a good night of sleep we went to Paddy's market to buy some cheap souvenirs and... umbrella's!

Paddy's Market

Then we took the Free bus to Circular Quay to have a look at the most famous buildings of Sydney: Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. We took heaps of pictures (op zijn Australisch :-)).

People climbing on the Harbour Bridge

Sint Gabriel @ Sydney

Me

Unfortunately the rain forced us to go inside so Kristina and I decided to do the guided tour in the Opera House. We got to know very interesting facts. It was definitely worth it. Some facts:

- It was planned to take 3 years to build it, however, it took 16 years
- The original cost was estimated at 7 million AU$. , however, it costed 102 million AU$
- Lleyton Hewitt married there
- All the glass of the Opera House comes from France
- More than 2600 people can seat in the concert hall
- The Danish architect never visited his finished building
- There are more then 2600 events a year

We saw a rehearsal in the concert hall of the Youtube Orchestra. They auditioned online and the best musicians came to Sydney for a concert. The concert hall was so beautiful with all the lighting effects. A picture of the places where it was allowed:

After a quick lunch we took the ferry boat to Manly. On the boat we had some nice views on the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.

In Manly we walked through the main shopping street and we went to Manly beach. However, there was not much more to see here...

 Shopping Street

Manly Beach

On the way back to the hostel we passed the Queen Victoria Building which is one of the many expensive shopping centres in Sydney.

After a short power nap in the hostel we walked to Darling Harbour to make some beautiful night pictures of Cockle Bay Wharf. Suddenly it was 10pm and we still had to eat.

A higher quality pic with Jonas' camera

Me

After dinner we walked again to the north of Sydney to see the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge by night! This was amazing! The Opera House was projected with lights in different colours and different figures.

Some more pics with Jonas' camera

Monday


Monday morning we went to Harbour Bridge (again :-)), but this time to walk on it. Other things we did on Monday:

The Sydney Tower: highest building of Sydney with very nice views
Walk through Strand Arcade (another shopping centre)
Pass St. Mary Cathedral with fountains
Strolling in Hyde Park and the Botanical Gardens where we saw lots of fruit bats in the trees.

Paper flowers

Fruit bats

View from Sydney Tower

View Sydney Tower

At 5pm it was time to go to the airport. I was exhausted and missed the take off... I was sleeping already.

Although the weather was not what we had hoped, I had a great time with my friends in Sydney!

Cheers,
Jessie