A Day on the Train and A Trip to the City!

Went on my first train ride today and what an experience! I don't think I'll ever forget today's train trip. I'm not sure about the other areas of Australia but in Brisbane, please try not to go sight-seeing on Sunday using public transport. Each train and bus comes in one hour interval!We were supposed to go visit 'Big Pineapple', a pineapple farm, today. We took a train from our nearest train station, Toowong. After spending more than 3 hours, including travelling and waiting time, we finally reached our destinated train station, Woombye. We didn't go to Big Pineapple in the end as we had totally no inkling of which direction to go! The train back to our place came and we decided to just go back instead. We wouldn't want to miss that train and wait for another hour! Spent another 2 hours on the train back so today was kind of like a train travelling day.

Brisbane's transport system is not as advanced and efficient as Singapore's. For buses, you can either buy your ticket from the bus driver or from a transit office. The bus will end up stopping for quite long if there are many people boarding. That's because many people choose to buy tickets from the bus driver and most of the people are not really sure of the fares they have to pay. Those people do not prepare correct fare so the bus driver will have to give them their change back. That's right, they do give back changes on buses here. It's the same thing for they ferry system so there's usually three staff on board a ferry. One will be the ferry operator, one will be in charge of letting down the board for commuters to board and alight the ferry and the other will be in charge of ticket sales. Sometimes, they can barely finish collecting money for the previous stop's passenger before the ferry arrive at the next stop. As for trains, you do not have to tap your card before you can go through the gates. Here, you can just go into the station without buying tickets. Of course there'll be train officers asking to check your ticket but they do not do it at every stop. If you do not travel far, you wouldn't even get to meet the train officer! It appears that someone did not buy a ticket on the train today and refuse to pay the AUD$150 fine. As a result, our train was held up at Sunshine station as we waited for the police to arrive. I do not understand why they can't just kick that troublesome passenger off the train and wait for the police at the station instead of holding the whole train up?! However, one good thing about their system is that their concession ticket can be used on all three transport. Managed to save a lot of money that way.

On our way back, we alighted a bit earlier and end up in Brisbane City. It's like the Orchard Road and City Hall of Brisbane and I was so excited! Now I know where to go shopping. It was already dark when we arrived and we were kind of in a hurry so I didn't have a chance to take any photos there. Don't worry, I can see myself going there quite frequently. Too bad my housemates don't like to shop but then again, I don't mind shopping alone. Oh yah... We were in a hurry as we want to go Cole's before it close for the day. Cole's is a big supermarket chain in Australia. We bought most of our grocery from Cole's and my housemates are totally obsessed with Cole's. They prefer shopping there then in the City!