G'day, mate...!

It was nearly 23 years ago since I last step my foot here. Tapi masa tu Mak Lijah pergi Sydney saja dengan status masih student lagi. This time around Mak Lijah berada di Brisbane pulak, since 18 April 2008, for another series of negotiations.

Sepanjang tujuh hari lepas Mak Lijah berada di sini, saban hari Mak Lijah hanya melihat bilik hotel, bilik mesyuarat, fish and chips dan lauk kambeng di restoran Ahmet. Semalam sempat juga pergi makan nasi ayam di Litttle Malaysia kat Boundary Street. Pergi berjalan kaki saja, sebab it was not that far away from our hotel. About 15 minutes of really, slow walk.

Dengan angin sepoi-sepoi bahasa, jalan yang tak sibuk dan udara yang nyaman, it was quite a nice evening. It would have been a completely boring trip here if we had not tried to walk beyond the boundaries of our meeting venue.

Two nights ago, we went a little bit further to Charlotte Street untuk makan pancake, reason being, that's the only restaurant yang buka 24 jam. We had no choice sebab meeting habis pukul 9 malam and all the 'normal' restaurants would close at 9 or 9.30 pm. Not a bad place, tapi kami bertembung pula dengan Aussies dan NZs yang kami 'perangi' saban hari.

Mak Lijah peratikan di kawasan South Bank dan West End ini, terdapat banyak sekali restoran Asia dan dikunjungi pula oleh Mat Salleh. Restoran Vietnamlah yang paling banyak, diikuti oleh restoran makanan India. Restoran Cina, tak yah cakaplah, manakala restoran yang serves makanan berasaskan Arab seperti kebab memang banyak sekali. The nicest part is the fact that ada jugalah 3-4 restoran Malaysia di Brisbane ni.

Tomorrow would be our last day of meeting and Mak Lijah would be flying to Sydney on Sunday morning. Di sana Mak Lijah akan bertemu dengan adik angkat omputih Mak Lijah yang pernah tinggal dengan kami di Pulau Pinang selama setahun kira-kira 20 tahun lalu. Looking forward to see her and her extended family.

Nanti Mak Lijah update lagi, ok?