Ex-Trip Day 4.9+5

An explanation for the 4.9 - we end up arriving in Brisbane on Thursday night, and we take the shuttle bus from the airport to Roma St transit station, which I swear is like Brisbane Central or something.

Anyways, after arriving, we get directions to the nearby YHA Brisbane hostel, to which we walk in the muggy evening. At this time, I hadn't realised that the first test of the Ashes were being held in Brisbane, and we pass this English guy who tells us that the place is all booked out - good thing we booked in advance ^_^ We get there, and it seems that they're having renovations being done, what with the construction fences forcing us to maneuver around to the door to reception. After checking in and paying for our time there, we get into our room, to find, surprise surprise, another guy sleeping in there. We freeze at the door, and I'm wondering "WTF why is there some random guy sleeping in our room?"
Snap back to reality, ohp there goes gravity - we realise that it's a hostel, and that we have to share rooms. A quick trip back to reception later we are armed with a padlock for keeping our valuables safe from thieves.

Anyways, after settliing into the (decidedly second-class) accomodation, we make a quick exploration before getting to sleep.

Day 5 - Friday 24th
The following day, after a sleepless night due to the humidity, we make for the train station, making a mad dash in the early morning for the train, taking a long trip down from Brisbane to Robina train station, where we took a bus to Bond University, the home campus of my good friend Jeff.

We get the bus, I take one look at the campus, and then utter a single word.
"Bastards."
The campus is an absolute beauty of a place - big water features, modern buildings, modern architecture ... I suddenly realise how much UniSA lags behind (it's still nice and cozy though, but then so is Bond) compared to this place.
We meet up with Jeff and spend an hour cruising around the campus and surrounding town before returning to Jeff's room so he could finish packing and an essay that he had to hand in before we left.

We take the bus back to Robina station in the afternoon, going back to the YHA so Jeff can check in, and stash his stuff before we hit Brisbane city to check out the nightlife. Being a Friday night, Queen St mall (I swear, it's like Rundle Mall in Adelaide, only Brisbane-ised) is thrumming with people, including rather disappointed Barmy Army members drinking away the horrendous mauling that Australia had been administering to England during the first Ashes test.
We go to see Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstatn (that's a real mouthful - and to think that I have it memorised) at the Greater Union cinema in the Queen St mall, which somehow seemed familiar. It turns out that it was the same cinema that my brother and I had visited almost two and a half years ago when we went to Brisbane as a family.
The movie itself is enjoyable, hilarious, and strongly recommended to all, particularly the scene where ... I'll stop here, so as not to spoil it for those who haven't seen the movie.

Afterwards, we ended up wandering the mall looking for a good place to eat (we ended up having Nando's - Jitz's favourite), and saw some interesting things. It's really weird, every 10m or so you walk around in Brisbane city, you'll see a 7-11. It's almost amazing how they can somehow manage to work despite being virtually next to each other.
After a nice conversation at Starbucks over frappucinoes (mine was), interspersed with watching the amusing antics of the nearby mall cleaner cleaning the escalators, we wandered back towards the hostel and our room, stopping to chat up a pair of nice Finnish backpacker girls on the way. I swear, Jeff is a natural conversationalist - we were there for an hour talking to them before we exchanged contact details (with much difficulty), and turning in for an early night.

Soon - our trip to Fraser Island, the best part of the trip in my opinion.