Book Review: The Heavenly Man

I just finished reading a great book called 'The Heavenly Man'. It chronicles the life of Liu Zhenying, known as Brother Yun, who is a Chinese Christian. Brother Yun was put in prison multiple times and brutally tortured for his faith and love in Jesus Christ. He also experience many miracles while in prison, including an incredible escape. Brother Yun talks about how the Chinese church grew under persecution and how his time in prison helped him grow closer to God. It was amazing to read how God works through those that surrender themselves to Him completely. It also made me realize how much we take our freedoms for granted and how our freedoms sometimes can lead us away from God instead of to Him. Brother Yun's story is inspiring, challenging, and definitely worth the time to read.

Youth Alive Queensland

I went to Youth Alive yesterday night. It was large Christian concert/conference for the youth of the Queensland. I ended up riding on bus with a bunch of local high school and jr high kids. I was asked a lot of questions and told to say a few different words :) There ended up being about 9 or 10 thousand people at the concert. There was a great worship band and they had a hip-hop group called the Nubian Gents there that danced. One of the speakers there was a guy named Nick Vujicic, who doesn't have any limbs. He told some funny stories and gave a great testimony. The kids really seemed to love him. I ended having a great time at the concert listening to music and hanging out with some of kids.

A Night at West End

Went to a part of Brisbane called West End last night. It is an older area with a lot of little cafes and boutique style shops lining the road. I was told it was place you don't want to wander around at night by yourself. Seemed pretty safe to me. I had to catch a train to West End and it was packed, apparently there was a rugby game being played last night. Riding the train was an experience in itself. I ended up talking to these two guys on their way to the game just due to the fact that I was standing right on top them. Once I got to West End we ended up eating at a little coffee cafe called 'The Three Monkeys'. They served largely Italian style dishes and of course different types of coffee. One of the interesting things about restaurants here is that they are B.Y.O. which means you can bring your own alcohol in. So people were wandering around the restaurant with bottles of wine. I had a pretty good little pizza and great mocha. After dinner we walked to a place called the 'Pavallion'. It was a pool hall/bar/resturant which had a live band playing. The bands name was 'Jabba' and they weren't to bad. Played a game of pool and found out they play a little differently over here, so I got a few funny looks and was kindly told the correct way to play :) After the game we called it night.

A Walk Downtown

I spent most of the day Wednesday wandering around downtown Brisbane. I visited the Queensland Museum and Queensland Art Gallery. I also walked down Queens Street which is a huge shopping area. There is botanical garden that runs along the north side of the river which I walked through as well. The Parliment House is near the botanical garden so I walked over to take a look, however there was some sort of protest going out front making it difficult to a good look.

ANZAC Biscuits

Tried another Australian culinary favorite today. ANZAC biscuits. These are an army biscuit and are quite hard. They are pretty good though. It is best to have them with something to drink. Hit this link for a recipe. Enjoy!

Bike Around Brisbane

Rick picked me on his Ninja tonight to take me for a ride around the town. I haven't been on a motorcycle in who knows how long and to be honest I was a little nervous, but it ended up being great fun. I may need to get bike when I get back. I spent the night hanging out with a few of the guys I met at Garden City church.

Mount Coolum

There are a few mountains in the area, most are old volcanoes. I hiked up one called Mount Coolum today. It only took about 30 minutes to make in to the top, but once there you get a great view of the area. Mount Coolum is only a few km from the coast so from the top you can see the ocean and beaches for miles. On the other side of the mountain you can see the river snake through the country side. It was quite an impressive and beautiful view. Today is the first day that I am finally feeling better

Pavlova - The Great Australian Dessert

Tried a favorite dessert of Australians today. Pavlova. It is a meringue cake made with fresh fruit. Crispy on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside. Here is a link to a recipe for all those that are curious. It is quite tasty.

Eumundi, Noosa Heads

Every Wednesday and Saturday in a town called Eumundi there are markets for people to sell their art, so Dave and I headed down there. Eumondi is little bit of a hippie town. It was very quaint and built up in the hills. The market was packed today with people. We wandered around here for a little while looking at the art and listening to people play music. I got a bit of breakfast as well.

After the markets we headed to down to a costal town called Noosa. The beach at Noosa was great. The sand here is very fine and quite soft to walk in. The water was still a little to cold to get in and it was breezy and cool so I didn’t swim I just waded in a little. There was national park nearby so we drove up there and walked up a path to point where you can look out across the ocean.

Australia Zoo - Home of the Crocodile Hunter

Got up early today and got all packed up to go spend a few days up north. Luke dropped me off at a hotel in Brisbane and a bus going to Australia Zoo picked me up. It took a little over an hour to drive up to the zoo and along the way which watched a video of Steve Irwin’s life.

The zoo was pretty good. There is a large arena called the Crocoseum where they hold the animal shows. The first show was about snakes. The second show they brought out the tigers and basically played with them. The third show was a bird show where they brought out some of the tropical birds from the area. The birds just fly free and come within inches of your head sometimes. The last show was the crocodile show. They brought out one crocodile and feed him. They did manage to coax him into jumping out of the water a few times. After the shows I wandered around the zoo. There are two large areas in the zoo where kangaroos roam and you are able to pet and feed them. There are also a couple of areas where you can pet koalas as well. I saw some dingoes, emus, cassowaries, Tasmanian devils, a large coastal hawk, and some wombats. There was also a large display of Australian snakes. It took a few hours to see the zoo and by about 4 o’clock was I ready to go.

Another Day Down Under

Didn't do much today. Headed over to the Hyderdome to due a little shopping. I will be going to the Australia Zoo tomorrow. Luke arranged a bus ride up to the zoo for me. A friend of Lukes, David Allan, is going to pick me from the zoo and show me around the Sunshine coast for a few days.

Church and New Friends

Woke up and took a little walk down to the park where I read and relaxed. I am still not feeling all that well. I came back from the park to find Luke and the family back from church. I watched my first AFL (Australian Football League) rugby game which uses Australian Rules. They refer to it as ’footy’ over here. It was Brisbane against Sydney and Sydney destroyed Brisbane. One of the players on Brisbane ended up with a broken leg. After the AFL game we watched another rugby game that uses the ‘Rugby League’ rules.. This game was not as fast paced as the AFL game but it is definitely more fun to watch than an NFL game. Of the two I enjoyed the AFL game the most.

Luke got a hold of a couple that he is doing marriage counseling for to see if they could take me to church tonight. Their names are Rick and Kristy. Rick is really into bikes and works at Tyco. Kristy is a fully time student studying to be social worker. I met their friend Brett before church started. Brett is also into bikes and he runs his own barber shop. I enjoyed the service at Garden City Church, I even knew most of the worship songs. The pastor spoke about going past our limits and really talked about the church going out into the community. About midway through the service another friend of Rick and Kristy’s showed up, her name was Kylie. I talked with Kylie after the service and found out she is a school chaplain. Apparently over here at the principals request schools can have a chaplain. It is sort of like a counseling position, but they can talk about God. All in all a good night.

A Day of Recovery

Took a walk down to the park along the Logan River. The park is called Riverside. It had walking track all around the park, with benches where you can stop and sit and enjoy the river. It was a pretty nice day, warm with a breeze. I met Luke and Tiffany's oldest daughter Ellen today. She was staying with her grandparents yesterday so I didn't meet her when I arrived. Took a walk with Luke and the family around the neighborhood later in the night. I think I am coming down with a little cold and I still haven’t really recovered from my flight.

Arrived In Brisbane

I made it to Brisbane. I am officially in the land down under, Australia. The flights over here were pretty uneventful. The flight from PHX to LA was packed. Upon reaching LAX I just had to exit terminal one and walk down to terminal two. Not having any checked bags makes it pretty easy to move from place to place. I found the Air Zealand ticket counter, got my ticket, made it through security, and proceeded to wait for 1.5 hours. Upon boarding the 747-400 I found my seat and it was on the aisle toward the middle of the plane. I didn’t have anyone seating to the right me so I was able to spread out a little. Pretty much right after take off they shut the lights off and people started to go asleep. In the row in front of me there was a mother with a baby and small little girl. Surprisingly the baby didn’t cry to much. There were a lot of Australians and New Zealanders on board. One thing I noticed was that they are a pretty helpful crowd. People came up and offered to hold the baby or take the little girl for a walk around the plane. Watched a few movies and got a couple hours of the sleep. The total flying time to New Zealand was about 12.5 hours.

Arrived at the Auckland airport and it was gray and rainy outside so I didn’t get to see much of NZ. I walked around the airport a little since I had about 2 hours to kill. The airport itself is not very big but they have a huge mall you can walk through, most of it is duty free shops. The plane we are flying to Brisbane on is the same one we flew over to NZ on. I got on board and found my seat, it was right across from where I was sitting before, the only difference was I had the whole row to myself. Read for a little while and took about an hour nap.

Arrived at the Brisbane airport. Walked down to the Customs line. I should have asked Luke for his address since they wanted to know where I was staying. Luckily I wrote down Luke’s phone number and that was good enough. A custom agent came up after I finished showing my passport and proceeded to ask me questions and escorted me to get my bags searched. She was very nice and it didn’t take long to search through my two bags, in fact I think it ended up getting me through the security checkpoint quicker. I had nothing to hide :) After repacking my bags I walked out of the terminal and began looking for Luke. About 5 minutes later he found me.
We swung by the place where Luke’s wife Tiffany works to pick her up. It ended up being a bridal shop. Luke youngest daughter Teaghan was also was there. While waiting for Tiffany to finish up, we took a little walk through Stones Corner which is shopping district. While we were out walking Luke had a key made for me so I could come and go from the house.

We ended up going to lunch out at the Hyperdome. The Hyderdome is essentially a mall. After lunch we headed back to their place. I have my own room with a nice size bed and plenty space for all of my stuff :) I managed to stay up to about 9:30pm before deciding that it was late enough and I could go to bed.