Ni hao from Brisbane

Saturday, 14 March 2009

Sure, I got the good ole "g'day mates" since I arrived today. But then, I've heard more Chinese than English spoken today in Brisbane's neighborhood of Sunnybank where my host friend Wil lives. Twenty years ago, Taiwanese developers saw the potential for this area to provide affordable and ethnically appropriate housing and related services for Taiwanese immigrants. A couple malls with core tenants like Coles and Woolworth sprung up and Chinese/Taiwanese/HongKonger businesses filled the rest of the space; these make up the retail center of Sunnybank. Bubble tea, nail salons, grocery stores, and a plethora of authentic looking Asian food outlets. They're not really restaurants, more like depots, smaller in size than restaurants with outdoor seating spaces. More variety than size. Can't wait to try them all!

That's an overview of the neighborhood. Just being my plan-nerd side, I noticed a couple of things along my walk from Wil's house to the mall center and my puzzlement with Brisbane's/Queensland's climate and food production...

Discovery #1: Huge pods from tropical shade trees

Brisbane's water woes are not evident in the landscape. Huge flame of the forest trees line the neighborhood streets, shading my joyful walk with Flo. Ixora bushes and frangipani trees grow pretty well. The grass lawns look pretty Green. Oh, one finds other non-tropical trees growing well too, like the eucalyptus. Perhaps the proximity of the Brisbane river brings all that moisture and minerals that support such plant growth.




This seeming abundance of water is also reflected in the second discovery...

Discovery #2: Coco's grocery store

My roommate Anouk and I, in our foodie moments, often talk about how lucky we are in California to have such a variety of quality fresh groceries. It was a pleasant surprise stepping into Coco's grocery store in Sunnybank. It wasn't HUGE like Berkeley Bowl, but just as ALIVE with produce. Prices are comparable if not cheaper than in California. The apples - I don't even usually like apples, by the way - smell heavenly, at AU$1.60/kg. Bananas - at least 2 different types - $1.99/kg. Papayas - more expensive, but it used to be grown locally. Didn't get to explore closely to look at variety but I definitely saw some strange looking/uncommon-in-California produce.

Just what kinds of foods and agricultural products does Queensland have? I had a look at agricultural stats from Queensland Government Office of Economic and Statistical Research. Top production: sugar cane, cerals and legumes, crops and pastures for hay, cotton, peanuts and oilseeds, and tobacco. Top value production includes fruits (mainly bananas, citrus, pineapples) and vegetables (potatoes, tomatoes), amounting AU$2.5 billion out of total value of production of AU$9.5 billion. It shall be my mission to inquire more into where the food here comes from.

I'll post more discoveries and puzzlements from Brisbane soon.