A weekend in Melbourne, “Problogger” style

 

Warning:  you are about to be photo bombed by lots of pictures …. of Melbourne and its culinary delights!  You will find none of the Problogger Event as I was way too busy taking notes and networking (don’t laugh, we introverts come out of our shells at least once a year – and for a room full of introverts, we were a pretty noisy bunch!).   Suffice to say, the weekend, and the event itself was a lot of fun – so I’ll pepper this post with all sorts of anecdotes about my experience.

Firstly, this time around, I stayed in the Chinatown hub of the Melbourne CBD (see above), at the Punt Hill apartments.   My studio apartment was  a delight to stay in – and the owners went way beyond the expectations of this budget traveller, turning down my bed every evening and making sure everything was all in order – highly recommended!

I arrived on Thursday afternoon with the gorgeous Deb from Diet Schmiet and Debbish.com – we both caught flights out at the same time, but on different airlines!

As soon as I was settled, I decided to take advantage of the plethora of Asian eateries in the area.   Of course, most dishes are listed in the Asian characters, with English underneath and my only criteria for selecting a decent Asian restaurant is to look inside and see how many people are dining there, particularly if they’re of Asian ethnicity.

I decided on Japanese and as it was rather chilly, I decided to go warm with miso soup…

followed by Beef Yakinaku.

It was filling, warm and tasty and hit the spot beautifully.

I then spent an afternoon trawling around the city, becoming enamoured by all of the pretty bicycles with flowers and baskets – as an amateur cyclist does.

Friday rolled around and I headed to Etihad Stadium for the Problogger Event and enjoyed the pre conference breakfast with Kerryn (Fitbodyfifty), Cyndie (Mslimalicious), Seana (The Mum’s Diet, Seanasmith.com), Deb (Diet Schmiet), and Kylie (Tall Poppy Project), amongst others – I do hope that I haven’t left anyone out

As an introvert, I often feel quite daunted at the prospect of sharing a room with 250 other people, let alone networking with them.  Plus, I’ll be honest and admit that being amongst many people who have really “made it” with their blogs was a little nerve wracking.  However, I could not have honestly met nicer people at the event – despite many people’s successes, they were all particularly benevolent in their sharing which really helped put me at ease.

I really enjoyed the two days of training and learned a lot.  There were a few “directions” where you could head and I leaned towards the writing books/e-books/products – so you never know, you could see an E book from me sometime in the future.  One of the speakers, Allison Tait, has an erotic e-book coming out soon.  In the meantime I’m cobbling together a story about a woman, a bike and a man with a basket of baguettes!  Probably a little tame, but who knows where it could lead.

Highlights of the conference were:

• The opening keynote by Darren Rowse, who not only is a gifted blogger, but a talented public speaker as well.  The theme was “from little things, big things grow”.  The 10% difference – it is amazing what a difference this can make when you think that there’s less than a 10% gap between first and last in an elite 100 metre sprint race.
• The tips from successful authors session which was moderated by a very capable Valerie Khoo, from the Sydney Writer’s Centre and included commentary from Kerri Sackville and Allison Tait.  I also had a great chat to Valerie about how to move on from past writing experiences and she was very encouraging, as well as providing some concrete suggestions in moving forward.
• Meeting Sarah Wilson and talking about all things sugar and gluten free at the Maha cocktail party.  I really enjoyed Sarah’s closing keynote speech about how she transitioned from traditional media to blogging so successfully and loved her underlying message about sharing abundance and gratitude as a daily habit.   OK, so I was a teensy bit thrilled when she told me she’d read my blog (sigh!).

I finished the conference feeling rather relaxed about blogging.  There’s a lot I’d like to do with my blog and much to learn, but all in good time – as Darren said, fifteen minutes a day doing something is a great start.

Speaking of things I’d like to do with my blog, I may email out a quick questionnaire regarding what you’d find useful to see here at Last Chance Training (as well as my wacky stories), so if you’d like to subscribe via email, please feel free to do so by adding your email in the box in the right hand corner.   You will need to confirm your subscription and then what happens is that my blog posts land in your email inbox to be read at your leisure.

I’m going to leave my Melbourne story here for now and continue tomorrow when I share my culinary and shopping adventures.

Have you ever been to Melbourne?

 

Tagged as: Allison Tait, Darren Rowse, Diet Schmiet, Fitbodyfifty, Kerri Sackville, Last Chance Training blog, Maha restaurant, Mslimalicious, Problogger Event 2012, Punt Hill Bourke Street, Sarah Wilson, Seana Smith, Tall Poppy Project, Valerie Khoo