Lorne conference 11-14th feb 2010

                        
The 1st conference I attended was in Lorne, Victoria, one of the famous coastal town along the FAMOUS Great Ocean Road. How good is that?? haha. Heard my colleagues praising bout the location. I guessed the most exciting part was, my lab colleagues/postdoc and other colleagues from other labs in the department went to the same conference. While some organize their own accommodation but we had Andrew to help get us a FANCY apartment to stay throughout the conference. All in all, it was an informative and relevant conference, gained new knowledge, saw the “people” whose names I have always read on the scientific journal articles. Most important, we all had heaps fun!!!


My first sight of Melbourne city was from air!!!!




Touched down in Melbourne Tullamarie airport, jesus, YOU GOT TO PAY to use a trolley and it’s 4$!!!
We were all directly transfered on a coach to Lorne after landing.
 


I must said I was quite excited to attend this conference, plus its location along the great ocean road make it even more exciting. However, the weather wasn’t great at all throughout the conference. And even though the Great ocean road started somewhere after Geelong, the view from the airport to Lorne wasn’t as pretty as I expected (seen too much of the 12 apostles ad, lol), thanks to the weather too.



The ride to Lorne was quite twisty, but not too bad. Also, apparently, the more scenic view of the Great ocean road start after Lorne, so it’s fair that I didn’t get to see anything heaps pretty.



Thanks to Andrew for making it so easy for us to quickly settle down in the apartments we rented once we reached Lorne. The apartment was awesome with huge mega plasma, big rooms, with each room comes either a PS3 or xBox or Nintendo Wii!!! How good was that!!!
Went up to the lady’s apartment which one floor above ours, theirs was not as luxurious as ours but have this AWESOME balcony offering vista view of the ocean in front!!!


A walk around bit and to the market to stock up bit, then it’s time to attend the conference at mantra resort for the afternoon session and then dinner at a nearby restaurant.

 
 

And when we were free from the conference at night, we made GOOD USE of the facilities offered, LOL.  Andrew and Phil love playing the Wii which i have only touched for the 1st time while there, LOL.
 

Other than conference, tried very hard to squeeze out some time during the intervals to tour around the town. The unlucky thing was the weather didn’t improve much on the following days. But the town was quite nice, quite bit, but certainly have some nice cafes to hang out and definitely long stretch of beaches which is why this town if famous among surfers.
 

One of the most interesting building to see in Lorne :)


Heaps of surfers preparing to surf!!!



Clouds hovering above Lorne…



Saw this lady with her 2 cute doggies while walking the lorne piers, really nice dogs to keep u accompany!!!
 
 





Was trying to BUY time to try to get to a high vantage point in Queen’s park, have to walk jauh gila considering the amount of time i have for intervals, in the end walked and walked, still not reach the vantage point, turned back and was late for the 1st session talk, lol.


But i enjoyed that day’s walk, it was sunnier than the previous days, and saw and snaps some nice photos i like, lol.

Like this one below, the little cottage house looked SO NICE with all the greens around!!!!!


And this one My favourite photo from Lorne!!!!



The following day was a sunny day, at least considered quite good, but again with the tight conference schedule, there’s not much free time. Most people went swimming in the pool, play tennis, lawn ball,…etc



Dan Thomas ( science genius) was kind enough to borrow a car from his car to bring me and Phil to see the Erskine falls of the Great Otway National park nearby.


It was a really tall waterfall as you can judge for yourself from the pics below :) It is a pretty fall, thanks, Dan!!!


Man (Phil) VS Nature, LOL.



Some more photo shooting, was trying to figure out how to capture the rusty old feeling of this house, obviously I failed, lol. Was obsessed a bit with trying to shoot photos like Jenny Sun photography, lol.
 

The interesting hotel design again on a clear weather!!



Final day of conference, it’s nice to have chatting with people :)
 

Then it’s Big feast time, lol. The girls organize the purchasing, while the boys did the bbQ!!


This time we have everyone from the same department over our place, it’s really a great atmosphere n fun time to hang around these ppl, lol.


Mel and Tamara getting excited to go dancing in the resort after dinner!!!!
 

It’s such a funny yet memorable time watching everyone enjoying and dancing including myself, LOL.

 

That weirdo in blue shirt was quite a scary guy that kept wanting to dance with Xiao, got Xiao scared (even looking back at the pictures still gave me the chills too!!!! )and we all have our chances to dance with Xiao to prevent the guy from getting near Xiao, LOL. Obviously, he have a couple, and was bit drunk, lol. Xiao, u still attracts guys!!! u rocks, lol.

 
 

Time to go back, Andrew found this strange game, i think was for testing u speaking the truth or lies, lol, but it’s really a strange thingy!!!


In the bus, can’t believe Mel was still working hard and got back to reality so fast!!! She was looking at a grant application, while Tamara was holding?? a girl’s magazine!!!! LOL
 

Must be wondering why i put up this photo and blow it?? actually wanted to show the price of the malaysian food on the display board within the airport!!!

Anyway, if you can’t see, it’s $14.30 for Malaysian chicken curry, omg!!!!
 


Flying across flat flat land for agriculture or live stocks which cover most of South Australia.
 

Adelaide city view from air!!! Actually looked quite a nice city!!! Back to reality again, LOL.