At the end of October, I went on a holiday to Melbourne, Australia for a week.
The Sports Writers Festival had been attracted me for a year. Last year, it was featured on The Footy Almanac, where sports diehards are contributing their sports stories, mainly AFL (Australian Rules Football) ones. I am one of Almanac writers.
Sadly I was not able to afford to attend last year, but at the end of September, I was looking Facebook news feed as always and the event information came up. My willing n was to attend bubbled up in my heart. Then it would be a good excuse to visit Melbourne as I had never been there at the time.
I was approved to be away from work and booked flights and bought event tickets.
On 25 October, I landed at Melbourne for the first time in my life. At the arrival terminal, I saw a gentleman wearing a Western Bulldogs jumper and talked to him straight and we enjoyed chatting about footy.
My mates showed me around Melbourne on my first day. We passed some sports venues by. In Richmond, some business show their supports of Richmond Tigers who won AFL premiership this year and the town hall put some Richmond player posters.
Richmond player posters
The following day, I went on a bike tour to get to know Melbourne in my favourite ways to explore, cycling, and to meet new people. We have ridden around the city and some inner city suburbs. More story of the bike tour can be found here.
On Friday, my mate took me to the sports icon of Melbourne, MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) on a tour. I learnt the history of the stadium, cricket and AFL (AFL is played from March to September and cricket is played from Novemver to March. You can find what I saw and gained knowledge at MCG here.
The weekend was filled attending the Sports Writers Festival, the main event brought me to Melbourne. I heard many positive stories of sports people as guest speakers and their passions of sports. My sense of Melbourne as the sporting capital of the world was getting bigger. I have written a blog of the conference on the Footy Almanac.
After the barbeque on Sunday night with friends, Monday was the day to see animals. My mates took me to Healesville Sanctuary in a bush about one and half hours away from Melbourne. Koalas fed tree leaves and Kangaroos were hopping and jumping. A bird show was interesting and scared some babies... It was good to see the nature.
The sporting day came back on Tuesday as we visited St Kilda Football Club's two training grounds, Seaford and Moorabbin. It was a great moment sensing me getting closer to my favourite AFL club. The trip made me happy barracking for the Saints. The great moment with more details can be read here.
By the way, the title of the blog was named with St Kilda club song "Saints go marching in". It is played at the stadium when Saints win the game. I go marching in places to see and sense and express my thoughts and what I see here on the blog, as well as strive my life goals being a professional writer in English, and support the mighty Saints passionately.
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Previously, I had created blogs on Kyo Sensational Blog featuring tourism stories, but I have decided to end it and to write more about sports, trips and public affairs on the new blog. I hope you enjoy reading my stories here. Thanks and all the best.
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