Good Bloggers Group Shot

Front Row (L-R)          Middle Row (L-R)        Back Row (L-R)Ben                                          Deb                                         Lisa
Amy                                         Kate                                       Talia
Dani                                         Olivia
Zoe                                          Danielle
Hayley                                      Lisa
Me                                           Amy
                                                Suger 

 After filming my vlog, I hopped on a bus into the Valley for the Hello Blogger Events blog meet. Thanks to some pre-Google Maps checking, I found the restaurant surprisingly easily. Garuva Hidden Tranquility Restaurant was amazing! A really intimate atmosphere, great food and drinks and a really unique dining set up. I’m ashamed to admit I was a little scared walking in the entrance by myself as there is this little bridge surrounded by waterfalls and rainforest that you have to cross to enter the restaurant.

Sounds lovely right? Well yeah, except it reminded me of this ride I went on at the Big Pineapple when I was little where this animatronic crocodile came out of some dark rainforest and opened its mouth really wide and made this scary noise right at the side of your boat. Well…this entrance kinda gave me flashbacks of that and it kinds creeped me out…I was actually half waiting for something to jump out at me. Loser.


But I digress…I found almost everyone already waiting in the cocktail bar so I grabbed a drink and we all headed to our private booth. This is where the other amazing part of the restaurant comes in. You sit on the floor with a short table covering your legs and your private room is screened off by sheer curtains. Combined with the low lighting, it was beautiful. I’m sure with a special someone it would be a really romantic night but it kinda made me feel sleepy. So I had to have a margarita, you know, to wake me up and that.

The food was great and the beauty of dining with a group means lots of different things to share. There were lots of yummy bits and pieces but my favourite was the chicken karaage (which I always like) and the tempura vegetables, oh my gosh they were good! They came with the yummiest dipping sauce and I swear I could eat a whole meal of them – which, coming from a girl who LOVES her meat, is really saying something!


After another cocktail and lots of fun chats and possibly slightly too loud laughter we vacated our booth for the next sitting and set off to find a place to hang out. We couldn’t really find anywhere that suited everyone and that wasn’t so loud we wouldn’t be able to talk so we ended up just chilling out at Gloria Jeans.

While we were at the restaurant and had my eye on one of their amazing dessert cocktails, a Cookies and Cream one, but we had to go before I could get one. I was a little sad face about this until we stopped at Gloria Jeans and consoled myself with a Cookies and Cream Chiller complete with whipped cream and sprinkles. It’s a drink, not dessert…so that’s ok right? RIGHT.

After a treacherous trip to the foul public toilets in Brunswick St Mall, we sanitised ourselves and settled in for some hilarious conversations at the round table of Gloria Jeans. For some reason, the topic strayed (and then stayed…for a while…and a good few days afterwards) to toilet paper. We discussed scrunching v. folding, the importance of proper storage and the optimum number of sheets among other matters of global importance. We were laughing so loud I half expected the people at Gloria Jeans to ask us to leave, but I guess being open so late in the valley we were the least of their worries!

Naughty Bloggers Group Shot


The hours flew by and before I knew it, it was time to go home. A very big thank you to Danielle of 5 Little Reasons for driving me home so that I didn’t have to catch the bus. These girls (and guys) are so awesome. It really restores my faith in humanity that a bunch of people who’ve never met can go out to dinner, have such a good time and be so kind as to be doing favours for people. That’s my kinda people. That’s the people I wanna give my time to. Thanks to everyone for making the night so much fun and a big thanks to Dani of Hello Owl for organising such an amazing meet. And thanks to Suger and Talia for letting me use (read steal) your images.