Melbourne, Australia

Melbourne, one of the most beautiful city's in the world. I have traveled through the USA, Canada & the Bahamas, and still, I find Melbourne is the greatest.

In 1981 I was born in a New South Wales mid-coast town of Port Macquarie. I lived there until I was the age of four, and that's when we made the move to Victoria.

I grew up in Kew, a suburb of Melbourne, not far from the actual city. Most of my family lived there, and was the main cause for the move. I went to school and met lots of friends. Nearly every night my friends and I would get together and go to the local car park and roller-blade for a few hours before going to 7-11 for a Slurpee.

I look back at those days, and see how Melbourne was in the 80's and early 90's. Old buildings and great friendly people. Still, Melbourne has all of this, as well as new developments, such as new multi-million dollar entertainment complex's. Over the past 5 years, Melbourne have brought us the all new Exhibition Building and of course, the Crown Casino. This was a great move for the Kennett government, as it proved to be successful with the un-employment problem. It didn't stop the problem, but it sure did help it. The casino complex is not only for gambling, it is also a great place for teenager's to go the movies or even the special area for arcade games, sort of a side show alley. Crown also contains 2 nightclubs and is host to many international bands.

In 1997, the decision was made to start construction of the Docklands stadium, for football and cricket, much bigger then the MCG. Construction is underway and it should be complete in the year 2000.

As well as all these new constructions, Melbourne is home to a lot of well known events. The Ford Australian Tennis Open, is one of the biggest with thousands of international visitors annually. Biggest of them all, has got to be the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix. It was only a few years ago that Melbourne got this wonderful event, as it used to be held in the streets of Adelaide. It is now located along the banks of Albert Park Lake. Moomba is an event which every Victorian, cant wait for. Its an annual event, held at the same time as the Grand Prix, and has been biggest festival since around the early 60's. Melbourne comes alive, with the sound and vision of Fireworks, and laser light shows, as well as the international Moomba Masters Water Skiing championships.

Melbourne is a very diverse area in cultural aspects. Different areas are dominated by different cultures. If you feel like a trip to China, well China Town in Little Bourke St, in the city, or Richmond, is a place to go to get the feel of that culture. The Italian dominated area would be Lygon St in Carlton, with extremely good restaurants and great hospitality.

A approval, recently was given to Grollo (a building company), to build the worlds tallest Building in the heart of Melbourne. This building, "The Grollo Towers" will be 560 meters high with 113 levels, which will take 70 seconds to reach the top in an elevator. The tower will provide views up to as far as 90kms on a clear day. It will also have a 110m light beacon on the top shooting skyward. This building would be 110 meters taller then the current tallest building, which is the "Petronas Towers" in Kuala Lumpur. I personally think this will be a great thing for Melbourne in the future, for tourism.

From all of the above, Melbourne is the best city in the world in my eyes, and is developing more and more every single day, to become a better place.