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.