Earlier this month, Dispensor and I spent a few days in Melbourne for the Annual Toyfair, and he let me take some photos of the trip but I haven't had much time to share them yet.
So, over several posts, I will slowly get through them while busy with a number of other things at the moment.
I have grouped the photos into a few categories - Toyfair, food, city photos (old buildings & new buildings), and toys.

Today I'll start with some that are probably least exciting, particularly if you live in Melbourne, which is the newer buildings in the city.
Okay, bear with me on this, but after travelling to Melbourne every March since 2008, I have seen a lot of changes to the city landscape, especially in the last five years on the south-western end of the city towards where the Convention Centre is located... so it always fascinates me, as someone who only sees a short snapshot of Melbourne for a few days each year, to see the dramatic changes that occur each year, as well as over the last decade.

In particular, there were two new buildings this year that were rather eye-catching, so hopefully some of you share the same interest I have in these photos.

This year I had originally planned to spend a week in Melbourne, to do a number of things I had been putting off for a few years, but closer to the date I had a number of unexpected expenses, so had to cut it back to just 3 nights.
Saturday FEB 29th I flew down, Sunday was the first day of the Toyfair and the fan-meet, Monday was a day to myself to explore the CBD, and Tuesday APR 3rd I flew back to Brisbane after spending the day with Ian toy-hunting.
With just a week off work, I was wanting to fly down after work Friday afternoon, so that I could have a night to unwind before meeting up with Hasbro on Saturday (the Toyfair started on Sunday, so some years I am able to meet up with the Hasbro people the day before to talk about upcoming releases in Australia, or just to be introduced to someone new with the Transformers Brand in Australia). Unfortunately I couldn't get an affordable flight down to Melbourne until late at night, so decided to just do a first flight on Saturday, and pretty much go straight into the city to meet up with the Hasbro people as soon as I landed.

The hotel I stayed at this year was one I've stayed at most years, which is the Atlantis hotel on Spencer Street, because it is the most affordable for the level of comfort I prefer, has on-site parking, has a Coles across the road for munchies at any time, heaps of food outlets and restaurants, and is just 10-15 walk from the convention centre.
The interesting thing with this hotel is that over the last 7 years, the land opposite on Spencer Street, has gone from a vacant lot, to a couple of police buildings, with one completed about 3 years ago, and the other one to be finished this year.

2013 - just started work on the vacant lot.


2018 - a year or two after the first building was finished and working on the second one (I couldn't find my photos between these two years)


2020 - the completed first building, and the almost-complete second, larger building. Since there are two joining corridors midway up the buildings, I'm guessing the second one is a police building too.






When I first came to Melbourne for Toyfair 12 years ago, I don't think Spencer Street had any tall residential buildings on it, but in the last 10 years, there is at least one new one every year, so it has made the street look very crowded now.
One of the three new ones I noticed this year is this one that looks curved from a distance, but just has different sized floors on each level.








The other two new buildings on Spencer Street that weren't there a year ago.





In the city centre is the "pants" building...





This one on the southern side of the river that is still being built is very curved, with a strange ring around the middle.



Both sides of the bridge to the Convention Centre...




An alien landscape using the techspec decoder from Skylynx.


The city side of the Hotel, looking over the northern end of the CBD, with what looks to be a forest in the city.


More soon-ish...