GO For It ALL: Melting Pot?

Is New York really a melting pot of immigrants? If you had the opportunity to visit Auckland, New Zealand or Melbourne, Australia you’d disagree. Why?

New York is great in it’s own right. Yes, you can find any type of food, a host of religions being practiced, various pockets of culture, and some ethnicities intertwined with each other. But what New York lacks to call itself a melting pot is the true melting, melding, fusing of the people.

I mentioned it earlier. There are pockets. Chinatown, Koreatown, Little Italy, Chelsea, Murray Hill, Upper East Side, Greenwich Village. These are locales where cliques have been formed; communities of the same ethnic background or financial status or religious beliefs all congregated to form their neighborhoods. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But isn’t there better bond or camaraderie in the fusion and/or joining of the different peoples?

I feel like Auckland and Melbourne are more truly melting pots, where any given street (at least in the downtown area) has the diversity of New York but more integrated in common society. The Indians are next door to the Vietnamese, who share a wall with the Chinese or Malaysian who have the same customers as a typical white Australian. They all get along well together. And everyone speaks English (with a cool accent I may add). Whereas in New York, it’s highly possible that if you picked someone at random in say Chinatown, that person would not speak English. It seems like the immigrant Aussies are better adapted (at least in language) than their American immigrant counterparts.

I think this little feature of society in these two Australasian nations makes them much more attractive as a tourist and certainly as a resident. I know it would make me happy if I lived here. Just my opinion. Anyone else agree with me?

Melbourne

Just a few observations of Melbourne:

- There are a lot of homeless people. And a lot of them congregate near the train station (kind of like NY). The government should probably try to figure out how to combat this issue. (I haven't done any research if they have or not.)

- Malls, covered arcades, shopping centers are large, filled with people, and connected. Many stores repeat. Eating establishments are incorporated around the malls instead of just in a central food court. And they are immaculately clean.

- The Victoria Market is unbelievably clean for the amount of locals and tourists that venture through the numerous stalls, meat and fish markets, produce aisles, and other goods for sale. Any other city's market would have been terribly dirty or unorganized given the size of this market.

- Trams are the way to travel around downtown. They are $FREE99. And you can get anywhere because trams literally travel down each street.

- Alleyways are AWESOME! You can find the cutest cafes, food stalls, or boutique shops in any given alleyway.

- Street art is everywhere! If you don't appreciate it, this city is not for you.

We only spent 3 nights in this awesome city but it's definitely high on my list of cool cities we've traveled to in our lives. Some photos to recap our stay: