Sydney's Darling Harbour will soon boast the city's largest and most expensive playground. Work has started on the 4000 square metre playground in front of the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre

It will feature a large climbing rope structure, a sand pit with digging implements, a flying fox and a giant slide. More than 28 million people visit Darling Harbour in the city's centre each year.

And the new playground is expected to attract more visitors to the area, NSW minister for planning Tony Kelly said. The $NZ10.38 million playground is part of the $A500 million redevelopment of Darling Walk by Lend Lease and the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority.

For the first time in recent memory, the average price of a hotel room in New York City is less than $200 a night.

Prices are also down in Honolulu, Hawaii, a destination for the kind of lengthy vacations that mainlanders are cutting back on these days.

Across the U.S., the most expensive cities to travel to are also where prices are dropping the most.

Where prices are highest, there's more room to drop. And deals have been the order of the day in 2009 as hotel chains battled a rough economy and falling occupancy rates. Hotels are a lot like houses or airplane seats. Build too many of them during flush times, and you're left with too much capacity. As demand falls off during a recession, prices drop.

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BARNET boasts five of the country's most exclusive streets, according to a survey out today. Five of the most expensive streets in the UK fall within the borough boundaries, according to the Mouseprice street rankings. Ingram Avenue in Hampstead Garden Suburb is the second most expensive road in the country, with an average house price of £6,085,800.

Nearby Winnington Road is in sixth place with an average house price of £5,386,00, and The Bishops Avenue is 16th, with homes a snip at £4,754,700. The streets are also bordered by Courtenay Avenue, which falls into the borough of Haringey, which is third in the list.

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 After Mikhail Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire, lost £36million deposit on the most expensive villa in the world, we decided we would look into the extravagance of the world’s most expensive homes. From ballrooms to bowling alleys, orchards to iris scanners, entourage rooms to panic rooms, acres of gardens to gold-leaf bathrooms, this list has it all.

This is how the other half live…1) “Antilla”, Mumbai - $1billion.This 27-story, 40,000 sq/ft tower, pictured above, where no two floors are the same, is the unique and extravagant creation of owners Mukesh and Nita Ambani. Costing more than a hotel or high-rise, due to its custom measurements and fittings, it comes complete with a six-story car park and actually begins on the ninth floor.

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The most expensive Pinotage, a blend of pinot noir and hermitage grapes, from South Africa, has just been released according to Decanter, a prestigious wine magazine. Kanonkop Black Label Pinotage 2006, from the renowned Stellenbosch farm, has sold out of its first 600 bottles at R1000 (€95) and will release 400 more in March; the price is yet to be determined. Johann Krige, owner of Kanonkop, told Decanter, "2007 will be released in September this year and the 2008 in March next year".

Krige plans to sell 2012 "En primeur, Bordeaux style" and "develop a secondary market" by introducing the Kanonkop Black Label Pinotage 2012 in November to investors and the press while the wine is still in barrel. According to Decanter, "the next priciest Pinotage is the Ashbourne 2005 from Hamilton Russell Vineyards, retailing in Cape Town for R424 [€55] a bottle."

The release of the Apple iPhone 3GS SUPREME Rose – a jewel-clad iPhone that costs a staggering £1.93 million – making it the most expensive phone ever seen, got us thinking about phones that nobody wants or needs. Granted, none can match the SUPREME Rose in the cost stakes, but if you want to know more about diamond-encrusted smartphones then read on…

Some of the handsets we’ve gathered together below certainly outdo the Apple iPhone 3GS SUPREME Rose when it comes to ‘in-yer-face’ styling – indeed, the SUPREME Rose is actually quite restrained in its design – but nothing can come close to matching the vulgar £1.93 million price tag.

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Moving up by one position this year, Mumbai has become the world’s fifth most expensive office space location, according to a report by Cushman & Wakefield. Mumbai’s Nariman Point’s has a per sq ft rate of $107 surpassing those of New York Midtown, Moscow and Paris CBDs (commercial Bussiness districts). These are the findings of.

A report released by Cushman & Wakefield comparing office occupancy costs in 132 key locations in 63 countries around the world. Tokyo which has a takes the top slot has a per sq ft rate of $190 followed by London West End, Hong Kong CBD and Dubai CBD. Besides Nariman Point, Worli in Mumbai and the New Delhi CBD also figure in the top ten expensive locations in Asia.

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Ever wondered what a $100 million can buy you? A posh house? An SUV? How about a gadget? Yes, in fact you will need much more to buy these gadgets then you would to buy a posh house or an expensive car!

With designers extending their midas touches to the world of gadgetry, you have gadgets like mobile phones, cameras, MP3 players, TV and more costing over a few hundred million dollars,

Sizzling both in features and looks, these gadgets stand for luxury. Here's over to the gadgets for the deep pocketed.Ever wondered which is the most expensive PC on the Earth? Its Earth Simulator built by Japanese company NEC. The system was developed for JAXA, JAERI, and JAMSTEC in 1997 for running global climate models to evaluate the effects of global warming and problems in solid earth geophysics.

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The first position in this rating holds “Soliris” made by Alexion Pharmaceutical. The annual course of curing costs 409 000 USD. This drug helps those who suffer of the unique disorder of immune system: losing red blood cells while sleeping (paroxysymal nocturnal hemoglobinuria). There are 8 000 persons in the USA who have this sickness. Soliris appeared on market two years ago and last year its sales were almost 300 million USD.

There are only 500 persons in the USA who suffers of genetic illness called Hunter’s syndrome. The second level of expensiveness belongs to the medicine necessary in such cases “Elaprase” produced by Shire Pharmaceuticals that costs $375 000 per year. The third most expensive medicine in the USA is “Naglazyme” by BioMarin Pharmaceuticals. It helps in case of rare disorder of metabolic processes and costs $365 000 per year.

When people talk about expensive drugs, they usually are referring to drugs like Lipitor for high cholesterol ($1,500 a year), Zyprexa for schizophrenia ($7,000 a year) or Avastin for cancer ($50,000 a year). But none of these medicines come close to making Forbes' exclusive survey of the most expensive medicines on the planet.

The nine drugs on our list all cost more than $200,000 a year for the average patient who takes them. Most of them treat rare genetic diseases that afflict fewer than 10,000 patients. For these diseases, there are few if any other treatments.

So biotech companies can charge pretty much whatever they want.Alexion Pharmaceutical's Soliris, at $409,500 a year, is the world's single most expensive drug. This monoclonal antibody drug treats a rare disorder in which the immune system destroys red blood cells at night. The disorder, paroxysymal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH), hits 8,000 Americans. Last year Soliris sales were $295 million. Since Alexion started selling Soliris two years ago, its stock price is up 130%.

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