A Little of Everything: Lidcombe

It's time for yet another stop in Sydney's West with my 200th suburb (woo)!

Lidcombe

On my last post, I was exploring the sights and sounds of Homebush West. To save myself the walk to my next suburb, I hopped on the train for a single stop, alighting at Lidcombe.

Lidcombe's actually a fairly well connected station, with services to the western, inner western and southwestern suburbs, express trains to the city, and the shuttle train to Olympic Park. This means the station tends to be fairly busy, even on a cloudy Sunday like when I dropped by.

This is another suburb split by the railway tracks. I chose to start my exploration by heading north from the station. As you leave, you'll find the local casino and taxi rank,

as well as a road into the suburb's commercial hub.

Lidcombe CBD, while being rather quiet, is a reasonably interesting place to have a stroll through due to its diversity.

Within a small stretch, I spotted the smooth curves of the Ukrainian Youth Centre,

a milk bar offering up nostalgic vibes,

while sitting underneath a heritage building,

this colourful Asian grocer,

featuring a small child snacking,

and your fair share of Asian and other eateries,

including one selling "live sashimi". Is it a case of eat them before they eat you?

Not unusual, but also adding to the interesting mishmash that makes up Lidcombe are the stacks of new apartments which have popped up,

as well as this interesting church.

I headed back towards the station to check out Lidcombe from the south.

On the way, I passed this bizarre rundown house Japanese restaurant.

Once I crossed the station, I found that Lidcombe CBD extends to this side too, with more shops and restaurants carrying over.

Korean is the main flavour up this way, with barbecue, beauty salons and grocers with Korean script on their signs.

Having just had lunch in my previous suburb, sadly there was no Korean BBQ on the agenda for me today.

I continued on, finding the boarded up brick and sandstone of what was apparently once Lidcombe Post Office.

Charlie Chaplin has started a Korean karaoke place here too, which is good to know.

Just down from Charlie's post office is a small park, featuring a well-kept garden and war memorial.

Rather than continue through the park though, I deviated towards some less-than-beautiful suburbia, heading to a specific point of interest.

Crossing the busy Olympic Drive,

I headed west through the houses,

to a surprising jewel in the distance.

Tucked amongst the modest homes of Lidcombe is an incredible Russian Orthodox Church.

Gorgeous.

With that out of the way, I retraced my steps,

past the park,

and continued on to unchartered lands.

Here, the hodgepodge that is Lidcombe continues, with some pretty older houses,

some of their less pretty brethren,

and, yes, plenty of apartments too.

At the end of this road, I found the first lavender coloured church I've ever seen,

and a fence marking the border of this suburb and my next.

To get through this fence and leave Lidcombe, I had to walk parallel to it for a short distance. On that walk, I found nothing of interest, except for this pickle factory. As a person who enjoys pickles: keep it up Lidcombe.