I Live Here: Surry Hills

I'm back! With restrictions starting to ease in NSW, I'll be getting back into things. At first, I'm going to just go back with one post per week. This will be my first regular post again, and I'll be posting every Sunday after that.

I'm usually a heavy user of public transport for this blog, and I'm choosing not to spend as much time on public transport as before, hence the reduced posting frequency for now. We'll see how we go and hopefully I can ramp back up sooner rather than later.

Anyway.

Surry Hills

Surry Hills is a suburb immediately next to Sydney's CBD. It's notable for being a suburb full of yuppies, hipsters, housos, and the apartment that I live in. 

It was a fine Saturday afternoon in this pandemicked world, so I grabbed Mrs Completing Sydney and went for a reasonably-excused walk of our neighbourhood.

The rest of this post will pale in comparison to this excellent mild vandalism where I started my walk. It's so damn cute.

Following this street along leads to the aesthetic point where Central Station meets the new CBD Light Rail.

Here, you get what almost feels like a town square, as well as city views, access to Sydney's most important station, and a pub or two.

Follow the path and you get to Prince Alfred Park, a lovely city park. 

But we didn't do the park initially, as I apparently had something very important to be shown, just up the road. 

"Look, it's Stuart Little's house".

I can't say that I don't see the resemblance. 

Anyway, from Stuart's house, we did head into Prince Alfred Park. This is perhaps my favourite spot in all of Surry Hills, featuring grass and trees, walking paths, basketball courts, the local pool, 

and a fairly cracking view. 

Continuing on, we headed into the parts more people think of when they think Surry Hills,

with a mixture of terraces and apartments,

pop-up art galleries,

this suspcious door,

and leafier streets than you may expect for such an urban area.

We then headed into my second favourite Surry Hills spot, this alley.

Why do I like an alley comprised entirely of residential carpark roller doors?

It's all in the name.

We exited the butt and continued on for more Surry Hills scenery.

This landed us back on the light rail line, albeit upstream.

This is where Surry Hills' blocks of public housing cross paths with the suburb's multi-million dollar terraces.

I also enjoyed seeing this Bert-and-Ernie shopfront duet.

Keep swimming upstream and you'll pass Surry Hills' actual light rail station,

a local church where you can request your favourite prayers,

painted facades,

an autumn-painted streetscape,

and this guy's cute window.

The Surry Hills shenanigans just kept coming.

Between the warehouse apartments,

anarchist propaganda,

and people queueing up for bread, in scenes reminiscest of the fall of the Soviet Union.

In general, I find Surry Hills to be an interesting place to photograph,

to the point where I'm struggling to describe every little interesting corner that I see.

Turning off the rail line leads to Surry Hills' main commercial strip on Crown Street. 

Here, the hipster horseshit comes out in full steam. You can start at the clothes stores where you can spend $500 to look homeless,

before moving onto this barber which is also a cafe for some reason. 

If that doesn't tickle your fancy, you can instead have an organic haircut just up the road.

Also on Crown Street is Surry Hills Library, this impressive glass cube.

Of course, Crown Street is also full of cafes. 

I've previously shared my thoughts of cafe culture back in Alexandria (I think it's a bit crap) so we continued on through Crown Street. 

Eventually, the hipster industries subsided, leaving me at an attractive looking public school,

neighbouring a house with a concerning level of faith in engineering,

Soon, Surry Hills ended and our walk continued into the next suburb.

Surry Hills: Interesting streetscapes, manufactured hipster culture, and city skyline views.