Taking a: Ryde

Hey, this goes up on Christmas. Merry Christmas. 

Anyway, we come to our final suburb for the near future, here's 

Ryde 

Ryde is part of Sydney's forgotten middle. Not quite Western Sydney, and not in the North Shore. It's just, sort of, central Sydney, albeit it probably falls under Sydney's roughly defined Northern Suburbs region. 

Anyway, I kicked things off here, having dropped into the suburb earlier today to visit a new Rydian baby. 

This is a residential street right behind Top Ryde Shopping Centre, a large shopping centre which led me to always assume there was a suburb named Top Ryde (there isn't). 

So naturally, I headed that way. 

By the way, these are totally pyramid schemes right? 

Anyway, I crossed into the mall's outdoor plaza, 

partaking in some quick hopscotch, 

and finding out what products to acquire at this very pleasant outdoor area,

before I carried on through the outdoor section of the shops. 

Other highlights here include these plastic thrones, 

which love to collect rainwater, 

and whatever this is,

before I exited through to the other side. 

On this side, I came to learn that Ryde has its own little-Iran, with Persian sandwiches, sweets and restaurants dotted all up this road. 

This continued as I turned a corner onto the smaller Church Street, 

finding more restaurants, 

a Persian butcher, 

and a Persian grocer (and art). Having never been to a Persian grocer (and art) before, it seemed worthwhile taking a look,

for the dried nuts and fruit,

the muscle spices, 

perfect jelly,

teddy ketchup,

and bread. 

I think the art bit is these kitchenwares (check out the watermelon plates), 

and this great collection behind the counter. 

Also behind the counter, and which I somehow forgot to take a photo of, were some sweets and biscuits sold by weight. I ended up picking up this very tasty biscuit flavoured with cardamom, 

and to wash it down, a mint drink sounded refreshing. Perhaps obvious in hindsight, this ended up tasting like toothpaste juice. 

There's an interesting looking Persian bakery next door too. As I'd already picked up my required biscuit, I didn't drop in,

although this outdoor bread also looked incredible. 

Anyway, I mentioned that this street is called Church Street. 

Naturally, there are a couple of churches on it. This is on one side of the road, 

and this is on the other. 

That second church goes by St Annes, and as Australian churches go, is quite historic. For instance on its grounds it has Ryde's first courthouse, 

and out the front and side it has an old cemetery.

This cemetery has a number of First-Fleeters buried here, and more interestingly for me, the grave of "Granny" Maria Ann Smith, the apple lady from Eastwood who invented the Granny Smith apple. 

With that out of the way, I headed back down the way I came, 

through little-Iran, 

(still with an obligatory Korean BBQ), 

to reach this street corner. 

After crossing the road and spotting the world's longest bench (truly a thing of beauty), 

and this suit on special for $7,

it was time to drop in for lunch, and a Persian sandwich seemed a good option. 

For lunch, I shared an enormous Persian hot dog with Mrs Completing Sydney (who in usual fashion, I did not mention because it's shorter to write "I" rather than "we"). This was actually super delicious, with a a fat beef sausage, a parsley salad and pickles in a sesame-seed baguette. This is my second time enjoying Persian subway, having indulged when I completed Marylands a couple of years ago, which is how I knew that sharing would be the way to go.  

Plus, if you share your enormous sandwich, you save a bit of space for dessert. 

Yes. 

A couple of biscuits and some Turkish delight (Persian delight?) went down very well too. Since when is Ryde so delicious?

Of course, we washed it down with the remainder of the toothpaste juice. 

Anyway, from here we carried on up the road, 

past the historic pub, 

and this beautiful piece of modern art, 

to reach the borderlands between commercial and residential Ryde, 

and Ryde Park. 

This park is immense. It has a war memorial,

tropical-esque paths, 

sports fields, 

and my favourite, a tiny set of roads for kids to practice riding their bike on.

We carried on through this lovely park, 

eventually making it through to the other side. 

On the way out, I found this tremendous scroll of forbidden activites, 

with a wiggly boi doing his best. 

Ultimately, this ejected us out into suburbia,

where I did a spot of birdwatching, 

and housewatching. 

Continuing on, 

Rydian highlights are this domey house, 

this adorable house, accentuated by its candy canes, 

a cube, 

and, could it be?

My final roofy boi. 

Bonus cat. 

From here, I eventually made it back to where I started in order to call it a day. 

Ryde: Don't walk, Tehran.