welcome to the new town

On Friday, I moved to a new part of Sydney. Newtown is incredibly diverse and vibrant. Coldplay even filmed a video here on King Street.

I'm staying at an AirBnB run by Ravi, who several years ago, alarmed by the plight of immigrants, turned his family living room into Parliament on King, a bookstore, cafe, salon, art studio, and community center. It's a modern-day Shakespeare & Company, and everyone wanders by in the course of a day.

The cafe is literally a social enterprise. You can rent it out. 

You can request a private catered dinner for 20 of your friends from an asylum-seeking chef.

Or just come drink iced coffee and housemade kombucha, and learn all the neighborhood gossip. Random people drop by, some of them regulars, others for the first time. Bebe might turn the disco ball on. Hani might start to dance.

If you sit still, Chin Chin the parakeet will perch on you, or take a bath.

There are bands playing on street corners. You can get your hair cut at Mister Hipster or drop by the button store or any of the lash salons.

King Street in Newtown is like Fitzroy in Melbourne or the East Village or Bermondsey, a combination of funky and up and coming with already arrived.

The neighborhood is adorable. Yesterday we dropped by a garage fundraiser for the firies: shockingly, the Rural Fire Service in Australia, fighting unprecedented blazes in the mountains to the west and south, is largely staffed by volunteers.

I'd never seen pink plumeria before. Everything is in bloom here.

Wish I had a neighbor with all these avocados. The house itself is very peaceful. Shades of Turrell.

Like the bookstore, the rental is full of books and Corningware my mother had.

Sacks of coffee beans get a new life in the yard.

You can feel the neighborhood evolving in real time. They have fantastic vintage shops, as good as Artifact in Portland, which forced me to buy a whole new suitcase.

Come. Take a stroll. Stay a while.

You'll never get bored.

Some newcomers have objected to bars staying open all night. The neighborhood pushed back.

There's terrific streetart and murals everywhere you look.

I don't know why MLK is here, but he is. The smaller dream mural to the right alludes to the aboriginal concept of dreaming.

Despite the name, Newtown is old. Lots of good bones for that Thai restaurant or record store or sound healing studio you've always dreamed of opening.

There are Instagram kids following the mural trail and stopping at their favorite bakeries. Okay, so one of them was me.

The best/most ridiculous of all is Black Star. 

It's not like I too didn't want to try everything in the case. But I had to get what we'd all come for: the strawberry watermelon slice.

I got it to eat in, but there wasn't anywhere to sit, so I found a bench. Two Japanese girls of no more than 22 sat next to me and unwrapped their black star boxes like Christmas presents from Tiffany. Truly from the sublime to the delicious.

Today I headed downtown to see the Powerhouse Museum, a collection of science and design. On the way, I discovered a food court and several blocks of restaurants that felt like I'd been transported to Singapore or Shanghai. The building above is one of a series of new library branches!

 Combo laksa for the win.

Unable to resist a machine, I put my $4 in and got a fabulous fresh-squeezed juice.  When can we get one of these in San Francisco?

Darling Harbour is in fact darling. Filled with fancy donut shops and cafes and dumpling providers and concoctions of yogurt with black sticky rice. It's the new boba, or so I hear.

The Powerhouse Museum was inspiring. I made my way to Newtown on the bus, wishing for a few more stomachs.

I stopped by the cafe where there'd been some commotion. A neighborhood guy had pushed Mother Yen, the beloved owner of the Vietnamese restaurant across the street. No one was having it. Police were interviewing him and all the witnesses, which was clearly visible from Parliament's picture windows. I ate dinner at Mother Yen (banh xeo plus a refreshing soda lemonade) in solidarity.

How many hours a week do we bemoan San Francisco no longer being the boho town we moved to years ago? Parliament on King is a chance to rectify that, a way to return to that moment when we too were new in town, and everything was possible and pay it forward. 

Meet brilliant new friends from Iraq and Somalia and Saudi Arabia and Japan and Ohio and Sydney, while you're at it.

The year is coming to an end, but as a guy on a scooter reassured me tonight, that's just an arbitrary demarcation.

Learn more about Parliament on King and how you can support their mission. Or if you're in Sydney, drop in for a drink and stay awhile.

bright lights, big city

“Once there was this little child
You know her I believe
Here’s who she is me ELOISE
And it is Christmas Eve.”

With the Blue Mountains still on fire, I spent an extra day in Tasmania and flew to Sydney on Christmas day. I considered extending my AirBnB in the hippest part of town until I found a great price for a venerable old hotel near the Opera House.

The Sir Stamford is everything the name implies: regal and old school, with service to match. My enormous room looks out on the royal botanical garden. They have 24-hour room service, including dim sum, and afternoon tea you can order for a picnic.

I feel distinctly like Eloise at the Plaza.

When I climbed up the hill from Circular Quay dragging bags full of Tasmanian salmon and sauvignon blanc, the hotel was in the middle of a lavish holiday brunch ($199, more than I paid for a night with breakfast). I passed and wandered out in search of an open restaurant, not an easy task on Christmas Day.

In addition to a small pool and sauna (conveniently down the hall from my room), the hotel also has a private art collection.

This is my favorite so far, even though it's hidden by a staircase near the day spa. They even have my grandmother's china in a cabinet on my floor.

Ferries to Manly and Luna Park leave  from right outside the door.

Today on Boxing Day, there was a giant eyesore: the enormous Ovation of the Seas in port. This is the same cruise ship that was at White Island off New Zealand 2 weeks ago and lost passengers in the volcanic eruption. I didn't realize they'd continued their voyage, if you want to contemplate a terrible package tour with no escape.

Downtown Sydney is vaguely historic, especially The Rocks, which is all spruced up for the holidays. 

Boxing Day was once known for leftovers, but in Sydney it's known for 50% off sales. I don't have any more space in my luggage, so I walked around the botanic gardens instead. 

They are pretty fabulous.

There are stands being erected for Sydney's biggest night, New Year's Eve. This is the view of Harbour Bridge from the gardens:

Plus you're surrounded by blooming flowers and giant fig trees.

This elegant bird is the Australian white ibis. They're everywhere in the park.

There's a whole section dedicated to palm trees, at least 50 different kinds, from elephant foot palms to date pals to skinny walking stick palms. And a Fernery, which notes a whole class of ferns has been named for Lady Gaga.

My last stop was the tourist info center at the Customs House, another elegant old building that's been retrofitted inside. In past years of Sydney's biennial, this atrium has been filled with art by Ai Wei Wei and Yayoi Kusama. Right now, there's a glass floor looking over a scale model of Sydney. 

Back at the hotel, I noticed their mascot is everywhere. Morris, the wombat.

Apparently you can borrow a Morris and bring him to the opera or to your room. They sell them too. Two of my great-grandfathers were named Morris, so I'll take this as another sign. (Did I mention how much I love posh hotels, and pretending I live here? I'd be sad to leave and return to ordinary life, except I'm excited about my next stop too.)

Take a deep breath. The year is almost over. We're just a little older, a little worse for wear.

What were you hoping for in 2019? What will you leave behind next week?