Signs of Sydney: Not a Sign BUT Very Confusing

Lindsay and I were in a dollar store in Newtown a few weeks back when I spotted this box. This box looks like it has brightly colored Easter eggs and glittery streaks painted on it, yes?

Wait til you see what was inside when I opened it ...





A bizarre day-of-the-dead skeleton wearing an Uncle Sam hat.

Easter eggs meets traditional Mexican holiday meets American independence? Made in China.

It was $2 and no, I did not buy it.

Signs of Sydney: Secret Sandwich Society

All I have to say is: can I please become a member?

[Sign on King Street in Newtown.]

Signs of Sydney: Free Toilet Paper and Rice

I'm just saying: I'd like to live somewhere with free toilet paper and free rice.

Signs of Sydney: This Little Guy edition

On Broadway as you approach City Road/Victoria Park. I see him every morning on my walk to work, he always makes me smile.

Signs of Sydney: The Oriental Joint

Yeah, there's really a place- right next to the Chinatown gate in Haymarket- called the Oriental Joint.

Signs of Sydney: Woolloomooloo

I dare you to find a better sign in Sydney.

Signs of Sydney: You edition

This is on a wall in Darlinghurst as you walk towards Oxford Street. Obviously, someone with stickers has a sense of humor.

Signs of Sydney: Christmas Jesus! edition

This is the same church sign space I've mentioned before. I noticed that they've mixed it up for the Christmas season, so I thought I'd share. [Yes, I realize I am giving them a lot of PR on this blog, however, their signs amuse me when I walk by them.]

Enjoy your Christmas if that's your holiday of choice! And if you're not celebrating, enjoy whatever tradition you partake in on December 25. [In America I'd be eating Chinese food and going to the movies; here I'm going to the beach!]

SIgns of Sydney: Male Strippers edition

When I picked up my American friend at his hostel on Kent Street this was the sign in the lobby.

Signs of Sydney: Wrong Flag edition

I took this photo in the map shop on Pitt Street in the CBD.

It seems the Turkish flag wants to either be Swiss or Thai.

[I checked- the entire stack is Turkish flags, there are no Swiss or Thai flags hiding behind the crescent moons.]

Why is it that I could spot a Turkish flag anywhere, you ask? Sigh ... I lived in Ankara with some incredibly amazing people in 2006.

Signs of Sydney: Out on the Street edition

Have I mentioned I live in Woolloomooloo?

W'loo as I call it, is a rapidly gentrifying area. It's got the navy marina on one end and coffee shops, art galleries and design studios on the other. In between are brothels, the vestiges of public housing, and shanty towns set up by the homeless under the overpasses that carry train passengers from the eastern suburbs to the city.

It's the only place I could imagine living in Sydney. Everyone here thinks I'm nuts; but it's cheaper, no one hassles me, and its really convenient to everywhere I need to be. And I love it, for all its particularities.

This photo was taken on my street on the "design studios block" before Riley Street. I like to think it was the result of a gay lovers spat that resulted in a handful of French cuffed dress shirts being tossed out onto the dirty sidewalk. But that's probably just my overactive imagination.

I'm now curious to see if any of the homeless people picked them up and will be rocking them around my neighborhood later this week?

Signs of Sydney: Closed Bakery edition

This is the window of the now closed Bourke Street Bakery on Broadway. It's hard to tell from my poor quality photo [sorry for the glare!] but the window is covered in plywood except for part of the old daily special chalkboard sign poking through at the top.

Signs of Sydney: Mystery

This is the name of a hair salon on Glebe Point Road, close to the intersection with Paramatta Road.

I would never get my hair cut at a place with the word mystery in the name.

That being said, I'm on the hunt for someone in Sydney to cut my overflowing curly hair.

And soon, before it takes over my life.

Signs of Sydney: Thai Restaurant

Apparently all my favorite things to do can be found at Thai Passion Plus at World Square in Sydney's CBD.

Signs of Sydney: Shaking!

This sign was sitting outside the Sydney Harvest Church on Norton Street in Leichhardt last Sunday.

I'm not anti-Christian- despite how this blog mocks their signs.

I'm just not sure what it means to shake a city for Christ. Any thoughts?

Signs of Sydney: Starting Line

This is what is written on the sidewalk outside a community center in Woolloomooloo [or as I affectionately call my neighborhood W'loo] not to far from the Old Fitzroy Hotel.

Signs of Sydney: Jesus!

I walked by this church sign yesterday on George Street in Haymarket/Chinatown.

At least these Christians are self-aware enough to know that they often undermine their own cause of bringing people to Christ? That says something, right?

Signs of Sydney: Furniture Store

There's a secondhand furniture store on my walk to work, near where George Street turns into Broadway. For awhile they had a sign in their window with a different person's name on it each day. They were offering 20% off if you had the same name as the name on the sign that day.

I checked every day they had this promotion going for my name [not that I need furniture or even planned to buy anything, but just because I wanted to see my name on the sign].

I am disappointed that (1) I was the very last day and (2) that I have to share the sign with so many other people.

Lame.