Barbie and: Kensington

In news that was overshadowed by other world events, the new Southeast Sydney light rail opened up a few weeks ago, allowing folks to catch a tram from the city to Kingsford for the first time (since Sydney tore out its entire tram network 60 odd years ago). 

Now that's the kind of thing that a blog about Sydney might cover. Unfortunately, I've already completed Kingsford, so how about we head to the suburb before it? 

Kensington

To get to Kensington, I hopped on the light rail from the really quite pretty Central Station stop. 

Due to the apocaylpse, the train cars contain lots of helpful signage these days. 

After not too long (13 minutes, precisely), I alighted at Kensington's named stop. There are actually two other light rail stops in the suburb too, but they're not named Kensington so they don't get mentioned. 

This stop (and Kensington's others) sit on the wide and busy Anzac Parade, arguably the southeast's most important thoroughfare. 

I hopped out and started walking, landing in a relatively quiet strip of shops.

More interesting than Thai food or Portuguese burgers though, is the rather unique church around the corner. Here's Saint George Coptic Church. If you're unaware, the Copts are a sect of Christianity based in Egypt, making this the first African place of worship I've covered in the blog. 

Across the road from here, back on Anzac Parade is another interesting line of buildings. In the past, there was an Italian restaurant here by the name of Grotta Capri. It's since shut its doors, but its bizarre and crusty exterior remains. The small building glued to its left is actually an art gallery.

From here, I started west to explore the suburb, passing this plastic swirl and entering a residential quarter.

This seems like a relatively pleasant place to live, with trees and a mixed bag of housing choices.

I strolled through this neighbourhood park to head deeper into Kensington.

This led me to the twilight zone. 

Do you remember when I visited the insane gated community of Breakfast Point where the grass is spray painted green? Well Kensington has one too. 

Welcome to Raleigh Park.

Here, you can check out hedge fences and perfect grass (I forgot to check if these are green by nature or paint, but they seem above board in the picture),

painted houses and expensive cars,

and wanky street names.

They do have a nice amount of "public" space,

but this is strictly for passive recreation only.

You are being watched.

My COVID-issue scruffy beard and hair had me feeling out of place here, so I left the community and kept moving.

This took me past an old-school takeaway (which does not appear to be in operation),

and a store named after old ladies.

Eventually, I took a street towards where Wikipedia told me was an interesting building,

passing a cow along the way.

Down this road is the former Lady of Sacred Heart convent in an impressive building, 

a church of the same name,

and a monastery which I couldn't see properly from the street, but Google tells me is rather Hogwartsy.

I continued on through suburbia,

passing this awesome house,

and a canal of equal fame and importance to Panama and Suez,

to reach Anzac Parade once more.

Just up the road from here is the main campus of UNSW.

A campus which, while not as pretty as Sydney Uni's,

can have its charm. But we'll get to the campus shortly.

Before that, I was ready for lunch.

Unfortunately, just about all of the student eats are out of the borders of Kensington and in neighbouring Kingsford. That leaves someone who doesn't want to leave the suburb with the options of bubble tea, student services or Subway (just out of view).

Rather than subject myself to a sandwich that looks like someone threw it down the stairs, I decided to cheat and temporarily cross the border into Kingsford. 

If this offends you, please scroll your mouse wheel down two times and I should be back in Kensington by then.

Anyway, I chose to grab a bite at Pinocchio Sushi, a place I'd actually eaten at before (I was a UNSW student back in the day), but had no recollection on if it was any good or not.

Thankfully, the lunch set containing some sushi, chicken karaage, rice and miso soup ($17) went down a treat. A better blogger would've taken a picture with all of the food in one shot, but I was too hungry to wait so began eating as soon as each item came. Let's be honest, nobody's here for quality food-blog content anyway. 

Before anyone caught onto my transgression of suburban bounds and the sanctity of this blog, I paid my bill and jumped back into Kensington to round the suburb out.

My last point of interest in Kensington is the aforementioned University of New South Wales. Crossing Anzac Parade led me back into my old campus.

It's true that UNSW is not as pretty as Usyd, but I've always thought it still goes okay. At least it's not UTS, right?

Utilising my insider knowledge, I took a set of stairs to the top of a building I don't know the name of (it's the one that looks like a book in the previous photo).

This leads to a decent view of Lower Campus.

We can all agree that the Soviet Union styled library is ugly as sin though.

Continuing uphill through the campus, the university's eastern doors led me to the next suburb.

Kensington: It may not be Kensington Palace, but it's not bad.