Paddy's Market and The New Moscow Circus in Sydney

By Floridagirlinsydney
I'm not sure how it's possible that we've been here over three years and yesterday was my first real visit to Paddy's Market, that seems very strange.   And incredibly, my friend, who moved here right around same time we did, hadn't been either-- so yesterday we went, and conquered I might add.
Another tick (that's Aussie for "check") off the old mini-bucket list I keep in my cloudy head.
So here's the big news on Paddy's Market:   it's what we call a "flea market" in the U.S. 


For all you fashionistas, apparently this is where your UGG boots originated from, a booth at Paddy's Market with all things that represent Australia.

I'm still trying to figure out why there were so many wig booths. Club kids?

There were a few food booths.

As I approached this booth a lady asked if they sold chili powder here.  Um... duh (and that was basically the response of the guy working there too).

And the prices were amazing, considering you could pay $5-10 for a tiny punnet of blueberries near my house, and here they were two for $6. I bought a lot of fruit and paid about a quarter of what I normally would.
And this was just hilarious... I've seen it before, and it's still really funny.

But the best thing I bought yesterday at Paddy's Market were two teeny, tiny jade Buddha's (about the size of ping pong balls).  We often read a book called Buddha at Bedtime, and I've been on the lookout for a little Buddha for each of them.  I told them if they rub his belly they get good luck, though now I'm thinking someone may have told me if you rub his belly you'll get pregnant-- oh man, that could be an error of epic proportions.  But with the severe eczema we've been dealing with the our house for the last month and recurring head lice-- yep I said head lice ewwwww, we need some good luck here.

Innocent head scratching?  You be the judge.
But itchy heads, and itchy eczema legs, and all-- we still were able to take in The Great Moscow Circus a couple days ago, which conveniently pitched a tent in our area recently, so how could we not?
I'm still quite baffled over the bizarre, dark opening scene in which some Russians (I'm assuming) walked around looking sad, dressed in winter clothes.  If you ask me, which you didn't, not really the way to start off a circus.  But the performers were awesome, acrobatics, contortionists, a juggler-- very Cirque d' Soleil and really great, the only exception (which I wasn't expecting or probably wouldn't have bought tickets) was the miniature ponies they brought out and make do "tricks" in the ring.  The guy giving them direction looked scary and was holding some long whip looking thing-- at that point I almost left, but I didn't move fast enough and the ponies were done.

The Great Moscow Circus grand entrance.
After the show, we played a couple of those creepy looking games they must have stolen from Luna Park.


We told them they could get snow cones or fairy floss (which is Australian for "cotton candy").  I recommended they choose fairy floss since they'd never had it before (and I wanted some), but they incorrectly chose snow cones.  Of course they realized pretty quickly they had made a mistake, so we caved in and they ended up with both (yay for me:).

The bonus cotton candy/ fairy floss, I'm off to the side eating some and thinking of days gone by.