Sydney Market, Flemington

There is a place in Sydney. We walked through it today. There are no pictures of it on the entire internet, despite hundreds (maybe thousands) of people going there every weekend.

There is a reason for this. Simply, you would be afraid to whip out anything more than a disposable mickey mouse cam, and even then you would have to pretend that you just picked it up off the ground (totally plausible in that context) and were trying it out.

It is the Sydney Market in Flemington. And it is chaos. And poverty. We were wondering where all the 2nd hand goods in Sydney were. They are there.

I cannot describe the chaos well without a picture. There were lots where vendors pulled up in trucks and unloaded used wares of all types. Some random things that pop to mind are - used electric oven heating elements - old toys - smelly jackets - cardboard.

At one point I noticed that Karin was the only white person around, teased her about it, then felt awkward and a little uneasy. When there's such a blatant line in the sand, as in Flemington, it's hard not to feel uneasy.

There's also a bulk fruits / vegs market which is enormous. We left back through the market and got lost in it, after the crowds were gone, and there were abandoned avocadoes, bread and tangerines and huge broken watermelons. A woman walked away with some small loafs of bread in hand. A man swept up corners, as fork lifts with giant dust-pan attachements pushed piles of garbage from the day's innefficiency into piles larger than trucks.

I must get a picture somehow. It is beyond words.

UPDATE: I have found pictures, but not of the sketchier part of the market we passed through, and not of the aftermath of the market... here they are:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=market+flemington&m=text


View Larger Map