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Newtown , across Sydney University from Glebe, and easily reached by train to Newtown Station, is another up-and-coming inner-city neighbourhood. What was once a working-class district has been transformed into a trendy but still offbeat area with a sense of urban grittiness - body piercing, shaved heads and weird fashions rule. Newtown is characterized by its large gay and lesbian population, its rich cultural mix and a healthy dose of students and lecturers from nearby Sydney University. The main drag, King Street , is filled with unusual secondhand and speciality shops, funky fashion and home stores and book and record outlets; during the month-long Newtown Festival from early October , various shop windows are taken over by young, irreverent and in-your-face art. The street has an enviable number of great cafes and diverse restaurants, especially Thai. A prestige cinema complex, the Dendy , with an attached bookshop, excellent record store, and streetfront cafe, is also open daily and into the night. King Street becomes less crowded south of Newtown Station as it heads for a kilometre towards St Peters train station , but it's well worth strolling down to look at the more unusual speciality shops (buttons, ribbons, cacti, Chinese medicine), as well as furniture stores from antique to Japanese, several small art galleries, retro clothes stores, characterful cafes and culturally diverse restaurants through Turkish to African. Closer to St Peters station are several businesses aimed at the local Indian community, most hailing from Fiji: various stores sell Indian sweets, fashions and videos, while the Fiji Market at no. 591 stocks "all things Indian". You'll also find a couple of theatres and a High School for the Performing Arts, reputed to be one of the top five performing arts schools in the world - Sydney's version of the kids from Fame .
Your Tip for Newtown
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