Destination: Australia : Sydney’s Hip Spot : To take the pulse of the continent’s largest city, head to the trendy neighborhood of Paddington

Any great city, no matter how large or imposing, is at heart a collection of neighborhoods. Discover the character of a single block, and the tenor of the entire city slowly begins to unfold--or so my wife and I kept telling ourselves as we pulled into Sydney’s main bus terminal, in the middle of a deluge, without hotel reservations.

We were on an extended shoestring honeymoon of uncertain duration, and our plan was simple: Attack the city like true adventurers, unencumbered by plans or commitments. Make a mad pass through Sydney and in the process discover the neighborhood we felt most typified the city. There we would make our home, ground zero in our quest to understand Sydney.

Standing in the damp bus terminal, we soon realized our plan was as wet as we were. We didn’t have the energy to hail a taxi, much less explore a city of 17 million people. So we did what countless would-be explorers before us have done: We turned to the guidebooks and relied upon the legwork of others.

The books described Darling Point, “home to badly parked Porsches and the Cruising Yacht Club” (too upscale to qualify as adventure, we decided); Kings Cross, “young junkies and prostitutes a la Times Square” (too depressing); Watsons Bay, “featuring Sydney’s favorite suicide leap” (too risky, considering our tight budget); Glebe, “crammed with students” (too rowdy and too familiar); and the Rocks, “a Mecca for tourists” (no thank you).

And then there was Paddington, or “Paddo” as the abbreviation-mad Aussies like to call it. It was billed as a “second Greenwich Village,” “an artist’s haven,” “a yuppie haven” and “an antiquer’s paradise.” Culture with attitude and style. We’d found our neighborhood.

With its huddled mass of Victorian houses, narrow streets sloping toward the harbor and innumerable private gardens, Paddington possessed an intimate charm. Just 2.5 miles south of the city center and Sydney’s signature Opera House, and only three miles west of Bondi Beach with its topless bathers and its bottomless glasses of beer, Paddington was also blessed with the cosmopolitan advantage of “location.”

We spurned Paddington’s few hotels for a more homey (and cost-effective) house share. The chance to actually call one of these terraced, filigreed Victorian relics home struck us as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and a perusal of the Sydney Morning Herald classifieds helped us find a short-term lease.

Our landlord-housemate for the next two months turned out to be worth the trip to Australia. She was an impish seamstress whose medium she announced with a proud flourish was “lace, lace and lace again.” So enamored was she with the fabric that when we asked her name, she insisted we simply call her “Miss Fairy” after the “heavenly material” by which she plied her trade.

We settled in quickly and, like many Paddington residents absorbed in a warm December summer, practically lived on our balcony.

These uniform grilled terraces located one story above street level serve as a permanent warm-weather domain for lounging, dining and drinking (in our case, bottles of very good and very inexpensive Australian Shiraz). And because the tiny lanes and back roads of Paddington are so narrow, the balconies flanking the street all but brush up against each other--creating the sense of community one finds in such close-knit neighborhoods as New Orleans’ French Quarter.

Despite the distinct architectural assets of Paddington, it was the people we noticed first. They were stunning, in that fashion-magazine, music-video sort of way. We figured the large number of hair salons and trendy clothing stores scattered about Paddington like modern temples of chic had something to do with this.

Of course, Paddington wasn’t always so revered by those wanting to see and be seen.

For reasons that still mystify die-hard urbanites, thousands of city dwellers decided shortly after World War II that life in the suburban hinterlands was the ticket to existential splendor. Thus, Paddington, like other neighborhoods in Sydney, was abandoned and basically left to rot like some plague-ridden city out of a Camus novel. (Literary references are not lost on the dwellers of Paddington. At last count there were six bookshops in a quarter-mile radius.)

It wasn’t until the 1960s that some discerning visionary (who also understood the value of cheap real estate) took a look at the 100-year-old crumbling Victorian structures with their classic features and choice locale and realized that restoration would bring money and people back to the city quicker than one could say, “I’m sick of commuting from the suburbs!”

Today, Paddington (much like the Rocks) is a reclamation success story. Though there was no master plan to its renewal, the stellar results are a reflection of the original architects’ attention to landscape and elegant use of iron and glass. Thus, while Sydney is the capital of New South Wales, Paddington is now for many the unofficial capital of Sydney. And like any proper capital, it has a respectable thoroughfare coursing through its center: Oxford Street.

Originating at the southern end of Hyde Park, Oxford Street changes character every half mile or so as it meanders through the neighborhood of Darlinghurst on its way to Bondi Junction.

In Paddington, its disposition is decidedly commercial, though on a personal scale. Large chain stores and shopping malls are kept out like a wolf at the door.

Shops such as the Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery offer indigenous ceramics, sand paintings, fine art and for that special someone: traditional tools and weapons. Galleries such as Strokes specialize in the work of native Australians--it was here I bought what I’ve come to call the “one-throw” boomerang. I threw it once and never saw it again. And at Folkways, the offbeat music store, Bach and Buddhist chants share the shelves with my favorite, 19th-Century Australian convict songs.

Like any trendy neighborhood, Paddington is a breeding ground for trendy restaurants. Through trial and error, we quickly separated the winners from the wanna-bes. Our favorite downscale dive was the Thai Silver Spoon. This BYOB hot spot has a clientele as spicy as its menu, including a New Year’s Eve drunk whose high-pitched Philippic against “gay lifestyle” brought about the only mutiny in a restaurant I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing.

The moderately priced Darcy’s is milder in every sense of the word and provided us with our first taste of true Aussie cuisine: We were suckers for the carpetbagger steak (stuffed with oysters) and Moreton Bay bugs (crustaceans, actually).

Deep-pocket diners can be found at Oasis Seros. The food is international; the setting defiant minimalism (we know because we peeked through the window on our way to the cheap Thai place).

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For the crumpet-and-conversation crowd, cafes and coffee shops are underfoot at every turn. My favorite was the New Edition Cafe with attached bookshop.

It was here that I found myself drafted into a rather heated round-table debate about the status of the Australian novel. Five minutes after joining the group, I was asked to excuse myself when the one Australian author I could name, Keri Hulme (author of “The Bone People”), turned out to be from New Zealand.

While downtown Sydney and the Rocks have organized “walking tours,” in Paddington, one is left to discover the goodies on one’s own.

Considering the residents’ general disdain for anything too organized or “official,” this seems rather fitting--particularly in the evening, when the shops and the galleries give way to the pubs and the clubs.

Indeed, it’s at night that Paddington reveals its alter ego.

While the beautiful people are busying themselves in the cafes discussing the latest films (or viewing them at the Australian Film Institute Cinema located in Paddington’s revamped Town Hall), the rest of us folk are out sampling a little of the national beverage: beer. In Paddington, as in the rest of Australia, it’s served cold and often--a fact that no doubt accounted for the 50 drunken Elvises we saw one evening gyrating down Oxford Street in the direction of the London Tavern. Though this landmark pub and restaurant--built in 1875--is a source of great pride in Paddington, it’s not nearly gaudy enough to pass itself off as a Down-Under Graceland.

I suppose the only thing worse than waking up to a Saturday morning hangover in an Elvis costume is to sleep through the Paddington Village Bazaar (in an Elvis costume). This giant market held every Saturday at the Uniting Church in east Paddington is famous citywide for its diverse selection of crafts, folk art, jewelry, clothing and kitsch. However, judging by the outbursts of applause and the general cries of enthusiasm, the real appeal seems to be for the frenetic street performers who converge on the market like minstrels at a Bard convention.

It was here that we watched “Zim,” a “theme” juggler, threaten to juggle his infant twins. Fortunately, good sense and wet diapers got the best of that act.

Another big draw is the Victoria Barracks, a former army barracks and school of artillery and cavalry troops. This immense sandstone building, built in 1840 by Canadian convicts, possesses a beautiful two-story veranda and is considered by many Sydney-siders to be the finest example of Georgian architecture in the city. The weekly changing of the guard, alas, was recently discontinued.

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And then there’s Centennial Park--perfect for those Paddington dwellers who occasionally find that being hip and beautiful is just too much hard work. Sydney’s largest park, Centennial borders Paddington to the south and is just big enough and just unglamorous enough to offer a soothing anonymity. Here, one can do very untrendy things such as fly a kite or go bird-watching. And while bikes and horses are available for hire, the distance they will take you from a boutique or gallery could be upsetting to some.

It took us an entire month of exploring the cultural and fashionable recesses of Paddington before we actually pulled ourselves away from the stylish goings-on and ventured into the park to assess what we had learned. It turns out that by moving into a neighborhood and doing as the natives do, we had, indeed, come to understand Sydney better. But after four weeks of living on the pulse, we also knew that it was time to move on.

Our next stop, Indonesia, promised a new language, a new culture--and, mercifully, no designer labels.

GUIDEBOOK

Paddington Pleasures

Getting there: From LAX to Sydney, Qantas has two daily nonstop flights, United one daily flight; round-trip fares with 21-day advance purchase begin at $1,098.

Where to stay: Sullivans Hotel (21 Oxford St., Paddington, NSW 2021, Australia; from the United States telephone 011-61-2-361-0211, fax 011-61-2-360-3735) a small, intimate hotel with enclosed courtyard and swimming pool. Doubles are $67 nightly.

Medina Executive Apartments (400 Glenmore Road, Paddington, NSW 2021, Australia; tel. 011-61-2-361-9000, fax 011-61-2-332 -3484) are two- and three-bedroom townhouses that feature formal living and dining areas with fully equipped kitchen and laundry, as well as garden, balcony and pool. Two bedrooms: $178 nightly; three bedrooms: $215-248 nightly.

Where to eat: Our favorites included Thai Silver Spoon (203 Oxford St.; local tel. 360-4669), New Edition Cafe (328a Oxford St.; tel. 361-0744) and London Tavern (85 Underwood St.; tel. 331-6192). For more expensive fare, try Oasis Seros (495 Oxford St.; tel. 361-3377).

Markets, stores and exhibitions: Coo-ee Aboriginal Art Gallery and Shop (98 Oxford St.; tel. 332-1544); Strokes gallery (308 Oxford St.; tel. 360-4646); Folkways (282 Oxford St.; tel. 361-3980); Paddington Village Bazaar (Uniting Church at corner of Oxford and Newcombe Streets), an open-air market held every Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Specialty tours: There are no organized tours of Paddington, but personalized tours can be arranged through Maureen Fry’s Sydney Guided Tours. This author-historian offers half- or full-day tours tailored to your interests. Write: Sydney Guided Tours, 15 Arcadia Road, Glebe, NSW 2037, Australia; tel. 011-61-2-660-7157 or fax 011-61-2-660-0805. For more information: Tourism New South Wales, 2121 Avenue of the Stars, Los Angeles, 90067; tel. (310) 552-9566, fax (310) 277-2263.