Summer in the City Suburbs

You’ve got to love the effect a sunny day has on people – I’ve seen more smiles on the streets of New­town today than I have done the entire 6 months that I’ve lived here.
And speak­ing of New­town, time to give props to a loc­al icon,The Adelaide…
Once the infam­ous Tram­ways Hotel, and stick­ing res­ol­utely to the “small­town pub” vibe and decor, the Adelaide has quietly rein­ven­ted itself as one of the best places in town to see bands play for around the $5 mark. Cheap beer, great mir­rors in the ladies’, flash­ing lights behind glass bricks at the counter and under the stage, pool tables, pub meals … one day I’ll devote an entire post to how much I love unpre­ten­tious hos­pit­al­ity. But the point of this post is to announce the inaug­ur­al Sat­urday Mat­in­ee at the Adelaide – just in time for the return of the golden weath­er!
Details after the jump…

Newtown words

Newtown spoken word - flier
Tomor­row night, the New­town Com­munity and Cul­tur­al Centre hosts New­town Spoken Word Winter 06, an open mike event organ­ised by the Word Col­lect­ive, the people who brought you Sk8board Poets, Karaoke Poetry and the Word Fest­ivals. It starts at 7:30pm at the corner of Rintoul & Colombo streets, and entry is by koha. For more inform­a­tion, call Craig on 027 242 3453.

Extreme Poo – Wellington Zoo

Events Cal­en­dar: “Extreme Poo Iden­ti­fic­a­tion Com­pet­i­tion Wel­ling­ton Zoo will hold an Extreme Poo Iden­ti­fic­a­tion Com­pet­i­tion on 6 & 7 August. As part of the Con­ser­va­tion Week theme ‘Everything is Con­nec­ted’, the Zoo invites you to cor­rectly identi­fy dif­fer­ent types of anim­al poo to win a prize. Listen to the Keep­er talks through­out the day to […]

Newtown: home to more than medical treatments

Five Oth­er Things to do in New­town: A post had been planned about how you might like to take a tour around the fab­ulous archi­tec­ture of Wel­ling­ton Hos­pit­al, and sug­gest­ing that the best way to take such a tour is while lying zonked out on great drugs on a hos­pit­al bed, being pushed by a […]

Newtown: more than medical treatment

Five Oth­er Things to do in New­town:

A post had been planned about how you might like to take a tour around the fab­ulous archi­tec­ture of Wel­ling­ton Hos­pit­al, and sug­gest­ing that the best way to take such a tour is while lying zonked out on great drugs on a hos­pit­al bed, being pushed by a secur­ity guard, but as being sick is so last month, here are bet­ter things you should do in New­town instead:

1. Go to the Zoo. You could even touch the red pan­das if you’re par­tic­u­larly lucky.
2. Go eat a moun­tain of fries at Malo. $5.50 buys a very very large bowl of thick crisp chips and great gar­lic mayo. Make sure to share them or you won’t be able to walk after­wards. Wel­ling­tonista has also had many happy Singa­por­ean din­ners at Chumeez, and adores the duck pan­cakes at Beijing Res­taur­ant.
3. Buy Thai Red Bull from the Asi­an sec­tion of the small cramped New World. Mmmm syr­upy. (Wel­ling­tonista recom­mends it as a good base for Punch, par­tic­u­larly when mixed with soda, cran­berry juice, vodka and blue cur­a­cao).
4. Check out some hot young tal­ent before they end up on Short­land Street in a show at Toi Whakaari New Zea­l­and Drama School.
5. Go celebrity spot­ting. Accord­ing to the Wel­ling­ton City Lib­rar­ies, noted celebrit­ies who live in New­town include Emma Paki – and also Miss Nat­alie Biz of course.

What’s there to do in your sub­urb?

Newtown Festival

The nev­er-end­ing sum­mer stream of Wel­ling­ton sub­urb­an car­ni­vals and fairs con­tin­ues on its merry way with the start of the ten day New­town Fest­iv­al tomor­row (Fri 4 Mar). The big day is Sunday’s Fair Day, when Rid­di­ford Street will be closed to traffic, allow­ing a pleth­ora of stalls, enter­tain­ers and gen­er­al may­hem to hit the […]