Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Time for the Penguathlon - only in NZ

Another day, another quirky Kiwi story or two.
This week, an Aussie man who runs a motel in New Zealand banned an entire town from staying there.
I am not making this up.
Some 16,000 residents of the Lower Hutt suburb of Wainuiomata have been told to stay away from the Palmerston North Supreme Motor Lodge, after loads of naughty behaviour from visiting sports teams.
Supreme's owner, Steve Donnelly, says sports teams from Wainuiomata have run amok during stays at his hotel, spitting, playing loud music, swearing and generally being unruly.
Not surprisingly, the town’s residents are outraged, with many of them threatening to descend on the motel in droves.
The fact that the owner is an Aussie just ads insult to injury!
And in other Kiwi news, can lollies be offensive?
A visiting Inuit woman from the Nunavut Territory in Canada claims a popular NZ sweet called an Eskimo, is an insult to her people.
The Cadbury/Pascall lollies are an iconic marshmallow treat here. They are pastel-coloured marshmallow sweets shaped like little people, and come in green, blue and yellow.
The traveller says the word Eskimo has racist overtones, and is an insult in her country.
Personally, I think Eskimos – the lollies – are insults to little tummies. They are so sweet even my sugar-loving kids won’t touch them.
Eskimo Pies though? The ice-blocks? They love ‘em!
Speaking of kids, C. lost another tooth the other day, and H. finally has a wobbly one of her own. She’s very proud of it too, and can’t wait for her first visit from the tooth fairy!
Poor C. came down with a head cold this week, but recovered quickly, as kids do. They were off to Kelly Tarlton’s Antarctic Adventure and Underwater World today with Vacation Care, to watch Penguathlon – where the penguins play soccer, surf, play Frisbee and swing ball, and compete in waddle races. Afterwards, the kids get to play their own penguin games on the ice, and of course, enjoy all the usual Kelly Tarlton attractions. School holidays were never so much when I was girl!
Here they are, all set for a day of fun and frolics

1 comment:

Honey the Great Dane said...

Oh, I LOVE Kelly Tarlton's! Just such a shame that it is so expensive...and I'd seen a TV commercial about the penguins but thought it was a joke - do they REALLY kick a football around and surf and stuff?? Wow - you gotta get some photos of that to show us!

Ooh, by the way, we have an award for you on our blog - please come over to pick it up! (If you can find it! It's the Pawsome Blog Award...Honey's been inundated with awards from her friends recently - it's all just a cute made-up thing amongst the bloggers but quite a nice way to network in Blogland and introduce new blogs and also get people to tell more about themselves!)
Hsin-Yi

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