There was so much detail to this very long weekend that it will test scribe’s capacity to report, but we’ll start at the Paradise. Firstly Acro was so keen to bring on the weekend she fronted theParadise on Friday evening at 6.00 rather than the scheduled 7.00, easily convincing an unnamed hasher to join at this early hour, that victim departing finally some 6 hours and an inappropriate number of pints later facing a 6.00am start for the Vasque relay start. The Friday night carb load meals were tasty enough, but may have lacked in the volume department, more than made up by the Carlsberg accompaniment. Cigar sadly broke the good / bad news of a new job inRotterdam. Some of the good crowd that turned out seemed to be unaware of their responsibilities the following days, only Gerry doing the right thing and turning in early, mind you whilst still at the Paradise. Doggie’s concerns notwithstanding, scribe did make it to the start of the Vasque mountain race, dismayed at the sight of so many hard looking characters. The start was a sprint to the university followed by the 700 steps to the top of the range, then a bash along the top of a few peaks. At one point, Luo called from behind that all those in front were shortcutting the summit of one peak by contouring on an earthen track, forcing scribe to take the depressingly pure route over the top. Anyway, Acro was on time and in place at the top of Northern Peak to effect the number changeover, so scribe’s last act was to fork out 5 and make a special prayer for the relay team at the peak temple. The prayer was returned, recipients unknown. Acro had to fly across a couple of peaks to descend to cross Meiling Rd and ascend to the top of the next range, mostly on broken and earthen tracks, a tough little project. Doggie in the meantime had toiled up from Longjing to make the next change and enjoyed a scenic undulating ridge top run with a pleasant descent to Nine Creeks, still smiling to himself about the way he rigged the draw. Pelagic was in place for the next change, and had a bit of work to do to make it up the next couple of rises, passing and being passed. Bottom Feeder in the meantime impatiently went backwards on the trail to meet Pelagic, and then took off on a helter skelter stone path descent down many stairs, which he long-jumped to luckily locate Tonsils who was re-parking her bike for later retrieval. Tonsils is no slouch and took us home in 4.27, 30^th overall. The second half was over in a flash, Tonsils finishing while Acro, Doggie and scribe were still in MacDonalds; sorry about that Tonsils. After quite a bit of slouching around after the finish, it was over to the Kebaberry on Yugo Lu, and after that to the Maya. It was well and truly dark before each parted on their separate ways, some for restoration, others for less certain outcomes. Bright and early for the Sunday morning half marathon were Cigar, Tonsils, Acro, Doggie, Yuyu (Tuesday runner) Karin, scribe and Ernie for the lake circuit. The masses hit the track filling Shuguang Lu, and then Baochu Lu, before halving in number as the Beishan Lu circuiters peeled off, but that’s all scribe can report because of an equipment failure. Those ks were 33 kwai each! Ernie was the first hasher in sight with a lake circuit in 1.34.53 while Cigar tidied up her sojourn in HZ with a 1.52.42 time for the half, 6^th woman home, with Caris not far behind in 10^th place. Doggie came home with Karin in about 2.12.20 while Acronymph completed her first half in 2.33.04 The first home overall was the first of 5 Africans in 2.18.02 and the first woman, a Chinese athlete in 2.33.10, all pretty impressive stuff. After the obligatory photo snappery, it was over to the Maya for the Bottom Feeder and Pelagic BBQ. Thanks to the Maya for the BBQ and use of the bar as a servery, because it was a beaut; Pelagic alson a culinary find of the first order. The troops trailed in, numbers swelling by Simon Deep Throat Grimmer Vasque 3^rd in 2.54 followed by Sunday’s 42k, Amy Guard Vasque 1^st Woman in 4.06, Rankas and Bonny, all down from Shanghai for the weekend. Pelagic and Bottom Feeder, hares for the Armistice Day run had a few tricks up their sleeve. Firstly, the pack missed the eleventh hour minute’s silence, but a new found formula whereby the celebration of any anniversary be held in the time zone of original occurrence, the minutes silence was put off until 5.00pm China time. In the event this was also missed. The run was a demanding kind of thing to the shop and back, which Phone Box missed by a minute, and under pressure from the pack took off to complete the trail but completely disappeared, then followed by guilt ridden Acro, who then also disappeared; who would know? The circle, under the guidance of BF, took off on a life of it’s own, and numerous sorties to the shop kept the beer up to the down downs. Details are scant of the many transgressions that were punished, but Tonsil Hockey was finally christened in a ceremony by the RA. Either it was a very quiet afternoon at the Maya or the rowdy crowd in the forecourt chased any new customers away, but the pack had the place to itself. After the temperature fell the pack moved indoors, where the on on continued unabated. Scribe has no knowledge of theShanghai crowd actually leaving, so maybe they didn’t, but it is recorded that Pelagic base jumped from the door of the Maya without a chute, and woke to discover appropriate bruising and contusions the cause of which couldn’t immediately be remembered. Now don’t forget that the 25^th anniversary of hashing in Hangzhou is being held again this Sunday at the Maya, but there’s no guarantee it will be quieter.

Jiuxi, down by the Qiantang River, was a virgin location for this week’s hares Skidmarks and Phone Box. Such confidence exuding from Skidmarks, “I’ve never been down there before, but we’ll be right

Hares: Skidmarks ,Pushup Bra – Hashers: Acronymph, Bottom Feeder, Pelagic, Phone Box, Rhryn, Jerry, Amie, Lillian. On this beautiful and cool autumn Sunday, the news of Doggie’s special hash experience didn’t scare the hashers away. A pack of 5 hashers and 3 virgins gathered at Meijiawu again. To crack your stiff bones, breathe fresh air, explore the city, overlook the lake and other places you’ve been, have fun…. and of course have a good drink, come to hash! We were ready, but the unpredictable trail didn’t bring the hares back in time, so on getting the instruction to start, the pack hit the road. Through the noisy and crowded tea houses, along a shallow creek , the trail turned to the foot of a hill on north. OK, let’s start Skidmarks’ Pushup-style running. Up on the hill, after a while of hiking on steps, we came to a flat place. With Acronymph’ guidance, we chose the uphill northeast way instead of going down to Daqing Vally to find a “FT

About 2.10pm Sunday October 21st, 2007, mobile rings, it’s Doggie, “Aaah Pushup, I’m about half an hour into setting the run and I seem to have my foot in what I assume is a wild boar trap”. “……….O…..K…., well I’m about to leave, so I guess we’ll just follow the trail and find you, just wait there, OK?” It took 30 minutes before I was able to steal a cab from a Chinese father and daughter combination, and I was just a little offended when my story about a friend on the mountain in a boar trap was not believed, but maybe it was a language problem after all. The cab driver ignored my suggested route, choosing to join the scenic log jam of vehicles in Beishan Lu. Now Acro’s over the top punctuality can be intimidating at times, but on this occasion came in quite handy as she and Cigar arrived at about the same time as virgin Aimie, Pelagic, Bottom Feeder and virgin Miki. So Acro, Cigar and Miki took off to find the feral Doggie and so to report back to the Lingyin arch as to the state of the nation. Your scribe appeared about this time, jumped out of a cab and approached a likely looking chap with the word Police on his cap, handed him the phone with Acro on the other end, and hence started phase 1 of the endless pointless and fruitless discussions with members of the emergency services (two earnest and helpful gentleman in non-specific uniform (NSU) notwithstanding). Soon afterwards the ground party of 4 came together, and reception permitting, was joined by increasingly strident calls from Acro as to the state of things on the mountain. BF made good progress with one NSU who escorted the straggle to the police station. Ah, but it transpired that it was the wrong police station, so the group then straggled across the bus station to the entrance of the cable car where a police car and ambulance had drawn up. Cigar then decamped from the scene of the “incident” to join and then lead the rescue party in, and arrived breathlessly to find a large milling group of Police and NSUs being entertained by an increasingly irritated bunch of laowai, and of course Aimie, trying to describe the situation and obtain some tools with which to remove the encumbrance on Doggies foot. The police refused to admit they had a tyre lever in their police car, and when asked by Aimie what they did when they got a flat tire said that they just rang up and someone came to get them; in retrospect it makes sense. I couldn’t find any tools on the ambulance either. Anyway, Aimie was repeatedly told that the man with the release tool was coming up to the mountain, and would join us there. Wild boar might fly! One NSU appeared with a hack saw and a spare blade, which I guess may have been useful to remove Doggies foot, but those blades did not look Swedish. So the various parties of laowai, NSUs and assorted others straggled off not knowing who was following whom. Aimie negotiated with a kindly lady who gave up the only tools of the household, a dodgy looking garden digger and some metal thing, but there was no time to do more, because all this took so much time. BF picked up some bricks and together with some lumps of wood the hashers easily outpaced the NSUs to find the prone Doggie with Acro and Miki. Unfortunately there was no time for a good laugh, or even to get a series of group photos around the feral Doggie, shots evidently missing from the album. Miki had had the time to examine the workings of the crude but effective trap, despite Doggie speaking to him in less than polite terms; well he is the GM. Anyway, several sets of hands, feet, bricks and odd tools all concentrated power sufficiently for the errant foot to be released. Bloody lucky though, because if the barbs had caught skin it would have made a real mess of the foot, and made the removal of the foot by the system eventually used impossible. Then either the hacksaw or a small jack would have been the solution. Then a forester looking chap appeared holding some small tool, which, knowing what we know now would have been useless. He managed to lay claim to the trap, with the digger firmly in it’s grip, and the metal thing borrowed from the kindly lady and took off down the mountain. Your scribe’s concern was the metal thing and digger, so called him back, and then went after him to retrieve said items, but he took off, dropping the trap but escaping with the metal thing. Still can’t work this out. Doggie then found that he was OK to limp down the mountain and washed out creek bed, along with his retinue of NSUs, the ice cream van attendant, some others, the now not so kindly lady and the hash to gain his 15 minutes of fame as 2 TV crews vied for his attention. Doggie’s Chinese failed him at the crucial interview moment, and Bottom Feeder stepped into the breach, embellishing the drama with tales of wild boar munching on the prone Doggie as he waited for rescue. The kindly lady was fearfully upset about her metal thing: apologies and RMB were not enough. Finally Aimie was able to explain what happened to her metal thing and with a few RMB in her pocket she left mollified. She doesn’t know it but her contribution was vital. After numerous photos in the fading light, check out the gallery, it was off to the Maya in an unofficial taxi van for a few pints and another first rate Acronymph ordering effort at the FengDu. As for the run, more comment when Doggie actually completes it. It was good so far. The press the following day described the incident, drawing on interviews with the police and Miki who they called on his mobile. They also described 3 previous incidents in the last few years where serious injuries were incurred, Doggie being lucky in the extreme. So with this in mind, it was comforting to see how much the NSUs had learned from these previous incidents not. Equally it was impressive how much time they spent examining the trap, learning it’s workings so that WHEN it happens again, they would be much better prepared, not. So HZH3 learns, look after your own.

It took a little bit of negotiation but eventually the taxi driver accepted that I really wanted to go to the junction of Longjing Road and Wulaofeng tunnel. An odd destination indeed and not made any less so by the two hares (Acronymph and Pushupbra) standing round like a pair of hobos. By this point they were well in to blaming each other for the trail, never a good sign. The usual suspects trickled in over the course of the next 30 minutes. Several people failing to show, apparently as a result of the previous night’s birthday exploits. Down-downs to follow for this.

So at T + 40 minutes we finally set off. Yours truly, Yvonne (who would be renamed ExitStrategy before the day was out), Phonebox, BottomFeeder and Pelagic. The trail began well, though I’m sure I recall getting down-downs for using blue chalk on a black road myself. After about 100 metres there was a trail running down to a stream that could be forded by stepping stones and across the stream we went. Sadly on the other side there was CLEARLY NO SIGN OF ANY KIND OF ROUTE UP THE MOUNTAIN, but up we went.

After about 20 minutes of pulling (literally) ourselves up the side of a mountain through thick thorny undergrowth we finally emerged in a clearing at the top and a much needed regroup. Providing the opportunity for all to count and compare cuts from thorn bushes, mosquito bites, etc and for BottomFeeder to marvel once again at how easy it was to pull phonebox [up the hill].

On-up and we emerged quickly onto a proper path, which allowed for the first bit of actual running more or less since we set off. The situation quickly deteriorated though as Pushupbra’s infallible stair detector appears to have kicked and we went up stairs, stairs and more stairs. Eventually arriving at a pagoda at the top of a hill. Phonebox’s gender-defying navigational skills were once more in evidence as she was able to point out that we’d been here before, with Quasimodo and son. Another regroup was enjoyed and the collective wit of the pack was able to achieve a photo on a timer so all 5 of us could be in it.

On-on along the ridge with some interesting discussion of geology and we emerged at the viewing platform on South peak. Pelagic and BottomFeeder spent the time engaged in some bizarre experiment where they proved that Pelagic can indeed kick BottomFeeder in the head, in case you ever needed to know. The rest of us enjoyed the view, discussing how pretty it was watching the sun descend beneath the mountains the other side of Meijiawu. Strangely it didn’t occur to anyone to worry that we were watching the sun set.

On-on down the other side of the mountain and the light situation becomes apparent or rather the path was becoming less apparent, due to the worsening light situation. The pack enjoyed a fairly obvious check back into some caves where BottomFeeder was able to discover a truly horrible smell.

On-on down again in rapidly worsening light conditions until we arrive at a fairly large collection of tombs, this was the point where, ominously, the last slivers of daylight disappeared. We were 5 brave hashers, over an hour into an hour long run, now standing in total darkness, in a graveyard, looking for trail marks that would lead us to safety. The cries of on-on (largely unnecessary to this point with such a small pack) rallied as much to buoy spirits as to act as navigational aid.

Yours truly and ExitStrategy (how fitting) blazed the trail down and on to the road and managed to come out 150 metres further up the road than the right trail. Eventually finding BF, P and PB who had actually managed to stay on chalk.

Expecting the usual 1k run-in the pack set off at a canter through an odd village, consisting only of restaurants, that I can’t find on a map. Maybe a hungry pack dreamt it? Out of the village and into a choking 1.2 kilometres of tunnel where PhoneBox led a procession of 5 weary runners, a dozen professional looking cyclists and 30 construction workers on ebikes down the narrow path. The hares had helpfully marked the trail all the way through the tunnel thus preventing the pack from making a wrong turning into … where exactly?

Emerging into the suddenly amazingly clear Hangzhou air at the other side it was finally, 3k later, on-in to welcome beers. The verdict? An unnecessarily punishing ascent to particularly scenic run, ending rather dramatically in total darkness. Acro – don’t tell Push-up but I think that the pack enjoyed it.

During the down-downs we named, and wished farewell to ExitStrategy. Phonebox reasserted her right to be called the hash name she was given. Acro and Pushupbra pushed the buck back and forward to the point where no one cared anymore. BottomFeeder found new lows in dinner / circle conversation – all in the name of learning the language of course.

How many more times more will we able to enjoy diner outside before the winter kicks in I wonder?

It was very nice of the Shanghai Taiping hash to invite HZH3 to their run in Meijawu. There were several communications from Taiping to ascertain the numbers from HZ who would be attending their run for catering purposes, but given the variability of HZH3 turnout mismanagement avoided commitment. The triple birthday arrangements of Caris, Cigar and Acronymph required a 6.30pm start, which placed a limiter on the amount of time available for HZH3 hashers to attend and then return to HZ in time, so a van was laid on to pick up starters at the Maya. Pelagic, looking a bit  margaritaish, Yvonne, soon to return to the Vaterland, Doggie Style, Aimie, Lillian, Bottom Feeder and scribe then headed to Meijawu to search out the run site. The friendly folks in Meijawu put on a great welcome for the HZ contingent; people waving at the group in front of almost every restaurant and tea house. However it was then 1.10pm and the Taiping group were not due till about 1.20pm, so the opportunity was taken for a scenic tour of Meijawu right down to Zhijiang Rd. No sign of Taiping H3, so back through the village, where the welcome stayed warm. U turn, back through the village, a royal wave to the crowds, back to Zhejiang Rd, U turn and stalemate 3.0 km back up the road according to the directions to the start. No sign of chalk, hashers, suitable Shanghai buses, indeed anything. The group disembarked, and demonstrated that they had all been in China too long by congregating on the carriageway, rather then the wide and safe footpath, forcing buses, cars and trucks into impassive faced avoidance. Bottom Feeder entertained the troops doing squats with Pelagic on his shoulders, and then auditioned for a role as restaurant road-front spruiker. He starts work on Sunday. So, the deadline hour passed and with no sight, sign or message from Taiping, the collective decision was made to abandon the project and return to the Maya. Mismanagement strikes again.

Hare – PushupbraThe start was at the large set of stairs in Wansongling Rd, off Nanshan Rd.The hare struggled hard with himself to avoid the obvious start up the stairs, where any number of punishments could be found for an unsuspecting pack, but instead opted for a mild and innocuous crossing of the road and an easy jaunt into the forest alongside the Sadsong academy. The diminished pack of Pelagic, Caris, Phonesex and Doggie Style, all refugees from National Day gatherings of family and friends, were not at all intimidated by the name of the “no surrender run

Hares – Pelagic and Bottomfeeder 

Sunday, with fine misty rain all day, would have kept the hares guessing as to turnout, trailmarking durability, catering and timing, let alone issues of trail. So It followed that Yvonne, Caris, Phone Box, Doggie and scribe were joined by virgins Ernie, Luis and Carlos, other runners apparently dissuaded by the less than conducive weather. Hares Pelagic and Bottom Feeder returned looking a bit crestfallen as to the run they had set, fearing a Far Cup presentation. To head off any later critique of their run marking skills, the hares gave the pack a variety of convoluted descriptions of bamboo, tombs, bridges and numbers, all of which made little sense at the time, and less later as it transpired. The pack is above all that of course, having been recently bloodied by Acronymph and Cigar at Meijiwu, and now fears nothing. The trail followed the footpath up through the HZ Tyrolean quarter, past one of the three temples until it crossed the little stone bridge and ascended the tea terraces opposite. Doggie was taking bets on how many of the pack would go down on the wet and muddy paths, and most enjoyed a complimentary slide or two on the descent. Back on black top and up to Meiling Rd. for a bit of traffic dodging, before entering “Wild Boar

Hare: Doggie Style The runners Caris, Pushup (Bra), Pelagic, Mike, Nicky, Yvonne, Skidmarks, Phone(sex)box, AcroNymph and Bottomfeeder.  Beautiful weather, beautiful location, beautiful run, all of it only surpassed by the beauty of beer.    Doggie Style sent us off by saying “over the nursery, and through the field, and off to the tea field you go.

Hares: Acronymph, Cigar This Sunday’s run took us the farthest from Hangzhou that we have yet to venture.  After taking the Y4 bus to Meijiawu

梅家