As our dear trash regular Pickle Boy has not been around for the Beidaihe run #1612 I’ll do my best to connect the fractions of memory between beer & booze. No wormholes, time travel or attempts to solve non-linear third order differential equations shall distract us in the next minutes to come.
Most hashers had arrived by train from Tianjin and Beijing the day before or even earlier, if you ever wondered why you had to bring identification papers you got your answer right here, having left China into the depth of Russia’s motherland. One may even go so far considering Beidaihe as Russia’s second capital with comrade Putin smiling from pictures around.
The previous day boxer runs not only left hashers thirsty but forward looking to extreme physical exercise. How far can the human body be pushed? We shall see.
The Sunday morning started with a swim in the South China Sea, the beach does provide two areas one free of charge the other for a small fee that adds extra comfort of heated water and a maintained shark net which proved as the better option having missed the comfort of a lavish breakfast. Gathered sharp at 11:00 over 50 hashers awaited the sound of the start pistol to get on-on trail laid by Dumb Ass, Dry hole and Bjoern again. Prancing Queen in expectation of serious counter forces was carrying a water gun. The trail has been found quickly but then the torture started, the leg to the first beer-stop was a whopping 450 meters even though it was downhill hashers arrived exhausted and ready for beer. Dry hole’s “open check” came way too early, barely 30 minutes recovery was allowed. If the hashers thought the worst part must be over they were largely wrong, the leg that followed raised the bar to 550m + up/down stairs through fish markets. Spits-n-Swallows a serious athlete himself carrying the extra weight of a Bluetooth headset at all times couldn’t just go on without doing a special stretching technique that lets Fred Astaire look old while we were at the 2nd beerstop. We shall consider this for the boxer circle as addition to Bonzilla’s squatting technique and let’s face it our boring stretch stance. To everyone’s surprise S&S was able to sort out his arms and legs before Dry hole’s wake up call.
Unknown by the hashers yet that the toughest part was still to come; physically and mentally. The trail lead through the “Guest house of diplomatic missions” and showed what we could have had by just paying 10x more, Dumb Ass, Dry hole & Bjoern thank you that was an eye opener. Back to the trail the distance to the end had dramatically increased to 1.95km for this leg, yes that is nearly four times of the 2nd and just unbelievable. Hold your breath for a moment the total distance summed up to 2.95km.
If you think this is the end of the line for the human body, think again with Bjoern Again, he had shown us the opposite. We all may know that sometimes the runners make jokes on the walkers; this shall be over once and for all. Bjoern Again laid a walker trail that for the first time in hash history had been longer than the runner trail, totaling approximately 3.0km, jaws dropping isn’t it? We shall not hide though that some walkers are still unaccounted for.
To refresh after this serious walk & run several hashers went for another swim in south China waters, Daze & Confused demonstrated his latest invention, the inside out underwear in timeless orange for extended weekends. Here is how it works, over night when it gets a bit filthy from wet dreams it will turn itself in-side out and turns optional by 180 degree. Yes, this gives the owner a full range of four days usage. Once worn in cleaning substance like the above mentioned South China Sea it will auto reset to its default orientation, providing another four days of use. We got a live demonstration when Daze went into the sea with the wash tag and seam clearly visible outside, but reversed when he got out. No doubt a true hash genius, recognition was given in the circle (patent pending). Sadly the night before this positive effect could not been seen on an iPhone that opted to follow its owner into the water, the details which regrettably I have missed due to a five minute nap that had dragged out slightly into the morning. What I had been told though is that just Snow volunteered for dwarf long throw with banana hammock as pitcher setting out for the world record, while she realizing in mid air that she still had the iPhone in her pocket before reaching deep waters. I’m sure some extra distance could have been gained without the excess weight of that device but on the positive side she had texted the GPS coordinates that allowed to retrieve her. Well done and again recognition in the circle!
What a nice circle location did wait for the hashers, right on the beach in lovely sunshine. To not get uneven tan the hashers moved along the circle like a clockwork 32.5 deg every 15min, Prancing Queen kept on praising the Tianjin and Beijing hashes, pounding a bit on the Shanghai hash though. Doggie Fondue noticed the beauty of nearby sea lions, dancing to imaginary music (or maybe to a wet iPhone).
But wait, a dark shadow laid on the hashers’ minds, Ferrari and Asshole sucker the unaccounted walkers were still missing. LOP started a religious procedure that involved drinking beer from AS shoes. LOP well aware that the procedure is more potent if used on un-cleaned shoes did not hesitated a second and poured down the beer from AS’ footwear. And did it work? Like a fairy tale ending Ferrari and AS showed magically during the circle, can’t thank LOP enough.
A later investigation showed evidence that the shoes were sweat & seaweed penetrated, used for tennis and never had seen socks. What a lucky draw for LOP.
On Food romantically overlooking the beach and sea on a 2nd floor terrace even attracted James the Hamster to come out of his hiding place. What a weekend to be remembered. Well, it was not too long and the end came too quick……
In closing, over 10 hasher left to Tianjin on the old slow train as it was 40 or more years ago sending one back into the 70s, is time travel possible after all ?
