投稿日: Nov 15, 2009 4:36:31 AM
[Reported by Terri]
Hare: Santamaria
Co-Hare: Tapeworm
Sweeper: Sweetie
Runners: 15 runners
Trail length: 8 km
Wordlength: 900 max
It is this scribe’s first hash in Tokyo. Having been warned of the penalties for late arrival, I arrived a full 40 minutes early with two virgins in tow. Finding a convenient family restaurant we splash out on the drinks bar. On leaving we notice our first hash arrow, blue with the the mark 4H next to it...
3:10pm the hashers assemble and Sweetie, Santamaria and Tapeworm lay it on us, we all add the hash emergency number to our address books. Arrows are purportedly approximately 80 – 120 m apart, blue, and where there is a change of direction there will be an arrow. Changing facilities are spacious, airy and well lit – luckily the locals seem unperturbed by the sight of a gathering of gaijin modeling red boxer shorts in the middle of the station. The sky is clear, the air warm, it is a good day for a hash – at least two rival hashes are in agreement, one will be using white chalk and the other an unspecified method of marking. One ponders how far rival hash sabotage might go...
3:15pm we're off: 1 scribe, 2 virgins, 11 hashers, 1 horrors and the sweeper – walkers all. The FRBs and running hashers are to start at 3:30pm. The hare having a natural ability for the unpredictable has hidden the second arrow well, not only throwing us off the trail but allowing the FRBs to catch up by the time we have gotten to the third. We cross a footbridge hot on the tails of the FRBs and come up onto a large bridge with a check at one end, the FRBs are stumped. There are crowds of Japanese people and looking for marks which are sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right, and often simply don't exist is non-trivial. The FRBs are oscillating back and forth like boxers trapped in a ring, the walkers are sniffing like dogs, the grand master looks confused, the locals completely ignore us – there are no markers to be found. The sweeper is in contact with the hare – heated words are exchanged. The word comes through that the trail runs along the waterfront close to the Inter Continental Hotel. The FRBs are off like a shot, making up the trail as they go, no longer even pretending to look for markers. Fortunately one FRB, is tall his bandana covered head bobbing up and down in a sea of black, like a buoy. Finally there is a feral shout of on-on and we are off, or rather on again.
Our hares' strategy of divide and conquer becomes apparent as he leads us through crowd after crowd. Once again despite our modest pace we catch the FRBs who repeatedly shoot off in random directions and reconverge. Things look desperate – perhaps our hare is March? I search some steps leading to a bridge in vain, not wanting to return by the same path, I return by a direct route through a cafe – perhaps there will be arrows in the cafe - and in so doing confuse Sweetie who goes in search of me. There is a raised structure with pillars, we run along it checking the inside, outside and inner surfaces – there is no arrow until the very far end – one begins to wonder how are hare and co-hare define a junction?
Markings are and have been coming consistently for some time now, we cross the road and inexplicably there is no arrow – the hare strikes again. We fan out but still there is no arrow, there is a shout of on-on, and I turn to see a virgin looking towards the foot of a woman in front of which is a petit arrow – not quite the size of the foot which she has obviously just moved – coincidence or collusion?
Having long ago lost all sight of the FRBs and most everyone else, at some length we followed the trail up the hill to the Foreigners' cemetery, over to the hilltop viewpoint and back down, passing the old French and British Consulates... Little beknown to our diehard splinter group of 2 hashers and 4 virgins, as it has long ago past the time we were expected, a search and rescue team of Tapeworm and Steve has been dispatched. True to our cause we are still tracking the trail in the dark; note to hares for future reference blue is hard to see in the dark! We arrive DFL to learn that there was a contingent of SCBs consisting of at least Sweetie, Steve and Fuller Air, that shortcut the Foreigners' cemetery -> hilltop viewpoint -> old French and British Consulates section in it's entirety, 3 km of the 8 km trail!
We gather once again in a circle and briefly introduce ourselves. One virgin makes the timeless observation, “Herod had more arrows in his eye than there were on the trail”. A few hashers bid their farewells, and the remaining 12 make their way to the on-inn, "The Camphor Tree", where amongst other delights we drink politically incorrect wine made by Jews on the Levant.
In summary a solid introduction to the black of art of concealed trail hashing. Would I do it again – damn yes!