I arrived in Tokyo on Tuesday with that `illin feeling. Checking into my capsule hotel, I made it about a day before coming down with a full blown case of Montezuma's revenge. Would I let that stop me from missing the Tokyo Hash House Harriers trail? Nope!
After taking an hour to figure out the train system (most of everything isn't even subtitled in English), I arrived at the trail start with a good hour to kill before the listed start time. I took the opportunity to pop into a small noodle shop near the station exit and have some 'authentic' Japanese noodles & pork. I probably shouldn't be that impressed with something so standard here, but I am. Especially since I had to order by pointing at some Japanese characters on the menu next to a price. Not even a picture to go by!
After the meal I started looking for hashers... looking... looking... I ran into one hasher, visiting from Paris. I think his name was Wa Wa Wee (though I could be confusing that with the TV thing Wa Wa Wheee! in the Philippines as his name made me make an immediate connection). Neither of us could find any other hashers after scouring quite a large area by the exit of the station. Then, about 5 minutes to three, another hasher appeared. This time a Tokyo hasher who told us to start looking for arrows pointing towards trail start.
Cool, here's one!
We made it about 50 feet when we run into the hares. It turns out that trail was supposed to start at 7:15 p.m. They changed trail time but didn't update the website.
I spend the next few hours downtown in Ginza, walking around the streets and checking out a Nissan showroom. Even got to sit in the new GTR, roughly a 90k car, yum.
Returned to trail start around 6:30, following arrows this time to start location and ran into PeeWee who walked with me to start and introduced me to other hashers with names like Iku Iku (Japanese for I'm Cumming), Toto (a guy, not the harriette I met in Kiev), the hares Spud Poker and Tidy Whitey and others like Uranus, Khumming Rouge, King Cock, and more.
During trail I also ran into the illustrious Joystick, whom I first met at the Prague weekend and then again during the Munich Oktobeerfest hash. Small world eh? He is the third hasher that I've met multiple times without knowing he would be there. The others were Crazy German (now with the official Subic Bay name of Schindler's Butt Boy) and Copenhagen's own Swamp Thing.
Trail itself was a solid 8k through the backstreets of the Shinagawa district of Tokyo. Using the twisty, windy streets and a large number of both checks and back-checks, Spud was able to keep the pack together for a fairly large amount of the time. It was definitely chilly (the coldest I've seen on trail since Switzerland), but by using my bandana to keep my ears warm and keeping up a good running pace, I was able to ward off the cold until the On-In. We did a quick toast to the hares and then went into the restaurant we first met at to hold circle. Beer and food came in plenty and we ate and drank ourselves silly while having a riot of a time. The energy in the room was so infective that by the time we were halfway through circle, the other two full tables (we were in a group room with 2 other groups) started clapping along to our songs and down-downs.
Loads of fun, only interrupted when I had to make a quick and extended bathroom run (see first paragraph).
Today I was going to go to the Akamura district (electronics heaven), but ended up spending the entire day at the capsule hotel just recovering.
Tomorrow is New Year's Eve and the Tokyo Hash House Harriettes trail. Should prove to be fun if the TH3 was any indication!
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