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The World HHH Membership Interhash in Jiangmen, Sorry, You missed it! |
While we got, amazingly, NO participation from surrounding hashes in China, Hong Kong and Macau, WHERE WERE YOU? However, we still had a great weekend, with participants from as far away as the Middle East, U.S. and Surrey, England. I want to thank everyone who participated and contributed to the success of this event. One proud announcement, of the three live hare trails and one "accompanied" trail, no Stray Dog was caught on a live hare trail in the making of this event.
Friday: We had a great live hare hash trail connecting three restuarant/pubs by a maze of beautiful trails winding through plazas with traditional Chinese music and song on stage, alleys and parks. Each served up appetisers and food, beer to fruit drinks depending on those attending, all part of the fee.
Saturday Morning: We left that morning for a very beautiful mountain scenic area for an eight km trail winding past a beautiful shrine area, up wooded mountain steps to several scenic views for a breathtaking view of the city from the beer near. After beer, fruit juices or water, the pack continued to chase the hare up and down the mountain ridges past a monastary to the symbol of Jiangmen Hash House Harriers, a tall eleven-story tower atop the mountain. Participants climbed the six or eight stories of stairs to the bottom of the tower, then another eleven stories to the top for a magnificent view of the city and towns in the area, with a panorama that including the Pearl River.
Banquet: We were bused to a plush Restaurant where we were served the annual World Hash House Harriers Membership banquet. There were many exotic dishes and much great food enjoyed by all. Stray Dog put on a Western show, complete with cowboy movie playing in the background as he corrupted some popular western songs into more hash-like versions and led the pack in The Wild West Show.
Saturday Evening: We bused again to a very scenic area with lakes at the base of a large mountain. Stray Dog again took the pack on a live hare chase around the lakes as they crossed several beautiful scenic bridges, pagodas, thousands of boiling coy (goldfish) and even Premiere Zhou Enlai's museum to end at a beautiful lakeside restaurant. More song and comradery made this a great evening.
Sunday: First, participants were bused to Geifeng Mountain to visit a beautiful temple grounds with many buildings, a monastary and gold Bhuddas, large sculptures and beautiful grounds. We then visited a local school where freshmen were being given military training. Event participants were treated to fruit and a reception in a conference room by the headmaster of the school, given a school tour then brought out to the grounds to witness the children as they demonstrated military close order drill. Afterwards, the last official event meal was at a sushi restaurant where they were served sushi, Japanese food, hot sakim Kirin beer and more. As the pack had greatly diminished after the Saturday activities, the trail Sunday was more informal with Stray Dog leading the pack in a meandering trail through the beautiful lakes, flowers, greenery, multiple waterfalls, large rose garden and more of the famous Dong Hu (East Lake) park. We stopped for a bit and participants rode on rides and did games in the theme park. Afterwards, we traveled just outside the park for beer and cocktails at a five star hotel, the last officially paid part of the event. From there, the trail led through the park some more and around more lakes to the grounds of Wu Yi University and more lakes and gardens.
Post Event Sunday Night: Out the last gate, we went on to the first "pay your own way" supper Sunday night at a Korean restaurant in a five-star hotel and shopping complex.
Monday: Since some visitors had not left, we packed up and toured an ancient Confucious School and beautiful grounds, went to the very old home and country village of Liang Qichao, a famous writer and revolutionary in early democratic revolution times at the beginning of the 20th century. We then took the hour trip out of town to the famous Gudou Hot Springs resort. We began with a great feast of fish (chosen live from aqauriums as is Chinese style) and other local cuisine at a beautiful restaurant. We took a cable car up a tall mountain that had a Guilin type mountain view with mountain lakes and a dam on one side and the Pearl River estuary and a view of the entrance to the South China Sea on the other side. Some of the participants went to the hot springs and enjoyed the many pools of hot spring water and various attractions, like fish therapy where you lay in a pool of spring water amongst hundreds of fish. Most then went to the lake with a beautiful beach, wave pool, mountain water and water slide park.
All in all, it was a great weekend and in this editor's opinion, the best World HHH Membership Interhash yet since it was founded as the Global Trash Hash in 1995.
If you missed this one, which topped out in price for US$69.95 at its highest, you missed out on the absolute BEST BANG FOR YOUR BUCK INTERHASH EVER! With a total of six very nice restaurants, two hot breakfasts offered at Stray Dog's, unlimited beer, beautiful eight color T-shirt, bag of books and magazines, free premium membership, patch and certificate, several park fees, transportation and more, tell me of anywhere you got as much! Add that to nice hotels for about US$30, and what more could you want. Don't you wish major event hosts could learn from that?
The SECRET LOCATION of the next World Hash House Harriers Membership Interhash will be announced by the end of the year, if not sooner. You don't want to miss the next one.
Don't forget the China Nash Hash this coming weekend where they promise a hash tour of the Great Wall and a great hash weekend.
Cheers and On On
Stray Dog
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