Hash dash raises plenty of cash
One brown dachshund and 100 runners gathered at Braemar Hill Road playground on Sunday for the annual Santa Hash, a community fundraising effort organised every year by 14 Hash House Harrier teams around Hong Kong.
Steve Taylor, who had helped organise and lay three trails that morning - a long, a short, and a walkers' trail - said the long run 'is about six to eight kilometres, it should take about an hour'.
Some were dressed in Christmas costumes, others simply in Christmas hats and T-shirts advertising their local hash for the circular route. All had to pay an entry fee and, together with sponsorship, the event should raise HK$40,000 for Operation Santa Claus.
For taxi driver Eric Chau Kam-chuen, a member of the Kowloon Hash it was his first Santa hash run. 'I'll do the long run,' he said.
Kyoko Taniguchi, of the Free China Hash, was one of the 'hares' who laid the trails. 'We lay the trail by putting markings of flour on the ground,' said Ms Taniguchi, who has been a hash runner since 1998.
The dachshund, Choco, is from New York, said her Spanish owner, Kandi Solabarrieta, who is a member of the Wan Chai and Ladies hash clubs and was running her fifth Santa Hash.
Former policeman Guy Shirra, one of the hares - hash name Gunpowder Plod - has a golden labrador, Wan Bun. 'He's been on more than 350 runs, but I've had to send him home as he would have eaten the dachshund.'
