Iron Tasty: For protection, for power, for health

Two orders of business for the day. The first: tonight I went to buy some iron pills because I'm feeling a little depleted. I went to Cosmed a few blocks from my house. I went inside and luckily the first person I talked to knew English. I told her I needed liquid iron. The first thing she showed me was some flowery box that I was guessing was some sort of tea so that didn't really look like the right thing. Then she said she had one more thing. She showed me a product called "Iron Tasty" and it had the outline of a woman drawn on it. The box was pink and clearly for women. However, I bought it because I guess that was my only option. I'm going to show the box to my Taiwanese friend Tony to have him tell me what's in it before I start taking it. The box is completely in Chinese and I don't want to start taking estrogen by mistake.

The other thing: the Hash last Sunday. I'll give a quick rundown. It was at Fulong Beach again on the Northeast side of the island. It's our last beach run of the year because it's getting colder and rainier. The run started up a steep staircase and then we got on a road which we ran on for about 5 minutes. Then the first check came and a guy found the right way and plunged into some thick jungle. After running down this for about 2 minutes, we ran into the hare putting down the flour. There was some arguing in Chinese and then we turned back and had to basically start the run over again. Apparently, the trail had been marked incorrectly and we missed a 30 minute loop we were supposed to do first before we got to the part where we saw the hare. This was kind of funny and has never happened on a hash I've been on. Anyway, the rest of the run was pretty fun but very muddy and not that runnable because much of the jungle we ran through was just too thick. The highlight of the run came after at Down Downs. They brought me and my friend Andrew up to the front and started making fun of me, saying how I'm always bringing young guys along with me. Mark, the GM, asked us who was Martha and who was Arthur? I wasn't exactly sure how to respond to this so at that moment, a fellow hasher behind Andrew de-pantsed him completely in front of the whole crowd. I was quick enough to dive into a cat pose and avoid humiliation. Andrew wasn't too concerned about it because he leaves on Monday and will probably never see any of these people again. But yeah, that was pretty funny. My friends Dan, Lauren, and Jade from school came along to the hash too. It was their first one and I think they had fun. They were definitely a little confused by the whole thing but they might go again so that's what's important.

We did skip the bash at the hash because Dan, Lauren, and Jade didn't want to drink so we went to a dive of a restaurant a few blocks from the bash. I ordered "fish" which was a whole fish, completely blackened, and brought out on a plate of juices and odd vegetables. But, I was hungry and managed to eat the entire thing by myself. At the end of the meal, Andrew posed the question "could you have pictured yourself eating something like this one year ago?" I said no way, and then laughed and realized just a simple thing like that was a fairly significant experience. Now that I think about it, I've been a very very picky eater my whole life and now that's clearly changing. I'll try and post a picture of that shortly. I had a moment at the restaurant that again, made me realize this has been a pretty unique experience! More to come...stay tuned!