Have you ever heard the expression "Chased into the jungle by wild dogs" me either until today. I decided to explore the other end of the island today, on Google Maps it was very mountainous and looked like a good place to run. Ran from the hotel towards a nice golf course at the base of the mountain then I headed up. This place seems to have a farel dog problem, I'm a dog person and I've been to places with stray dogs (Istanbul) and usually they don't bother you. I saw a few yesterday but the only one in my way only had 3 legs and didn't seem like much of a threat. Today as I started up the hill 2 dogs that seemed to be just puppies came to investigate me, I stopped to negotiate with them by using the normal dog negotiating techniques "shoe, go home, bad dog" it seemed to take longer than normal due to the language barrier I presume. Eventually they let me pass and I continued up the hill. It was very beautiful, and even though it was humid there was a nice breeze that felt good. About 1 mile up there was a trail head with a map showing a bunch of hiking trails, up the road further it showed a 1500M loop around a lake which I decided to go to so I continued up the road, as I came around a bend all of a sudden about 50 Meters away 6 dogs came chasing me, and they didn't seem to be the negotiating type, so I turned around and started running back the other way, as fast as I could. Luckily after about 1 minute I looked back and they had stopped, I'm sure if they would have kept coming I couldn't have out ran them. So that was a bummer, now my plan of running the lake was shot, so I ran back to where the sign was and started on that trail. It started out very nice but within about 10 minutes I realized I was pretty deep into the Jungle, no one had any idea where I was (myself included) I had no water, and realized there were probably snakes (I hate snakes). I kept thinking about Steve bush wacking his way to the top of some jungle mountain in Costa Rica but then quickly realized I'll never be as cool as Steve. I tried calling my wife to tell her to use Find My iPhone if I never came back but she didn't answer my call. So I decided I'd had enough adventure for the day and headed back down. Luckily I had no more dog encounters and went back to the safe cool hotel gym and lifted weights. I actually had a fun run, I'm a little disappointed I can't get a solid long run in. It seems you can't go more than 1 - 2miles on this island without either ending up in the Jungle or the Ocean. So maybe tomorrow I'll stick to the treadmill. Michelle L gave the impression that there is no place to do hill training in Hong Kong, which I hear Hong Kong is actually quite mountainous as well. Maybe she meant you can't do hill training without being chased by wild dogs. ******************* P.M. 30 minutes on the elliptical followed by weights. One more thing I wanted to mention. RAD's husband is replacing my friend who just quit so he will doing the same job as me starting next Monday. I hope he likes Chinese food.
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