Monday, March 19, 2012

Freakin' Geocaching..

You may or may not know that pretty much every Sunday, Claudia and I go lesson plan at our local Zoo Coffee.  Obviously we spend a lot more time chatting, web-surfing and the occasional facebook stalking.  This past Sunday, Claudia read about our fellow Canadian Epiker, Holley and her boyfriend's Geocaching adventures.  Claudia worked her little magic and suddenly now we have a brand new adventure to look forward to.  Seriously..this has probably been the single most exciting thing I've done yet!

I have never heard of Geocaching before, but it's been around for a very long time.  You could easily google it to learn more or go to the Geocaching website.  Pretty much to summarize it, I call it a worldwide scavenger hunt.  HOW FREAKING FUN DOES THAT SOUND!??!  People hide caches all around the world and upload the gps locations onto the website so that other people could find it.  The website also provides clues and hints to help find the geocache locations.  Geocaches vary in size, shape and content.  They all have to at least contain the logging sheet but some bigger ones can contain other things too.  I'm not sure about specifics, but I would SUUUURE like to find out!

You could also download an app on your IPhone that allows you to use the map and compass to find the correct location. When Claudia read the info to me, we were just like =O, I wonder if there are any near us.  We obviously looked up our location to see if anything was hidden around us, and we had 3 within a 10-15minute walk.

Sunday, trial #1: Fail

We left in the middle of our Zoo date to find our first Geocache which was at exit 8 - right by Claudia's exit.

Following the GPS.



We also looked for one right by Gwanak-gu Office Building.  The hint we got was "fill the air."  I was sooo confused!  "Fill the air?" what? balloons? vents?  I had no clue until I saw a bike stand with a bike pump (by bike pump, I don't mean the ones you use at home, they look like those tire bikes you would see at gas stations).  We looked high and low but couldn't find anything. I guess we started off with harder ones.  We went looking for the micro-sized ones first only because they were near us, but they have bigger ones which probably would've been easier to find..

We noticed that the GPS only got us so far and it often jumped around so I wouldn't really call it reliable.  We preferred to following the clues anyway, it actually made it a lot more fun and exciting.  

We were determined to complete our task so we went online and read about the Geocaches by our station more, we even found some photos of how the Geocaches would look like.  I think Claudia and I were thinking about them all day.  I was sure we'd be able to find one today.

Today, trail #2: SUCCESS!

Can you tell I was suuuuuuper excited?!?!?  We went back to the bike/gas/tire bump - it's a free standing pump, and seriously just looks like a gas pump. It's attached to the floor with metal rods and cement (again, like a gas pump).  We looked high, low, stuck our fingers in random crevices, no luck.   I even opened up this like maintenance compartment of the bike pump to look.  This was probably the sketchiest-looking thing we've ever done. Thank goodness we saw a picture of how flat the cache was, otherwise I wouldn't have thought to look under the metal box to see if it was stuck in a crack between the metal and the cement. Lo and behold!!!!! It was just stuck there, underneath the metal box, we thought it would be tucked away, not hidden underneath with magnets.  GENIUS!!

TOGETHER!!

The logging sheet.

Cwas born!  Since we found it together, we decided to log our names together, we came up with some random ones: Claudicat, C.dawg-cat, dog-cat LOL and settled with "C2" not "C-squared" because that's clearly not as cool. LOL  We were so happy and like seriously..it felt like the coolest thing ever!



We felt like we were on a roll so we decided to go back to exit 8 to find the first one again.  We thought that it had to be magnetic too so we looked all around these wired electric boxes.  Nothing.  It started to feel really awkward too because people kept staring at us and cars were zooming by.

The electrical boxes.


We went back onto the website to read the clue and hint again and realized that it was supposed to be a cylindrical canister annnndd..

TADA!! I was going around touching all the other bolts since I figured one of them had to be it when Claudia grabbed this one!  Dude...do you know how many times I stared at this and thought, "meh..just another bolt?"  GENIUS!

Logging sheet all rolled up inside a sample/travel size makeup jar (don't mind the nails..we were on an adventure!!)

Too cute, too excited.


Just when we thought our Korea trip was hitting slump, we found something exciting to do.  With good weather right around the corner, I suddenly feel like I have a new purpose in life (well..in Korea..I'm always so overdramatic..sheesh LOL).  Seriously though, all of us were starting to go through Seoul-crisis (like midlife crisis) since we only have 5 months left! I can't believe how fast this year is going by.  

Sign up for Geochaching!  It's free (unless you want more stuff =P) and there's probably a Geocache near you!  We could be doing this at the same time while we're all in different parts of the world! HOW FREAKIN' COOL IS THAT?!  I feel like this connects people all around the world, like distance isn't important at all.  It's the weirdest..coolest..most amazing feeling ever!

Go get excited about life again!

xoxo

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