Cacheboxing, International Style!

Not all who wander are lost...

Success, finally!!!

Cachebox #3, 1st in a foreign country!

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While visiting Korea we're patiently awaiting that time when somebody else plants some letterboxes around here for us to find. Not sure if or when that will happen while we're on the peninsula, though--as it hasn't yet happened in the past year and a half. :( In the meantime, in an odd manner of sightseeing we've decided to hunt down geocaches instead. Interesting, over the past year and a half the geocache listings for South Korea went from 2 pages to 4! Unfortunately, most of those listings are in distant corners of the peninsula. What's even more frustrating is that about a dozen of them are within 10 miles of where I resided on the peninsula for 16 months between 1997 and 1998--nowhere near to where we are currently located. :(

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Our first attempt was LX1.5 planted by DigitalFudge. This guy seems to be THE planter around Asia. We've seen his geocaches in Korea, China and most recently saw clues to some in Thailand, too. Geocaching in Korea is an interesting nut to crack. Even more so when you do it without a GPSr! We resort to studying the clues on the listing to glean any additional hints from the entries to see if it would even be possible without a GPSr. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. That just comes with our version of the game.

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Anyway, our outing took us on the metro. Odd--geocaching via metro. You'd think it would be the 'wimpy' way out of exercise but instead we seemed to have logged some serious walking mileage yesterday--moreso than the manner in which we letterbox in the US where we drive from start point to start point where the hike is only limited to the outing described by the clues. In this situation here the outing to actually get to the starting point is usually the event itself and then locating the cache is the 'icing on the cake' so to speak.

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We found ourselves in the Hongik University section of Seoul; a region with which we were already familiar because we had previously sought out this geocache awhile back. Unfortunately, the last time we hunted it down it was missing. Not surprising because DigitalFudge was new to the hobby and hidden it in a slightly naive approach--simply tucked under one of those 'sit & spin' exercise machines--quite obvious to anybody in the area and it quickly went missing. He quickly learned from his mistake and has graduated to a much more intense level of GC planting. This GC was rather unique--definitely a first for us in both geocaching & letterboxing circles!

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The hike from the metro took us through a trendy section of town (sort of the University District?) with lots of hip cafes, fashionable clothing stores and unique miscellany. We walked up, straight up and up some more. Our goal was the top of a mountain and once there it would be hunt & peck until we found our "lucky birds don't build nests" clue. We eventually reached the summit (at least the summit where non-Korean military assets could actually visit) and started our hunt & peck. Well, we'd hunted & pecked the hilltop before back in Oct 04 (a couple of times) and this time we were successful within about 5 minutes! Huh? Go figure--I walked straight to it. Definitely beat our previous DNF attempt that consumed several hours--in the driving rain. Today, was much more pleasant. The skies were grey but the temperatures were cool and there wasn't a hint of precipitation. AND--rnrB & trkr didn't complain once!!! BONUS!!!

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What was so unique about this geocache is that Digital Fudge built it himself. Remember that picture of the birdhouse at the beginning of this blog entry? Well, that was it! Yep, he constructed a birdhouse with a false (slide out) bottom. The container was tucked into the void within. Very interesting. It was perfect--we came to Korea with 3 Travel Bugs in hand that we really wanted to scatter. This GC was the perfect spot to house one of the larger ones. Woo hoo! Our mission was 1/3 of the way complete. But--we picked up a 'trackable' digitalfish from Singapore--it's basically a glass bead shaped as a fish that has a website set up to track its travels. Interesting. We did continue our 'cacheboxing' trend by using one of the trade trinkets in the cache as a 'stamp'. We opted for an impression of a pair of United pilot's flight wings. That made for a very interesting stamp--our first cachebox outside of the US. By the way, did any of you notice that the 'hole' in the bird house isn't really there?

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From here, we headed to the other side of the mountain by wandering along walking routes that seemed to be tucked into every nook & cranny one can find.

The Forsythias are in full bloom as seen through the newly planted pine trees along the walking trail. Once we reached the other area, we came across a neat fitness park that we'd visited last time. They had added many new features to the park since our last visit--including dozens and dozens of brand spanking new 'exercise stations' such as ab machines, elyptical trainers, military press machines, stairclimbers, bowriders, you name it! What a neat concept for a public park setting!

Once the kids got their dose of 'fun' on the exercise machines (yes, Mom enjoyed them, too) we continued to head down the mountain in search of a metro station. Along the way we stumbled (yes, pun fully intended here) on another barefoot (is it better said toe-torture?) park. We've seen several of these around Seoul now along our travels. This one was a straight path that suggested a nautical theme with fish, starfish, flowing water images created out of rocks/stones set into concrete. It's basically a track of strategically placed rocks, stones, jade, turquoise, marble cubes, prisms, pyramids, cylinders, wooden cylinders--you name it.

The intent is to negotiate this course while 'barefoot'. I presume the various textures/materials are supposed to trigger different 'pulse' points in your foot that may relieve pain/stress in other parts of the body. Reflexology seems to be pretty popular around here. rnrB & trkr were able to basically 'sprint' barefoot across this course--I, on the other hand, slowly & deliberately negotiated the course agonizing with each painful step in the process. This seems to be my attempt at recreating a personal episode of Fear Factor for me. ;) I'm quite certain that I hit a nerve along this course--many, many nerves in fact! Was it pleasurable? Nope--I was quite relieved when it was over, though. ;) That made me feel good!

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We continue wandering down the mountainside still searching for a metro station. We find yet another 'chic' and trendy neighborhood full of interesting cafe houses, market squares, clothing stores and even find the 'Lonely Planet' office for Seoul. Never knew...

I hesitated to post this photo of trkr pointing out a unique 'fashion' in lingerie here in Seoul but I tried to distort it enough to salvage any hope he may have of running for future political office. ;) We happened upon this store that seemed to focus on costume wear. They sold clown faces, princess tiaras, yoda masks, etc. What was odd was their 'Hitler' mask (huh? I don't see the humor there) and this pair of 'exposed buns' boxer shorts they highlighted in front of their store. Bizarre...

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Wandering Aimlessly?

Yep!

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Eventually we find a metro stop, see a blazing Krispy Kreme sign off in the distance (it wasn't yet open last time we visited) and are perplexed to notice that we're at the same exact metro stop by which we launched our LX1.5 adventure earlier in the day. Odd-because we'd headed East from the stop while ascending the hill, wandered a bit to the North and then continued East to the metro. Somewhere the roads must've changed azimuths on us a bit (i.e. like 180 degrees, huh?). Of course, since the sun was hiding most of the day it was difficult to use it for navigational purposes and my trusty letterboxing compass was safe & sound at home attached to my luggage for safekeeping during the flight. A lot of good it was doing us there...

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Following our adventure around the Hongik University neighborhood, we jumped back on the metro for a dozen stops in search of yet another geocache. This time we were seeking out "Green Park" by Chris##### This was a relatively new cache--launched only about 5 days ago--so gleaning hints from the clues was next to impossible. I had very little information to go by apart from knowing it was near a park, a unique hide, 10' from a gazebo and near BBQs. Not much at all. I'd also gotten a hint from a log entry that said it was about 0.3 mile from a certain other metro stop. Not much to go on for one without a GPSr in a massive city. Anyway, we get to the general location and start hunting & pecking. Imagine my surprise when we quickly find 'said' gazebo and not even 30 seconds later we find the GC! Now, that was amazing! What's worse is that GPSr toting folks have already logged DNF on this. Seems their GPSr-s don't get much reception in the area (oh, that was another clue for me--could the park possibly be surrounded by buildings???) so while they're focused on the info their GPSr's are not revealing to them; if they only open their eyes, apply some logic, they can hone right in on it. Another great GC--mostly because it had space enough to drop off yet another TB we brought over from the US. My goal of dropping them off was to lighten my load--thank goodness we found another one a TB would fit in. Many of the GCs in Asia are 35mm film canisters so finding two 'larger' caches was amazing! But we did pick up yet another 'trackable' item--this time the GotWake? thermometer/compass traveler. In one day, we doubled our Korean Geocache finds for the past year and a half--still sans GPSr! Will the streak continue? Oh, we also got our 2nd international cacheboxing find in that there was a US Army Warrant Officer Insignia in the cache that served as the perfect 'stamp' for our logbook!

Hmmm...wonder if our cacheboxing F count is catching up with DMS' yet? ;)

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All in all, not a bad day exploring some interesting sights around town. On the return trip to 'home', we decided to shun the metro in lieu of walking instead--using Seoul Tower as our navigational beacon. Granted it was about 5 miles off in the distance but it worked and we safely made it back to the apartment.

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We did come across an incredibly gorgeous metro station along the way. What? A gorgeous metro station? Yep, this one is along a relatively new metro line and they decked it out--art deco with lots of glass, crystal and chrome. Noksapyeong Station--if you're ever in town, check it out! Incredible--who knew?