Aladar123 plays geocaching

Who likes puppets? How about a museum full with them? somewhere in Taipei ... Unfortunately at the time I could go and search for the geocache the museum was already closed. Hanging out there While geocaching in Taiwan I learned a few things, one of them is that there are not too many geocachers in Taiwan, and even less who hides geocaches. Another important thing is that most people do not care that you are searching, not a single muggle ever asked or looked longer than a second to see what I'm after, not even when we were searching close to the police station, they also did not look like they know what we are up to. Most muggles are just minding their own business. What a cap color and still safe when hidden As you can see the cap is that bright color, and still it was in place and did not go missing. When I was searching for it there was a bus paking alomg the road but the driver did not even look at me. I felt a bit strange I was expecting more interest from the pe...

During my visit to Taiwan I learned some new ways of hiding a geocache. This one was one of them. Many areas seems to be with no place to hide anything, just like this huge park along the Keelung river. Container under a grid. The container is hidden under the only grid in sight using a magnet and to make sure geocachers do not let it fall it is also tied to the grid using a fishing line. I took the above picture with the geocache not pushed back fully to its place so it is visible, but as soon as you push it a bit further there is no muggle to spot it. Really nice way of hiding. Can you see the geocache? You see only my shadow... For a bit experienced geocacher it was trivial it has to be on that grid. In the morning there were only a few muggles, most of them running by or cycling by, and they did not bother, they saw me as a tourist making pictures of the park. Which is a wide open park, see some pictures of it below. Not too busy at this time of the day. Not a...

A great dinner and some walk and geocaching, that is what keeps your jet lag far away... At least that is what I was hoping for, but the truth is that none of them helped me on this trip. To look at the brighter side I put many nice smiling faces on the map of Taiwan. The one below was in a park with a train in the middle. As this week on many of the days it was raining that evening as well, but I'm happy to report it is possible to find this geocache even in dark and rain. I think the rain helped some as no muggles were brave enough to hang out in the park in the rain. The train, cannot go far The hint is clear on this geocache, but you need to know a few movies, animation films to understand. One of them was trivial, but the other I had no clue, as the hint was referring to between the two poles, it limited the search area to two smaller part. The geocahce after I signed it. The cache hold in place by a magnet. After a few geocache finds I had the feeling...

The happy last day of my trip in Taiwan. Finally I get home to see my family, the only flight that was available takes off later in the evening so I had to spend some time, the trivial solution was to go geocaching. I decided to get to an area where within walking distance I have a chance to find more. This was one of them. Hiding behind the light. Some magnets are holding this container in place, the fun was that I should say lots of magnets, usually a single one is efficient, but looks like this CO had either many magnets extra or want to make it compatible with small kids hanging on it. Here is the container closer. The light hiding the container in the back, easy to reach, easy to spot. It is so easy to spot, in some countries this would go missing regularly for sure, but seems to be in place for a while now here. At the time I write this blog post my neck is already in pain. I got sunburnt, it was so strong, I could feel it burning, but had nothing to prot...

Close to the 101 in Taipei, Taiwan After a few days and some geocaches (really not many, but I took pictures of all of them...), I had to learn a few things of Taiwan. One of them that the muggles here does not care much about anything, they are there, but they do not even look at you while you are searching, they do not look curious at all, so here is the story of this one. After dinner and a night market and a few kilometers walking around towards the 101, I kept on checking if there are any caches close by to make a detour. 101 Finally this one showed up to be on the route, so let's go. It was raining, started to get heavy as well, which later stopped us from going after another one. So while waiting at red light to cross the street I read the details, the hint, getting ready for the search. It said it'll be at the biggest bicycle rental place, great, I started to worry, biggest usually mean crowded. There were enough for rent for sure. ... as we walked cl...

In urban areas it is not always easy to find places that are easy to place a geocache at. Or if it is easy it is hard to get to it due to too many muggles in the area, or can be found only during day or only during night time. The all-in-one picture. This cache is located in Taipei City, Taiwan really close to a very crowded shopping area where all the younger generation visit for all brands that are trendy for them, and anything else they might need, or not. The dancing lion. The dancing lion is just across from the shopping area, but as in some cases the coordinates were not too accurate, so we started searching on the wrong side of the place. I was even thinking why did they put it there and in the hint even referring to the dancing lion, while there is no dancing lion at all. Then we started to widen the search and found that there is one on the other side of that small square. Hm, at first look it did not even remind me to a lion at all, but when we went c...

The importance of a hint is really high, especially for beginners, they could make the decision between someone becomes a geocacher or stops playing after the first few searches. (Here I on purpose say searches and not finds.) The story in short The last few days are sometimes rainy, sometimes dry but the most important it is not cold or windy. Work was good on track so we decided to go out for a lunch and not order food. After a good lunch I asked my hosts how about walking down to the Keelung river as it is only a few steps away and I never had a chance to see it before. They did not need much convincing, and I quickly looked up that there is a geocache within quick reach. A fast reading checking the hint, the last few logs difficulty terrain combination is low, so should be an easy pick. We walked to the area, while I took a few pictures. Weather was not the best but at least no rain. A bird feeding in the grass. Same birds made lots of noise on neighboring trees...