FujiFool

I did something like that on Okinawa, though not officially. I recovered a pink Nestle's Quik bunny container that was trash at the site and put some things inside just so others behind me would have something to find. One person turned his nose up at my doing that but at least 4 or 5 cachers behind me had something to find, unlike me. I have found other caches in poor repair and tried to improve them. I always email the owner later and leave it for them.

As you might know from our name, we live in Japan, about an hour from Yokohama. Caches in Japan are pretty far and few between and take some planning to find more than one a day. We identified a cluster of six near Yokohama harbor. We prepped quite well with printouts of the web pages, maps, planned train routes, etc. We went out yesterday. We were out for seven hours by train and on foot and were unable to find any of the three we went for. We also spent about $30 in train fare and $20 for a lunch of Japanese spaghetti. The problem here is that two of the caches were hidden in the most popular and muggle crowded places in Yokohama; Moto-machi shopping street and Yokohama Harbor Overlook. The hiders didn't even bother to hide them in places away from all the activity. For the Harbor Overlook the GPS led us to a lower observation terrace. Look up at the upper terrace and there are 100+ sets of eyes looking down at you while you discreetly try to search. And believe me, Americans cannot be discreet in Japan no matter how hard they try due to Japanese fear of foreigners. All in all a very frustrating day. I was wondering if anyone else experiences similar challenges due to local conditions or customs?

When we were in St. Louis during September we found many micros hidden in the woods when a larger container would have worked just as well. A larger container can be just as hard to find in the woods as a micro if some time and thought are taken in the hiding and camoflage. Micros in downtown areas like StL are appropriate but micros in the woods is just plain lazy.

We're fairly new too, only 14 finds so far. And I'm very lucky in that my wife always plans and packs. Some things we have found helpful are a small but powerful flashlight, bug spray, small towels or washclothes for sweat, bug spray, water, pen, bug spray, gatorade if you're out in a tropical climate or out for a long day, bug spray, trade items, digital camera...did I mention bug spray? Seriously, don't go out without bug spray. Walking sticks are great for poking around in places you don't want to put your hands. On Okinawa and even Japan, the spiders are BIG and scary and many habu (snakes) hang around looking for something tasty. Having lived in the desert (Kuwait) and the tropics (Okinawa) I know to always take lots of fluids. I know I've left many things off this list, like I said, my asawa always takes care of me.

Thank you all for your time and attempts at helping me. I solved the problem and in doing so may have proven myself to be the dumbest cacher in history. I spent hours over a two day period trying to sove the riddle of why my GPS would not accept downloaded coordinates from either of my computers. Here is what happened (do not try this at home!): I live in Japan and routinely use my Garmin for geocaching here. We're going on vacation to St. Louis next week so I've been busy researching caches, printing out their webpages, and last night attempting to download the coordinates. They downloaded effortlessly to my pc but after what should have been a quick download to my GPS unit I checked and there was nothing there but the caches I already had in there from Japan. I tried again, same result. I moved to my laptop, same result. I tried every combination I could think of. Expletives were flying. I posted this thread asking for help. I sent an email to the guy that introduced me to geocaching and offered to sell him a like-new GPS unit cheaply. The smarter ones of you may have already caught my error... This morning I tried again, same results. I updated drivers, I updated the unit software. The air was electric with invectives. If I had a dog he would have been under the bed. My wife wanted to cancel our caching trip planned for this morning but I was too frustrated to just stay at home. So we hopped on the train and did manage to locate a chache. Upon our return I sat down and began manually entering the coordinates for our vacation in St. Louis. Same result! Surely you all know by now what the problem was but I was still too stupid, Too weak to curse any longer I began to suspect that something was wrong with my micro SD card or the internal memory of the Garmin. One last time I tried to enter coordinates for a cache but this time I got an error message saying it already existed. Huh??? I checked the cache listing: nothing! I tried to enter it again and got the same error message: it already existed! What the f...??? I went to the find menu and searched by name...they were all there! This dim bulb finally lit up. When I looked for the coordinates I had been entering the unit was defaulting to "nearest" caches from my home coordinates. Since the ones I was entering for St. Louis were 6400 miles away they didn't show up. As so often happens, the simplest answer was the correct one. I made one last mistake that I have to confess to. I told my wife about my stupidity. She rolled her eyes and said that's why she never touches the unit, I would have included her in my histrionics. I should have just told her I reasoned out and solved the the highly technical problem and let her marvel at her luck in marrying such a brilliant man instead of shaking her head at what a cement head she is chained to. One last thing. I sincerely apologize to all the employees of Garmin, Hewlet Packard computers, Sony computers, the writers of EasyGPS and GPS Swiss Army Knife, as well as their ancestors, their children, and their descendants for the next several generations for the "unkind" things I may have said during my lunacy. Maybe I should just collect stamps.

Updating unit and USB drivers did nothing. Anyone have any other ideas?

This has been a huge problem for us in Japan. Gaijins (foreigners) always stand out, especially when many caches are hidden in parks. It is difficult not to look like a pedophile while hanging around a playground for "no apparent" reason. I'm curious to know if other cachers in other countries experience the same thing. I did not geocache in while in Kuwait but loitering around or taking pictures of places like mosques or government buildings/facilities was enough to get you arrested.

I have a Garmin eTrex Legend Cx. For several months I have successfully downloaded cache waypoints from the geocaching website using EasyGPS, both from my desktop and laptop computers. Tonight nothing is working. I can download the waypoints into My Documents, I can open them in EasyGPS and edit them, but they will not send to my Garmin. I have tried every combination of UBS ports possible (that has proved to be a problem in the past with my laptop). Any ideas?

Yes I am though I am TDY to Okinawa right now, and thank you for the information. Another cacher (peerice) suggested I find the Lat and Long coordinates of the base. In a flash of cognizant thought I called our Government Flight Rep and got them: N35 27.66 and E139 27.19. I dialled them right in and now have coordinates to about 12 caches. Can't wait to get back and start on them. I found five here on Okinawa yesterday. Thanks again.

Does anyone know the name of a cache in the general area of Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Japan? I just need a place to start since this site doesn't allow searching in Japan to that level of detail. Thanks!

Thanks, I found Today's Cacher, I was looking for paper products, something to do while on the throne! Thats why I have WIFI. Remind me to NOT use your keyboard Unfortunately the Shogun Inn here at Kadena AB isn't wired for WiFi, neither is my house in Japan. I'm excited to get started but it's been ungodly hot here and a typhoon is due tonight.

Thanks, I found Today's Cacher, I was looking for paper products, something to do while on the throne!

Hi, brand new to this, first post. Are there any periodicals or other publications about the hobby? Thanks, and nice to meet you all.