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collecting countries


terratin

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I went and found a handful in Guatemala--and placed two in Quetzaltenango (Xela) with a local babysitting.. however, the cache disappeared because someone did not replace it well enough... and they don't sell magnetic nanos in guatemala... and mailing stuff there is out. Looking for someone traveling that way to whom I can mail 10+ magnetic nabos that I can leave with my contact to keep it up and running.

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I'm currently in Egypt for a few days. A lot of the caches here (I'm in a resort) seem to be holiday caches but still so far so good with the containers being there and well looked after... however of the few that there are, the majority seem to be in bars and shops. I actually don't mind that as it at least provides a reason to start some interaction with the locals that goes beyond 'gin and tonic please' :laughing:

 

I wish I could help to replace your nanos Ibrokaw, but sadly I'm not heading in that direction :(

 

I'm heading out for a couple of earthcaches before I leave Egypt, and its got me thinking that earthcaches are probably the best kind of holiday caches to leave behind as they don't require a physical container to be maintained. I'm not going anywhere on this trip that doesn't already have an Earthcache (I wish now I'd planned a trip to the Blue Hole near Sharm).

 

Next stop after Egypt will be Armenia, but there are not many caches in Yerevan and the purpose of the trip is work (which sometimes gets in the way of caching :rolleyes::lol: )

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T minus 10 days to the Israel/Jordan/maybe Palestine trip. Anticipation! :D

 

Also we have May 4/5 off in the Netherlands so I booked a few nights at a nice-sounding hostel in Slovenia, by Lake Bled. That part of the world looks gorgeous! Also it looks like a small enough country that there's no point in moving around to somewhere else, as I can just do a day trip for all of it from right there. If the Palestine cache works out (and looks like it should- things are quiet, and a day tour run by my hostel in Jerusalem into the West Bank goes near two of them) then Slovenia will be #38.

 

Also, not country related as it's just an hour north of me now, but I'm excited to report that I will finally get my Mega event icon this Saturday so huzzah! And also I'm giving a talk next week at Amsterdam Nerd Nite on geocaching, which should be super fun... beyond a general discussion about the topic I'm focusing on some of my adventures traveling and geocaching around the world to keep it interesting.

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I got an email message from a person that I'm collaborating with at FAO on a project that uses a software platform developed in the department where I work. The message was about another similar project that uses the same platform and one of my roles with that platform is providing consultation for those using it internationally, primarily in the agriculture domain. In this case it involves a consortium of universities....in Cuba. Now that's a country I'd love to add to my collection.

 

Cuba is indeed a pretty interesting place - the daiquiris are to die for - although admittedly I only saw Havana and only for a few stolen days on my way home from working in the Bahamas.

 

It's a tough life.

 

I did a little research. Although travel to Cuba (from the U.S.) has loosened up it's still not easy and, depending on where you look, a variety of interpretations for what you can and can't do. There are lots of licensed tour operators that coordinates tours but tend to follow a strict itinerary of activities and use charter flights. There are 12 categories for authorized travel and if, for example, I was asked to do some consulting for a university in Cuba, that would fit into one of them.

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I did a little research. Although travel to Cuba (from the U.S.) has loosened up it's still not easy and, depending on where you look, a variety of interpretations for what you can and can't do. There are lots of licensed tour operators that coordinates tours but tend to follow a strict itinerary of activities and use charter flights. There are 12 categories for authorized travel and if, for example, I was asked to do some consulting for a university in Cuba, that would fit into one of them.

 

From what I could tell, when I went there, it's really very easy. Fly to the Bahamas and then from the Bahamas, on a separate booking, fly to Cuba. Cuba, by default, won't stamp your passport if you look even remotely American. I had to ask for my passport to be stamped - darned if I was going to miss out on *that* stamp! There were Americans on the plane when I went there, and when I flew out via Panama.

 

Amusing side note - I know I'm not American so it doesn't matter to me, but immigration at LAX were utterly unconcerned about my visit to Cuba, didn't even care about the Cuban cigars I voluntarily declared.

 

Unless it has changed, you just need to leave your GPSr at home and use your phone, discreetly, for caching while there.

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I did a little research. Although travel to Cuba (from the U.S.) has loosened up it's still not easy and, depending on where you look, a variety of interpretations for what you can and can't do. There are lots of licensed tour operators that coordinates tours but tend to follow a strict itinerary of activities and use charter flights. There are 12 categories for authorized travel and if, for example, I was asked to do some consulting for a university in Cuba, that would fit into one of them.

 

From what I could tell, when I went there, it's really very easy. Fly to the Bahamas and then from the Bahamas, on a separate booking, fly to Cuba. Cuba, by default, won't stamp your passport if you look even remotely American. I had to ask for my passport to be stamped - darned if I was going to miss out on *that* stamp! There were Americans on the plane when I went there, and when I flew out via Panama.

 

Amusing side note - I know I'm not American so it doesn't matter to me, but immigration at LAX were utterly unconcerned about my visit to Cuba, didn't even care about the Cuban cigars I voluntarily declared.

 

Unless it has changed, you just need to leave your GPSr at home and use your phone, discreetly, for caching while there.

 

I read a couple of different things about passport stamps. One site suggested asking for it not to be stamped as it could generate a lot of questions when coming back into the U.S. I'm not sure that is really the case with the new regulations.

 

Even with the new regulations, there aren't any airlines with direct flights from the U.S. to Havana and a lot of travel booking sites won't allow you to book through them directly. Panama, the Bahamas and some cities in Mexico seem to be common layover stops.

 

What a bunch of travel agency sights will tell you is that you *have* to take a charter flight and be on an official (which, of course, is a service they'll provide). I remember that when the new regulations went into effect in January that I got email spam the very next day from some travel agency selling Cuban vacations.

 

From what I understand there is a list of 12 authorized categories for travel to Cuba. It used to be that a rather lengthy process was necessarily to travel there but now anyone that falls into one of those categories can get a "license" to travel to Cuba. I would fall into several of them:

 

(4) professional research and professional meetings

(5) educational activities

(10) activities of private foundations or research or educational institutes

 

Once licensed, I'd still have to travel there via Panama, Mexico or some other country but I wouldn't have to travel with a licensed "tour".

 

From what I've seen quite a few of the caches could probably be found just but looking at the cache listing (many have spoiler photos) and printing out a map. I was surprised to see that there are lot of event caches and that they've been well attended.

 

 

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I got an email message from a person that I'm collaborating with at FAO on a project that uses a software platform developed in the department where I work. The message was about another similar project that uses the same platform and one of my roles with that platform is providing consultation for those using it internationally, primarily in the agriculture domain. In this case it involves a consortium of universities....in Cuba. Now that's a country I'd love to add to my collection.

 

Cuba is indeed a pretty interesting place - the daiquiris are to die for - although admittedly I only saw Havana and only for a few stolen days on my way home from working in the Bahamas.

 

It's a tough life.

 

Oh, we have contemplated Cuba. Not that I like flying anymore. (Actually, we have only cached in the US of A and Canada.)

My caching companion is cubano, but has lived here for fifty years, and is a US citizen. Cuba does not recognize his US citizenship. And his passport does say that he was born in Cuba. Somehow, I don't think this would go over well, though he would love to see the old country. Oh, well.

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Picked up a new country fairly recently, Netherlands Antilles, but didn't leave the house and didn't armchair a cache.

 

I noticed that my countries cached total had gone up by one very recently so I looked through the list and there was "Netherlands Antilles."

 

Back in 2011 we had gone to St Martin to celebrate our wedding anniversary and we made sure to get over to the Sint Maarten side to log a cache

 

Imagine my surprise when I found out that GS only recognized St Martin (where we had, of course, logged several caches)

 

Fast forward a few years and GS decides to recognize the two sides as two separate entities but my country total doesn't increase.

 

Now it has. I don't know if this is a GS maneuver or if the CO decided to change the location specification.

 

Anyway, I'm up to 26 now despite having gone domestic on our last trip (Hawai'i)

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Wow, did they finally change things with the Antilles? There used to be a lot of chaos with different country IDs pointing to the same country.

 

Did they finally clean up that mess? If I recall, the Netherland Antilles dissolved in 2010 and I'll be curious what GS did for caches that were placed prior to that. It seems to me that if a cache was placed prior to 2010 it should retain the country name that it had when i was placed. Okay, I just took a look. It appears that all of the caches that are in Sint Martaan are listed as in Netherland Antilles and Sint Martaan doesn't exist as an option in the new Search Only In filter.

 

My confidence rating for going to Ottawa in May and finally logging a find in Canada is still high but I should find out for sure on Friday during a conference call with someone from Rome.

 

 

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Greetings from Jerusalem! :) Have just caught up with some logs, and am proud to report adding two geocaches: Jordan and Israel. Both are amazing and you should definitely plan on visiting them!

 

Tomorrow I was originally thinking of going on a day trip to get a geocache in Palestine, but honestly I'm a bit tired and think I'll opt instead to just hang out in Jerusalem (during Shabbat, so everyone else will be chilling out too I know). I'm feeling tired after the running around of the past few days trying to see all the amazing things this area of the world has to offer, and it's a recipe for showing up to work even more tired next week than I was when leaving- likely not the best idea!

 

Also, interestingly, I should note that I've been through the West Bank several times as if you're going to the Dead Sea and Masada from Jerusalem it's kinda impossible to avoid it. There are also several geocaches in the West Bank that are listed as a part of Israel- I suspect it's not so much a political thing so much as Groundspeak opts to list UN-recognized countries, and these caches predate the recognition of Palestine.

 

Either way, Jerusalem and Petra are amazing and everyone should put them on their geo-lists!

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Greetings from Jerusalem! :) Have just caught up with some logs, and am proud to report adding two geocaches: Jordan and Israel. Both are amazing and you should definitely plan on visiting them!

 

Tomorrow I was originally thinking of going on a day trip to get a geocache in Palestine, but honestly I'm a bit tired and think I'll opt instead to just hang out in Jerusalem (during Shabbat, so everyone else will be chilling out too I know). I'm feeling tired after the running around of the past few days trying to see all the amazing things this area of the world has to offer, and it's a recipe for showing up to work even more tired next week than I was when leaving- likely not the best idea!

 

Also, interestingly, I should note that I've been through the West Bank several times as if you're going to the Dead Sea and Masada from Jerusalem it's kinda impossible to avoid it. There are also several geocaches in the West Bank that are listed as a part of Israel- I suspect it's not so much a political thing so much as Groundspeak opts to list UN-recognized countries, and these caches predate the recognition of Palestine.

 

Either way, Jerusalem and Petra are amazing and everyone should put them on their geo-lists!

 

I have been in Israel, have fun there, there is a lot to see. :) I suggest you to visit also Haifa and Bahai gardens, Netanya with impressive look to Mediteranian see from cliff, also Telaviv and old Jaffa was worth to visit. And if you are in Israel you definatelly need to visit Dead sea, while Dead sea is not fully dried ;)

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Greetings from Jerusalem! :) Have just caught up with some logs, and am proud to report adding two geocaches: Jordan and Israel. Both are amazing and you should definitely plan on visiting them!

 

Tomorrow I was originally thinking of going on a day trip to get a geocache in Palestine, but honestly I'm a bit tired and think I'll opt instead to just hang out in Jerusalem (during Shabbat, so everyone else will be chilling out too I know). I'm feeling tired after the running around of the past few days trying to see all the amazing things this area of the world has to offer, and it's a recipe for showing up to work even more tired next week than I was when leaving- likely not the best idea!

 

Also, interestingly, I should note that I've been through the West Bank several times as if you're going to the Dead Sea and Masada from Jerusalem it's kinda impossible to avoid it. There are also several geocaches in the West Bank that are listed as a part of Israel- I suspect it's not so much a political thing so much as Groundspeak opts to list UN-recognized countries, and these caches predate the recognition of Palestine.

 

Either way, Jerusalem and Petra are amazing and everyone should put them on their geo-lists!

 

I have been in Israel, have fun there, there is a lot to see. :) I suggest you to visit also Haifa and Bahai gardens, Netanya with impressive look to Mediteranian see from cliff, also Telaviv and old Jaffa was worth to visit. And if you are in Israel you definatelly need to visit Dead sea, while Dead sea is not fully dried ;)

 

Israel will be off-limits for us for quite a while now that it's only two weeks until our Iran trip :laughing: Less caches, but much more interesting history and geology. Can't wait.

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Deciding if I should take a ferry to Macau in the morning and get my 57th.

You've probably already decided but...

 

Lots of people go to Macau on day trips, it's practical.

 

I liked the cache atop Guia Hill, an old fort and stuff, close to the main ferry terminal (the more northerly one). I don't see any direct trails from the ferry side, but there's a (dirt-cheap) cable car on the other. The hill actually has two caches, both by AirQ. His are good.

Edited by Viajero Perdido
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Just found a cache in my 56th Groundspeak ISO standards country. Hong Kong.. Deciding if I should take a ferry to Macau in the morning and get my 57th.

 

Definitely do it if you have the time in your itinerary! We were in Hong Kong over Christmas, took the ferry to Macau and stayed overnight. It's an interesting place - totally unlike anywhere else with the Chinese/Portuguese influences both strong. It was however the most expensive and worst of all the accom we had on the trip (HK Taiwan and Macau), so chose carefully!

 

We liked the caches on the hill too :) and AirQ is doing a great job as a CO almost singlehandedly in Macau.

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Does anyone have a list of oldest active geocaches in every European country (separating England, Wales and Scotland if possible). I cannot check countries in the new search tool...

 

You might find them in this bookmark list that contains "Oldest active caches per country" (it covers the whole World, not just Europe)...

http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.aspx?guid=f9deb755-75bd-438b-95b5-17376f9dd239

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Slovenia next weekend- whoop whoop! B)

 

Also checking in to note that I'm excited to be going to Arizona this summer for observing. I haven't been in ten years or so, ie pre geocaching, so I'm excited to have that state filled in! Funny thing there though is the observatory I'm going to this time (Kitt Peak) is on an Indian reservation, ie no geocaches available at all for the majority of the week... but I'm sure I can grab one or two in Tucson while coming/going from the airport, as it seems like the area is really well populated with them.

 

Also adding more to my counts in Massachusetts, Ohio, and New Hampshire, all of which I haven't been to in years, so that'll be nice. Also toying with weekends this summer to nab Monaco, San Marino, Lithuania, and Latvia- we'll see which end up happening!

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Whilst I still love caching in other countries, I find I'm less interested in adding countries unless I can make it a long enough stop.

 

I recently went to New Zealand.. and looked at various connections through "new" countries where I could perhaps stop off. But the best connection (shortest time to travel and cheapest) was via Singapore.. so that is what I did. No new country as I already have both Singapore and NZ. BUT I spent 2 days caching in NZ and had a ball.

 

In 2 weeks I'm going to Qatar. The cheapest flight connects through Bahrain... which would be a new country. But I decided not to try and lay over in Bahrain, but spend an extra day in Qatar (and go caching in the desert there) insead. I've already found caches in Qatar.. so no new country there either....

 

Maybe I'm just getting old.

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Whilst I still love caching in other countries, I find I'm less interested in adding countries unless I can make it a long enough stop.

 

I recently went to New Zealand.. and looked at various connections through "new" countries where I could perhaps stop off. But the best connection (shortest time to travel and cheapest) was via Singapore.. so that is what I did. No new country as I already have both Singapore and NZ. BUT I spent 2 days caching in NZ and had a ball.

 

In 2 weeks I'm going to Qatar. The cheapest flight connects through Bahrain... which would be a new country. But I decided not to try and lay over in Bahrain, but spend an extra day in Qatar (and go caching in the desert there) insead. I've already found caches in Qatar.. so no new country there either....

 

Maybe I'm just getting old.

 

We spent ten days biking the length of the South Island but, alas, pre-geocaching. Beautiful country and nice people.

 

Counting a country as "collected" is a matter of personal preference. I haven't cached in a country where I haven't spent the night outside the airport and I haven't done the "layover" thing. I just never considered it.

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Counting a country as "collected" is a matter of personal preference. I haven't cached in a country where I haven't spent the night outside the airport and I haven't done the "layover" thing. I just never considered it.

 

I've collected a few countries where I spent less than a day but I was usually able to get away from the airport for more than 6 hours or so. The shortest amount of time I spent in a country and found a cache was in Zimbabwe, I crossed the border from Zambia (and ironically didn't find any caches in Zambia during the week I was there) to see Victoria Falls and was able to grab a cache while I was there. I was over an back in about 3 hours.

 

I have often enjoyed second visits in countries and finding more caches as much or more as the first time. I've been to Ethiopia three times. The first time I didn't find a cache but got within 1000' of one that may or may not have actually been there at the time. I got one find on my second visit and there was only one other in the city at the time. During my third visit I was staying in a hotel right next to a fairly recently placed cache and also spent a few days in an area where I would have like to have done some geocaching but there are no caches within 150 miles.

 

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The shortest amount of time I spent in a country and found a cache was in Zimbabwe, I crossed the border from Zambia (and ironically didn't find any caches in Zambia during the week I was there) to see Victoria Falls and was able to grab a cache while I was there. I was over an back in about 3 hours.

 

Shortest time I spent in a new country is 20 minutes. Driving in the south of France I made a brief stop in Monaco to grab a cache.

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Shortest time I spent in another country was less than 5 minutes, walking to the North Korean side of the conference room in the DMZ. Sadly, no caches in the Joint Security Area. Would have been perfect for a virtual...

 

Sorry, if it's not in the passport it didn't happen.

Hm. That would mean that I haven't been to at least five of the countries that I thought I'd been to... :unsure:

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Argh! Most of Europe all of a sudden didn't happen!

 

And awhile back we were talking about travel to Cuba and how immigration wouldn't stamp passports of US citizens. Confidence level for traveling there is near zero but I've been corresponding with someone in Cuba on some technical issues a few times a week over the last month or so.

 

 

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Argh! Most of Europe all of a sudden didn't happen!

 

C'mon guys, you know I'm not talking about the EU. First time I went to Austria was at the end of a bike tour the length of Bavaria (Romantische Straße ) The last day we pedaled this old overgrown mountain track from Fussen southwest. It was very strange to pass the deteriorating little empty guard shack and the tumbled down barrier at the Austrian border. Brave New World!

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Shortest time I spent in another country was less than 5 minutes, walking to the North Korean side of the conference room in the DMZ. Sadly, no caches in the Joint Security Area. Would have been perfect for a virtual...

 

Susancycle can say the same about Gaza/Palestine, again no caches but the picture of the rocket damage to the checkpoint was interesting...

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Shortest time I spent in another country was less than 5 minutes, walking to the North Korean side of the conference room in the DMZ. Sadly, no caches in the Joint Security Area. Would have been perfect for a virtual...

 

Susancycle can say the same about Gaza/Palestine, again no caches but the picture of the rocket damage to the checkpoint was interesting...

 

There are caches in Palestine though. ;)

 

Regarding the layover thing, it really depends on my mood. I've interestingly only ever gotten three geocaches in Switzerland, all while waiting to fly out of Geneva airport (as I've flown in there to head to France a few times). Last month though I unexpectedly spent almost a full day in Zurich due to flight issues (but of course the delays were so slow in being announced it was never enough time to go out to see Zurich) so should have grabbed another layover cache... but meh, couldn't be bothered.

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Shortest time I spent in another country was less than 5 minutes, walking to the North Korean side of the conference room in the DMZ. Sadly, no caches in the Joint Security Area. Would have been perfect for a virtual...

 

Susancycle can say the same about Gaza/Palestine, again no caches but the picture of the rocket damage to the checkpoint was interesting...

 

There are caches in Palestine though. ;)

 

Regarding the layover thing, it really depends on my mood. I've interestingly only ever gotten three geocaches in Switzerland, all while waiting to fly out of Geneva airport (as I've flown in there to head to France a few times). Last month though I unexpectedly spent almost a full day in Zurich due to flight issues (but of course the delays were so slow in being announced it was never enough time to go out to see Zurich) so should have grabbed another layover cache... but meh, couldn't be bothered.

 

I'm sure that a lot of us have airport horror stories but being stuck in an airport in a country in which you had not yet found a cache would probably top the list.

 

I flew into Geneva airport just once, then got on a bus to spend the night and going skiing the next day in Chamonix but that was a couple of years before I started geocaching. Then a few years ago I had to go to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and saw that Swiss air had a flight that went through Zurich and rather than book a flight which only had a 1.5 layover between the 8 hour flight from JFK and almost 8 hour flight from Zurich to Nairobi, I booked a flight on the next day, giving me about a 22 hour layover. I checked into a hotel near the airport, slept for a few hours, then took the train into the city and found a few caches before meeting at the central train station for a WWFM event. Then I did some more local caching and met lots of other cachers before a planned meeting with a couple of geocacher originally from the US that offered to show me around a bit. We did a bit more caching they went to another event in the evening. I didn't get back to the hotel until around midnight. It was one of the best days of geocaching I've ever had.

 

If you're stuck in Zurich airport at least you'd have the opportunity to do the webcam cache there.

Edited by NYPaddleCacher
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I went over to Ireland (from the UK) at Easter. We got the ferry across and had a bit of a road trip around Ireland for a few days.

 

There are some amazing caches over there. We found Europe's First just outside Dublin, a whole bunch of really great caches in Dublin itself, the EarthCache up at the Giant's Causeway, the Virtual at Blarney Castle, and got all 5 of the Irish profile souvenirs.

 

A really great trip.

:D:antenna:

Edited by Pan314159
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Just come back from a business trip to Dublin. Between the busy schedule I had a bit of time to "enjoy" the rain, and do a few caches, Stiffy, the Webcam, and during a morning run a couple in the Phoenix park. To little time to do much more, but anyway, my 20th country .. is done.

 

Next stop Denmark ... next week :)

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Hey congrats! I thought about doing a quick trip to Germany just for the sake, but I'm lacking the time at the moment. Have you been at the Giga event?

 

nope. I was in my way to Berlin for a conference and stopped in Mainz on Friday (the day pre-Giga) to see the GPS Maze Adventures (new icon for me!) and meet some friends in the evening, then. Unfortunately I couldn't stay for Saturday's giga. But I already was in Munich's Giga last year so... it didn't hurt that much :D

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Hey congrats! I thought about doing a quick trip to Germany just for the sake,

 

I would think that Japan would be a better destination for that.

 

In that case I would like to recommend this cache: a97304e8-35c7-4061-bc85-61d0c9d140c4.jpg

It's cache Ekimae-ya Keep in Osaka, very close to station Shin-Osaka. The bottle is the cache (log container attached to it). And yes you can and are allowed to drink the contents of the bottle!

Edited by irisisleuk
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Added 5 new countries last Friday on my way to Giga in Mainz. Also, done 8 countries in one day on that trip. Started at 0:15 in Croatia and ended at 23:45 in Belgium. Those 8 countries were: Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, Austria, Germany, France, Luxembourg and Belgium.

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