San Francisco Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt!

Tonight, Dick, Spencer, Miguel and David and I participated in The Annual San Francisco Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt!! Dick and I had heard about it last year, and were intrigued! We weren't able to participate last year - either because we heard about it after the fact, or perhaps we already had plans on the date.

From the San Francisco Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt site:
The Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt is a unique urban sleuthing adventure played on the streets of Chinatown, North Beach, and Telegraph Hill on the night of the annual Chinese New Year Parade. Treasure hunting teams have four hours to solve sixteen clues leading them to obscure landmarks, forgotten architectural delights and vestiges of San Francisco's colorful past. Players can come with a team already organized, or can join like-minded hunters at the event; it's a great way to make new friends.

Familiarity with San Francisco geography or history is useful, but is not required. The clues, or puzzles, are designed to test various skills: map reading; knowledge of popular culture, current events, science or literature; crossword puzzle solving; cracking simples codes, etc. Everyone on a team gets to contribute, and must collaboratively agree on what they think is the correct solution to each clue.

The challenge (and the fun) does not end there. The team must go to each of the mystery locations they have identified and search for landmarks referred to in the clue. Sharp eyes and close collaboration are required to spot the markers indicating they're in the correct place, and on the right trail.

Each clue leads to a specific site in the one square mile playing area, where teams search for a secret item which proves they correctly solved that clue. Teams solving the most clues in the shortest time each receive prizes and earn the right to gloat.

The date of the Treasure Hunt fell on Spencer's Birthday this year - what a fun way to celebrate.

This is the Year of the Snake in the Chinese Zodiac Calendar, so team names were suggested to coincide with snakes.

We all pondered the name for a bit, and Dick came up with: "Trina and the Tetrataenia".

Dick's explanation of our team name:

Tetrataenia is the sub-species designation for the garter snake commonly found in San Francisco. The full name of the San Francisco Garter Snake is "Thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia."

Also, "Tetra" means "four".

So, you could read this as "Trina and the SF garter snakes" or "Trina and the Four Taenia," although the latter really doesn't make any sense.


To add to the fun, several friends from my walking group had also formed a team! (actually, they had invited me to participate, which was really nice, but I realized that this was on Spencer's Bday, and that we would be having a separate team.) The name of their team: "The Hisssy Fitsss". :)

The Treasure Hunt started at 4:30, although we had to get there early to sign in, and collect our maps.

We then had to wait until 4:30 before they would start issuing out the clues.

Apparently, there were thousands of participants in the Treasure Hunt. We waited in line to get our clues. Luckily, I was both in the front of the line, and had a low team number, so was able to get our clues as early as possible.

Here's some strategy that was written on our clue handout:
Strategy: Winning teams often solve some clues and plot an effective route before setting out, taking geography and the parade route into consideration. Each team should have a Coordinator, a responsible person who will safeguard the score sheet and ensure that team members don't get lost or separated or eaten by dragons.

They also announced in the rules that a team must always stay together (within 25 feet of each other, I believe) and that the only method of transportation to be used are your feet.

The clues were pretty challenging - and we were in the beginner's division!!

The thing about the clues, is that they are broken down into different sections. The first part helps you solve the street/alley/landmark that you must go to. Once there, you continue to work on the rest of the clue. You wouldn't be able to figure out the entire clue by reading it, without being in the correct location.

Here's an example of one of the clues:

Find a school board in the alley named for what thousands will be seeking in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. 65 feet to the west what is the 6-letter word above "strict"?

That was one of the simpler clues.

Here's another:

(The side of a ship that's not right +s+a dentist's work place)
Find the woman who still carries a torch. Just to the west, a "First" was "Founded Here". What is the four digit number following 7-29?

There were 17 clues in all. Some showed photo as part of the clues. We divided the clues between team members and each tried to figure out 3 clues, with 2 additional left for whoever was able to figure their clues out first.

We managed to get (the first part of) 15 clues. We decided to go from there, as we didn't want to spend much more time working on the first part of the clues, without starting the actual hunt. We mapped out the clues that we had figured out, and also figured out how to go around the Chinese New Year parade route! Unfortunately, I forgot to map out one of the last clue locations, so we never made it there. :(

We also took a detour when Dick's phone told him that the location of the Hornblower Cruise was in an entirely different place than it ended up being. Next time - we'll double-check our clues/maps before we set out!

In the end, we think we ended up finding and answering 14 of the 17 clues. Not bad for our first time!

My friends, the Hisssy Fitsss, managed to find ALL of the clues! Great job!!

Actually, one of the best parts of the evening was when we were going towards our last clue at the (correct location of the) Hornblower Cruise. Our team was walking on the sidewalk of a street, and another team was on the sidewalk across the street. Turns out, it was the "Hisssy Fitsss"! SO FUNNY! We hadn't seen each other all evening, but when we did, it was towards the last clue! Very Amazing Race! :)

The Treasure Hunt ended at 9:00. We managed to get our clue entry in around 8:55pm. It really did take up all the time that was allotted!

Linda, of the "Hisssy Fitsss" mapped out their route, and figured they walked around 5.5 miles. I forgot to turn on my GPS (which would have been handy) but I'm assuming we walked about the same.

It was a ton of fun, and I'm hoping we can do it again next year!!


Team "Trina and the Tetrataenia"


There I am, towards the front of the line at 4:30!


a great photo by Miguel during the treasure hunt!


"The Hisssy Fitsss", celebrating victory after the hunt!
(photo courtesy of Linda)

update
2/28/13

Scores were posted!!

http://www.sftreasurehunt.com/hunts/chinese_new_year/the_big_scores.html

Trina & the Tetratania placed #54. :)
Not bad! We got 14 our of the 17 clues!

The Hisssy Fitsss placed #18!!!

There were 91 teams in the beginners level.

Not bad for our first year!