The cache is NOT at the posted coordinates!!!
However, it would behoove you to come here and check out this new structure to honor the growing Korean culture in this portion of Howard County. According to my research, there are over 160 Korean owned businesses in Howard County, and a large concentration of them can be found in this five mile stretch of the Route 40 corridor.
I’ve lived in Howard County for almost 20 years, and I’ve been a witness to the wonderful influx of Korean influence over that time. My kids have several Korean friends at school. Some of my neighbors own restaurants along this portion of Route 40. With the installation of these structures on both sides of Route 40, I was given a new found awareness of the Korean culture in my area. Sadly, I will admit I didn’t know much about the Korean culture in my area or the efforts it took to designate this portion of Route 40 as Koreatown, so I wanted to address my shortcomings in those areas. To get started, I decided to talk to my kids about what they’ve learned from their friends and of course, start experiencing some of the Korean cuisine I had available to me in the area.
I started my enlightenment by visiting this new pavilion after a stop at the Korean owned bakery in the same mall as the posted coordinates with my family. While enjoying a caramel bingsoo, I walked over to the structure here and its origins. I read that the architecture was based on the architecture that was prevalent during the last Korean dynastic kingdom. The decade that this dynasty started and ended its reign really stuck out to me because they almost ruled for a nice round number.
My kids joined me at the pavilion and began looking at it as well. They’re not fans of history like I am, but they walked around it and started looking at the all the names of the people responsible for bringing this structure to Ellicott City when one of them exclaimed, “Oh hey! I go to school with a kid with that last name!” I went to where they were to see if I would recognize any names, but my kids played coy and decided to make it a guessing game for me to see if I could figure it out. I took a long hard look at the board, but none of the names seemed familiar. After a few weak guesses, my kids grew tired of me and asked if we could leave. My OCD wouldn’t let it go, but I knew when to say when and we piled back in the car to go home.
A few days passed and I was still thinking about who my kids may have known on that sign. After picking up dinner from a popular Korean chicken place between the fitness club and the bar at Waypoint #1, I revisited the sign and tried to see if I could find the name of who they knew. There were so many names on the board, so I decided to go back to them with a group of names and narrow it down from there. During dinner, I asked them, “Was it one of the number of donors in the Wealthy & Wise group? There were a few names listed there.” They laughed at me, mildly surprised that I was still thinking about this, and told me politely that their friend’s family was not part of the Wealthy & Wise group. I let it go for now, but they suddenly knew this wasn’t the end of my questioning.
The following Friday, I was working late and when I called my wife to tell her I was coming home, she asked me to pick up some dinner along the way. There was a Korean place that specializes in sushi, chicken, & beer at Waypoint #2 that I had been wanting to try, so I adjusted my commute to pick up some food. Sticking with the dinner theme for the evening, I decided to revisit the structure and see I could posit another guess about who my kids knew. I went back to the donor listing and decided to narrow it down my lines this time. I took note of the number of individually listed donors on the bottom line of the sign. There were some couples and businesses listed there, but I knew that my kids were only interested in singularly listed names. I memorized how many there were on the last line and during dinner, I broached the subject again. “Was it one of the individuals listed on the bottom line of the sign?” I asked. They both sighed and told me it was no one of those individuals. I was narrowing it down, but they still weren’t giving me any hints.
Sunday morning, I was looking to pick up some breakfast pastries so I made a trip to the nearby French bakery next to the ginseng place at Waypoint #3 and grabbed a couple of croissants and turnovers, and a yuzu pie for the family. I yet again stopped by the sign in search of the name I needed. At this point, I was wondering if my kids were tricking me by making me think it was one of the names in the donor listing. I went to the other side of the sign and noticed more names. I took a look at the Executive Council involved in bringing the structure to this portion of Route 40. I noted the names in the Executive Council, some of which looked familiar, and took my pastries home for breakfast. Over a cup of tea, I asked my girls if it was someone on the Executive Council. They rolled their eyes at me and told me it was too early to continue this line of questioning. They gobbled up their croissants and went back to their rooms. Either they were getting tired of this game or I was getting close to figuring it out. Regardless, I wasn’t going to give up until I had an answer.
A few days went by and I was still ruminating on my kids’ claim that they knew someone that supported bringing the hanok to town. I had a craving for some Korean fried chicken, so I ordered some take out from sushi, chicken, & beer place at Waypoint #2 again. My kids knew I would go out of my way to make another stop at the structure to gather more names for them to check, so they finally decided to give me a hint. Before I went out the door, they told me, “The number of letters in the first name of the person we know is the same as the number of basic colors in the Korean dancheong.” Happy, they finally stopped holding out on me, I made a side trip and came back with even more names to guess. All of them were still wrong, but I was happy they were playing along again.
I knew I was getting close, but I still couldn’t figure it out. Later in the week, my kids were craving Korean barbeque so we decided to pay a visit to the place on the end of this shopping center at Waypoint #4. On the way there, they decided to give me another hint. They told me, “The number of names in the person’s name is the same number you get when you subtract the month when the hanok was completed from the month when it was finally installed.” We made a quick detour on the way to the restaurant and armed with that new information, I gathered a few more names… all of which turned out to be wrong, but I knew the search was coming to it end.
One night, I was out at a local bar watching Monday Night Football with some buddies from the neighborhood. We have an established tradition of going to the place between the tanning salon and the coin & jewelry exchange (or next to an insurance agent, depending on the tool) at Waypoint #5 after a night of sports and beers. The chicken and kimchi rice is the perfect late night snack. My fuzzy mind got back to thinking about who my kids knew. I paid one last visit to the sign and finally noticed a set of names that had eluded me on my previous visits. I spotted members of the Committee that helped bring the Koreatown designation to this area. I noticed a number of names on the Committee that didn’t have a last name of Kim or Lee. One of them fit the clues that my kids had given me. The next morning, I mentioned it to my kids. They confirmed my thinking and expressed their relief that I had finally cracked their mystery.
Later that day, I was so happy to have figured out the name, I realized that the places I visited and the information I gathered along the way could help me in hiding a cache. So I decided to place one nearby. Can you figure out where it is?
2022-03-01 Edit: Updated the information on the Certitude page with a more helpful hint.
You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.