Hunt for Fun, Hunt for Pun

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• Chinese New Year
• Ross Alley
• Rex Marks
• Libraries
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media

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The annual Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt is equally about finding the perfect team name and outfit as it is about finding hidden treasure. Last year — the Year of the Tiger — brought out teams including Irritable Growl Syndrome, Black Eyed Paws: I Gotta Feline, … But I Tigress, and the then-topical Tiger Was Lion About Being a Cheetah Off the Lynx. Past years have inspired names such as Subprime Interest Rats (Year of the Rat); I Never Sausage a Team (Year of the Boar); Rex Marks the Spot (Year of the Dog); Marmoset Said There’d Be Days Like These (Year of the Monkey); and Those Opposed Who Say Neigh (Year of the Horse). Awards are also given to the best attired teams — last year’s winners dressed as the characters from Scooby Doo (named Scooby Hu Gang), while the best Tiger-Themed costume went to Cape Fur (dressed in matching tiger shawls). If you’re an urban sleuth and into the actual competition, here’s how it works: Each team is given clues/puzzles that lead to various locations, which may or may not lead to other clues and locations, until a team finds its ultimate destination. For example, one year a clue centered on the pseudonym under which Lawrence of Arabia enlisted in the Royal Air Force in 1922. (It was “Ross,” which led to Ross Alley, a tiny alley in Chinatown.) One team checked a biography of Mr. Arabia available at a bookstore. And another, realizing that S.F. libraries were closed, called a public library in Honolulu (where it was three hours earlier), and the librarian provided the information.
Sat., Feb. 19, 4:30 p.m., 2011