Thank You, Hong Kong!

People I meet back home often wonder how safe it is here and I tell them that I am at ease any time of the day. I am sharing with you an incident that happened to me tonight. I was entertaining some friends from Canada and while out, the question arose as to how safe is Hong Kong? I told them that we don’t ever feel uneasy walking the streets even if in the wee hours of the morning. This was their first time here and so it was a logical question to ask.

After other discussions regarding the city, I said good night to my friends and caught a cab home. At this point you might be thinking, so what! I realized when I was in the elevator that my wallet was missing and I must have left it in the cab. Panic set in as I recounted all the items in it that could be used not to mention its sentimental value. I quickly phoned HSBC to report a lost credit card. While I was waiting for HSBC to take down my details, I was praying that someone would find my wallet and call me. No sooner had I reported my card missing, I had a phone call from a man saying he found my wallet in a cab and where should he deliver it. How amazing is that? In a city of over 7 million people I was fortunate enough for someone to take the time to call me. Not only did he call but he asked the cab driver to take him back to the place where he dropped me off.

Within 10 minutes of this ordeal, my wallet and all its contents were returned. He said that he had recently lost his wallet and he knew how time consuming it was to replace what was lost. I couldn’t thank him enough and when I asked what sort of compensation I could give him and he replied that he was simply happy to return the wallet to me. He also asked me to check the contents to make sure everything was there (which it was). The least I could do was pay for his cab ride which he happily accepted.

For the man who returned my wallet, many, many thanks and also a thank you to the cab driver who helped with the return of my wallet.

The Culinary Chase’s Note: Yes, Virgina, there is a Santa Claus!