Pickpocket

[Guest Fionas_Fiance]

In Guilin, after I proposed and Fiona accepted, we re-enacted our engagement, taking pictures with the delayed timer feature of my digital camera. To get the camera at the right level, I put it on my camera's carrying case on a bench, maybe about 6 feet from us. We took a couple of pictures and while I was showing Fiona the results on the camera's display screen, some guy apparently walked past, picked up the camera case, and ran away. I don't think there was anything in it except some (sigh) receipts and a Hong Kong cell phone card. But it was still a very annoying thing to happen, right after becoming engaged.

 

One interesting thing that resulted was a kid saw the whole thing and we wound up calling the police. About SEVEN policemen came within minutes, scouring the area for a $10 camera case. And apparently there was a security camera aimed at where we were - the cops told us they could see the whole thing happen, including my proposal, Fiona's acceptance, and all the kissing that transpired afterward! They were very nice to us and wished us well. I was eager to get back to the hotel because I wanted to make sure nothing valuable had been stolen (I wasn't sure what I had put in the case at the time), and it was 2am and we had to get up at 6:30am to fly to Shenzhen. If I had been thinking more clearly at the time I would have asked if there was any way we could have get a copy of the tape. Probably not, but it wouldn't have hurt to ask.

 

We would have edited out the part where the guy steals our camera case...

[turtle]

Hmm, on my first trip to China (before I met my gf), I took a solo train ride from Qingdao to Shanghai. It was my first time on a chinese train, and was actually somewhat fun. At one point around dinner a large group of students came over and started talking to me. Well you can imagine on that tiny cramped train about 10-15 people all sitting and standing around talking. When I went to bed later, I found my camera bag (which I had left sitting on the top bunk) was gone. It had my old 35mm camera (a piece of junk which was actually broken at the time), a Sony walkman cassette player (another piece of junk), but, most importantly, a couple of very nice cassette tapes of all my favorite music which I'd brought on the trip. The total value loss was probably less than $25. The students who'd been talking to me were a lot more upset about this than I was, and the whole train car took the incident as a big "loss of face". They even stopped the train and had some police come on board. I kept saying "it's ok, nothing valuable", but they probably spent a good 30 minutes searching around the train and browbeating some suspicious-looking guy who'd been sitting on the bunk across from me. Anyway, they found the empty camera bag in the trash bin two cars down, never did get back any of the contents. Even now some guy's probably listening that tape of great Beatle rarities and classic rock gems!

[keelec]

I've never been to China. But, I tend to do 2 things when traveling internationally.

 

1 - I wear a thin fanny pack inside the clothes with most of the cash, travelers checks, and etc.

 

2 - I select 1 or 2 credit cards for the trip. Anything else is left at home.

 

I also send an e-mail to my parents with both the credit card number, as well as the 1-800 number on the back of the cards. If something bad happens, I will contact them and they can figure out how to get the thing cancelled. Ummm... Hopefully they can remember my birthday and my mother's maiden name. Might as well also include your passport number and any other vital info in that e-mail.

 

----- Clifford ------