Celebrations - a word of warning...

When everything is going swimmingly, it's easy to get carried away.  With this in mind, here is a fable from our weekend from which several lessons can be learned.

We celebrated with (yet another) champagne brunch on Sunday.  Ben and I left our suitcase with the concierge, who asked for our phone number, because "sometimes people go champagne brunch, drinks champagne, more champagne, go 'woooh' (*crazy action with hands*) 'woooh' and forget their luggage! hahahahahaaaaa"  Oh, how we laughed with this charming man!  'What idiots,' we thought, 'would do that?'

As predicted, there was excessive champagne and huge gluttony (see above), combined with much laughter at 'those idiots' who 'woooooh forget their luggage'.... Then, still laughing and joking, we collected our luggage and headed back to the apartment.  Up in the lift we went, and what fun we were having!  Until... 

"who's got the luggage?"

"Erm, not me - I was carrying the flowers and champagne!"

"Erm, not me either" 

*moment of realisation* "THE TAXI!!!"  

Yes, that's right, we'd left the luggage in the taxi... which was long gone... in a city with c. 70,000 taxis.  That's the luggage that included our laptop, my passport with all the painstakingly acquired visas for our upcoming trip, my brand spanking new electronic Chinese dictionary.... and more.  By way of a few phone calls and a large dose of luck, we retrieved the luggage, and all of its contents.  So, what can we learn from this? 

1. Take heed of the concierge!  He is a wise man.

2. Always hold on to all scraps of paper - you never know, one might have the taxi numberplate on it!

3. Don't put your passport in your suitcase, even if you think it's safer there than in your handbag while you are testing your liver's capacity for bubbly....