Welcome to Tokyo.

That right there is the Kagawa police station here in Tokyo, one of the many police stations that they have in the city.

And yesterday when I was live streaming uh in Monza Nakako at the mister donuts outside of their, I dropped my iphone case, the one that I used to protect this phone when I'm not live streaming.

And this morning I realized it and I knew wait, I better go and check if I was in the U.

S.

Or somewhere else.

I probably wouldn't even bother but I'm not in the U.

S.

I'm in Japan, I'm in Tokyo, Japan, one of the largest metropolitan cities in the entire world.

And it's also one of the most honest and I figured perhaps there's a chance I would get it back.

Lo and behold after about 25 30 minutes I got my iphone case back and inside was my card, this is the Sudoku card I've been using that has about $75 on it still.

And uh I'll tell you about the process that it takes to get you lost and found back.

If you ever lose something in Tokyo, don't, don't worry too much because there's a chance that you might get it back.

Uh So here's the process I had to go through um First don't lose your stuff.

Let me just tell you it's part of your responsibility not to leave something on the train not to drop something, it's your personal belongings.

It's, it should be important to you.

So don't lose your stuff.

Just keep that in mind, Especially when you're riding a train, you leave an ipad behind your iphone.

It's happened to everybody though.

And when it does um people here in Japan have a great deal of respect.

They don't do it just because they're honest.

They do it because they have a respect for other people's personal property.

They also have a feeling they also feel um like they put themselves in their shoes because they've also everybody's lost something and everybody's had something returned to the police station.

Which is why when I find something, I will probably either just put it on the side or I'll take it to the police station like I did.

Now if you take it to the police station, there is some work involved like paperwork, but you feel for the other person.

The third.

The third reason why nobody steals uh in Japan is because there's a good chance that somebody saw them and if they pick up the wallet and keep it, there's a good chance that one of their neighbors saw them do it and that guilt will follow them till the end of time.

And if they get caught, that's, that's humiliating thing worse than in here than it would be in the west.

So obviously um people are fairly honest because you won't always get things back.

So I went to the local police box to the place closest to where I thought I might have dropped it.

Which was Monzon Nakako station.

There's a police box in there that's always busy.

Sometimes these police boxes called koban K.

O.

B A.

N.

They are often written in roman letters so that even the you know westerners, any, any tourists can find it pretty easy and it's got a red light just like you see the police has a red light right here.

The koban have a red glowing light that you can always find these police boxes.

And I walked in there and I told him that I had lost an item instantly the police officers looked up and they held up a wallet and I said no it's not my wallet, it was a random foreigner.

Some white dude and obviously I didn't look like him but they still thought it was me.

That was what he was like I had to say I do argue that that's not me, that's not me, I have my wallet, that's not me.

So in the end I sat down um and he got out of the report and I told him my name, I told him my phone number.

It's it help.

It's helpful if you write your name in kata kana um as well because they have to write that on the report and you have to tell them what you lost.

So google translate if you're not speaking english will come in very useful to you unless you've lost your phone and then you know it's gonna be really challenging.

But ah I had, I had a picture of my, of the phone case because my son leo is always stealing my iphone so can I is always taking pictures of him touching my iphone.

So I was able to show this is the case that I lost.

And I also have uh an old iphone case that look the same.

So I brought it with me.

So he wrote it down black leather folio style iphone case.

I said inside of there was a Sudoku card which is like a card.

And I showed him a picture of the card.

I say it's from Kagoshima area and he goes okay.

So he started to enter it into the computer and within three minutes he came up with a hit and it was here at this police station, a five minute bicycle ride from where I was.

So he gave me a slip of paper with the file numbers.

I guess there was a number associated with the lost item.

Um and I was on my way, I wrote here about 10 minutes ago.

It was all very quick which just surprised me because everything in Japan takes a long time.

And uh I walked in there, the hard thing is that my name is not written on anything in the case.

So I had to confirm a few things but I was lucky because on that on that.

So Gocha card they can scan it and the police can see the contents of where I was.

So I had to rack my brain and and think, what did I buy with this card?

I remember I bought an ice coffee which was in the last live stream.

That was, that started the live stream.

That was a dollar.

And I told him I took the train from last time Tsukishima to what the police officers and so you took it from Tsukishima to Ueno.

I said, uh, she gave us two.

Okajima, she goes, you got it right.

And she gave me my case.

So she tried to trick me.

Well, it's a pretty close, that would be a hard one.

But I didn't go to Ueno.

I went to kochi Machi recently and she was able to see that one.

I also confirmed, uh, I went to report on the 29th, I did a live stream there and she confirmed that and then in the end I got my case back.

But yeah, a little bit of paperwork, not a lot of hassle.

I wasn't surprised that it was, I'd be more surprised if it didn't turn up.

The hardest part was searching my house to make sure that my son Leo didn't take it and put it somewhere.

But I was pretty sure I must have dropped it and I did police in Japan are the good guys here.

Okay, They're the good guys, they're gonna be sometimes a little bit nosey.

But there when I was leaving the Monza Nakako Coban, another younger police officer came up to me and he asked me, is this my wallet?

And I told him no, I think I've already established that is my, my wallet, this is 10 minutes later and he goes, oh do you have your residence card?

I showed them my, my driver's license.

So I knew it was like this, this kind of secret random check.

I don't, I don't mind that much.

So I pulled out my residence card.

He's like, okay, you didn't check the background, but I guess he just wanted to see if I, if I had it.

So it's like a little sneaky stuff that they might do.

But you know, if you don't have anything to worry about, you don't want to act.

Um, oddly, this is the Fukuzawa show and they're all very nice in there, but police are police.

I do look suspicious unshaven.

Have you ever lost anything in Tokyo?

Have you ever lost anything traveling around?

Japan share your comments, share your experience down below because I think it's pretty interesting to hear about um, when you lose something in Japan, do you get it back?

And many times you actually do the last time I lost something of significance and this one was like, if I didn't get it back, I'd be okay with it.

But I think I was curious to see if they, if they did have it and sure enough that they did, But if you don't, if I lost a a drone in 2017 when I was hitchhiking and Iwakuni down in Hiroshima prefecture, is that Yamaguchi in Iwakuni and uh, I just set it down and I forgot to pick it up again and it was gone when I realized that I went to the local police station and I told him what I lost and they confirmed that it was at the Iwakuni Main police office.

Somebody had found it and returned it and I was in tears because that was a very expensive drone and uh, um, I didn't, there was no chance for me to buy a new one on that hitchhiking trip and I needed it for the documentary.

I was glad that I got it back.

I don't think I would have gotten it back if it was another country.

It's just one of these things in Japan that um, I don't know, you really appreciate um, the little things that make Japan great.

I know that it's not perfect because we have the entry ban.

We have lots of people waiting to come in the country.

A lot of things don't make a lot of sense, but there's a lot of things that do make a lot of sense to me, the safety and the respect for personal belongings and the respect for each other, the respect for privacy, which is a big deal here.

Um, people just uh, you know, they're not very nosey.

I guess there's little things that you really, really like about Japan and there's lots of things that are annoying about Japan.

But when you're in a pinch in a situation like this, this is one of the things that you have a lot more success stories than you do failures.

So the lost and found is pretty interesting now if, if, if the police station doesn't have it or you can't confirm it, you need when you lose something.

The first thing you start thinking about is find ways before you go into the police station to confirm that it was yours.

Meaning if you have pictures of it, if you have receipts of something that you purchased um if you have, you know any kind of proof that helps to uh expedite getting that item back to you because if they can't prove it then it becomes more complicated but I could prove it in this case to almost beyond a doubt like who the heck would know that they lost Asuka card in Tokyo which is very isolated to the Kagoshima region of Japan, it's like that's, that should have been a giveaway.

If you, if you, if there's a chance though, if it's been more than 24 hours that the item that's lost and found is going to be sent to the main lost and found center which is near the top ASCII in uh central Tokyo.

It's more towards Ikebukuro side of the city.

This place I've been to once because I lost an item about 15 years ago and and was able to get it back of course and it just took a lot longer to track it because it had been a couple of days.

Um It goes to the local police stations if you catch it in time and then after a while it moves over towards um the main lost and found and the respect for personal belongings is so deep you'll find umbrellas like $1 umbrellas and lost and found and they keep those for a designate a set amount of time before they end up throwing that away.

But for personal belongings um Yeah, you know, don't give up on it, is what I'm saying, They log it and track it and if you can describe it, you can find it here.

Um Even cash, everybody knows the story.

I think Tokyo returns like $84 million 10% of of it to the person who found it as a reward.

There's some sort of um System in place for that too because you know, nobody has to return cash.

They do it because it's the right thing to do and there's a little bit of guilt if they didn't do it.

But at the same time, I believe you, you give 10% of that to the person who found it.

When I got my drone back, it came with an address and I wrote that, that man in a letter and I said, thank you to him for finding the drone.

And I sent him a gift from Hokkaido because I was hitchhiking when I got to the end of it from Wakanda, I sent him a package and uh, I didn't hear back from him, but yeah, I believe he got it and I'm glad that he returned it and I'm really thankful for that.

So, so there's my, there's my story.

If you have any questions, you can leave it in the comments below and I really do hope that if you've ever lost something, share that story with me in the comments below.

I think it's gonna be a pretty, I feel like I'm in uh in a pretty cool, a pretty cool movie or something.

Police cars going by, share that with um with us in the comments below.