My backpack was stolen in London back in October 2019 and the second day in 2021, I received this direct message from Ilona.

The story begins in October 2019, I was visiting one of my friend in London and we went to Baker Street to see one of the famous travelling sites, 221B Baker Street.

After visiting 221B, we first head to a restaurant for lunch and then went to the ITSU on Baker Street, sited and had some long and delightful chats.

While we were quite into the topic of our conversation, someone just took my backpack on the table. I didn't even realise that my little poor backpack was stolen until my bank sent some warning notifications.

At that time, I knew that it was basically impossible to get my backpack back. There was no other choice for me but only to report the case to the police, wait for them to pull out the camera recordings in the restaurant and maybe the police can identify who steal my backpack from the videos.

After calling 999, I thought that the theft may just take my credit card and money, then they might leave my backpack somewhere on the street. So I and my friend went out on the street and tried to find the backpack. But it was almost 20:30 and it was quite cold outside. I had to give up searching and plan what I need to do in the following days.

The only fortunate things were that I always keep my phone beside me and I happened to have the Oyster card in my pocket that day. Also, my umbrella was left intact on the table. Yet the unfortunate things were that my passport, wallet, credit cards and some devices were in my backpack. I also just bought some nice stickers and badges for my backpack 2 days ago, now they were gone forever.

Time went to midnight and I had to find a nearby hotel to stay and tell my host family that I cannot go back home today and maybe tomorrow as well. Laying on the hotel bed, I felt tired and kind of depressed, hoping that Sherlock Holmes can figure all this out for me. However, the reality was cruel and I had to accept that.

The second day I contacted my insurance company again and I found out I need to prepare tons of documents to prove the case. Headache. When I went back to my host family, Mrs. Suzana prepared me a cup of hot chocolate and gave me a big hug. That was so warm and nice.

Then 1 month passed, the police told me that there was insufficient evidence and they had to close this case. Another 13 months passed, all of a sudden, I received a direct message from Ilona saying that she found a backpack with documents.

To be honest, I'm totally surprised that my backpack can be found by someone and that great person tried and did find me on the Internet! Isn't this just amazing and magic?! I don't really anticipate that I can get my backpack back. I mean, it has been 14 months since my backpack was stolen!

But it just happened. Ilona's friend runs a pub in Marble Arch and they spotted this backpack a long time ago. The backpack sits in the lost and found shelves for maybe almost 14 months until a few days ago, Ilona tried to search my name on social media and here it is. Only with the amazing power of social media and most importantly, with great people like Ilona, can my backpack make the way back to me!