Should You Be Searching

No one, I’m sure, looks to this blog for travel advice.  But I will offer some information that might prove useful.  Should you be searching for: “Can I use my Hong Kong ID card to buy a rail ticket in China,” search no further.  If you are faced with the choice of turning around in traffic, heading back home to secure the passport you forgot or heading on forward to the rail station to try your luck with a Hong Kong identify card:  the passport is required.   

I was making good time when I realized that I’d forgotten my all important passport.  I was sure I’d have to turn around.  My friend who was waiting for me at the station offered to call the ticket office and see if the Hong Kong card world work.  I had already given up and was returning home.  But he called back and suggested that it should be OK.  So for the second time this morning I told my uber driver to turn around once again. 

I sent my friend a picture of my Hong Kong ID and rationalized to myself that this was the best move.  I knew that if he could get the ticket with my card’s number I would be able to bluff my way past the girl at the turnstile.  This time I made nearly remarkable progress on the east second ring road and rolled into the station to find out that he hadn’t been able to get the ticket without the physical ID card.  This was not good. 

I got some money out of the ATM, stood in line and was promptly told that my Hong Kong ID card would not work.  I suggested that I was a Hong Kong citizen.  She replied that it didn’t matter.  “But they said it would be OK on the phone.”  “Which phone?” she asked, incredulously, sensibly.  She asked her neighboring ticket gal, who confirmed:  No dice.  My friend and I schlepped on dutifully to the ticket windows at a different part of the station and had three more people tell us it wasn’t going to work. 

Wife to the rescue, eventually. She’s on her way down to the station with my passport, which is always kept in my bag, except for this morning when for some reason I had it there on my desk.  So remember, Hong Kong identity cards, will not get you on the high speed train in China, unless your blarney is of a more refined grade then mine.  Time to check in on the wife and see how she’s faring in the traffic.  I am going to be very, very late, for this very, very important meeting.