A phone call from Kathmandu

Last night while I was having my dinner, I received a phone call from Kathmandu. It was a man’s voice on the other end and he kept saying Hello to me and repeating his name. I literally took 10 seconds before I started to exclaim: “Omg, you’re JB!”.

It was really warm to hear from JB who was my ex-colleague from my exhibition days almost 8 years ago. I made some good buddies during my tradeshow stint in Korea and JB was one of them. We had some good fun, talked about life and future and they bring me for Korean food.

JB got my contact through another Korean buddy Dean who has since settled in the States with his family. He casually mentioned about his trip to Nepal just the day before departure to Dean and was shocked to learn that I had married a handsome Nepalese guy and living in Kathmandu.

Interestingly, JB called up Deepak in Kathmandu and introduced himself to get my contact. And more interestingly he requested for Deepak’s help to arrange for a helicopter tour to Everest.

I had a short catch up over the phone with this long lost buddy and was equally excited that he had settled down and was in Kathmandu to visit his in-laws who live in Kathmandu and own a business. By the end of our conversation, I was hopeful we would meet in Kathmandu the next time, since we are likely to travel in and out of Nepal due to family ties.

Deepak managed to arrange the flight for him and his family and they had arranged to meet in town for a quick discussion on the logistics. It all felt so surreal but the episode really took place. My Nepalese husband get to meet my long-lost Korean friend in Kathmandu discussing about helicopter flight while I sat in Singapore, missed the chance of meeting and wondered how their meeting would be like.

Amazing.