Dinner with I-san

Today I had dinner with my co-worker, I-san, who specializes in cartography and GIS applications. His desk is behind mine, and he's usually buried in huge map sheets, measuring coordinates and matching contour lines, or otherwise writing reports about his current project in Montenegro.
I suppose he must be in his late 40s or so, as he has two children aged 19 and 22. We talked about how his youngest is thinking to study overseas for a year. He said when thinks back to when he was in university himself, he would have liked to study abroad if he'd had the chance. But through his work at our company, I-san said he's been to about 25 countries now. Wow! Myself, I can count 6 countries in the 10 years since I made my first trip overseas. Then there's our Section Chief, D-san, who I remember saying once that he has been to over 40 countries, and I don't think he's even 60 years old yet. (Then again, you have the most widely traveled man in probably all of history, former Pope John Paul II, who traveled to 117 countries during his pontificate.)
I-san told me anecdotes about his recent trips to Montenegro and Macedonia, and a one-day siteseeing trip in New York City on his way to Brazil. I also learned that there was McDonald's in Sri Lanka (surprising, as I thought most Sinhalese were vegetarian. To which you might respond, "But there's McDonald's everywhere!" On the contrary, there are still places where the golden arches do not exist: list of countries without McDonald's.) He told me about what a great time he had in Paris for two weeks once, and was surprised to find a little Japanese restaurant in a Parisian suburb 50km outside of the city, run by a Cambodian staff. "I guess Cambodian cuisine doesn't fare as well," he said,"but who knew a Cambodian could make such good Japanese food!" Although, the question remains, would this little restaurant receive a stamp of authenticity through the new government certification system that goes into effect this year? (see here)
All-in-all, I was glad I-san asked me if I had time for a beer after work. I suspect he wanted to practice his English, which I would have been fine with actually, but in the end we spoke in Japanese for the duration. It was a good time and nice to get to know another of my co-workers.