Tangential Encounter

As we were readying our departure from Japan, J and spoke with a friend of mine, Ei, who also happens to be from Dalian originally. She now lives in the Tokyo area with her husband, but they had planned to be in Dalian for the Chinese New Year. When we heard that, we exchanged numbers so we could contact each other in Dalian and promised to get together.
On Saturday, the four of us met for lunch, and decided to have a nabe lunch, which is a pot fired with coals to boil a light broth into which you put in various ingredients, which in our case was: napa cabbage, mushrooms, tofu, and lots of mutton. We also ordered a few bottles of beer to celebrate the occasion.
It was great to see Ei and also to have a chance to get to know her husband better, since they were just married recently, and J and I had only met him at their wedding (and there wasn't much of a chance for small-talk there).
Although it's a shame we won't be able to see them as often as when we were living in Tokyo, we were all excited about the fact that there would likely be opportunities to meet again in the future in Dalian when we are all back to visit family.
The world is certainly becoming more interconnected, and we are enjoying the tangential encounters that come with it.