Synchronicity or Sheer Coincidence?
August 10, 2004
The woman and I entered the movie theater a bit early. The credits were still rolling from the previous showing but we figured we’d might as well nab some good seats now. This theater’s REALLY quiet so we weren’t disturbing many people. The movie was Riddick. The day was last Saturday.
As the theater lights came back on after the credits had finished, a fellow sitting in front and a few seats to the left turned around. We made eye contact. We froze for what seemed like a long time. It was none other than Dan Kim! If you’re from the ELI and you were here during my first summer or before, you’ll remember Dan. Anyway, he had just finished three years with JET in Hokkaido and was basically touring the country with his sister before heading back home to Vancouver!
The last time I saw Dan was probably in the summer of 2001 right before he left. Him and I used to hang out and drink ourselves silly with some other students. After he left, we pretty much lost contact until now.
It’s so weird that in a giant country of 120+ million, or even in a giant city like Osaka, there are still some very synchronous meetings like this. Anyway, we exchanged numbers and on his return to Osaka after Kyushu, he’ll give me a call and hopefully schedules will work out so that we can catch up a bit.
This is the third such random accidental meeting in Japan. The first was when I literally sat beside an ELI student at Narita airport while we were waiting for the flight back to Vancouver. The second being the bumping into of two ELI students in the middle of Shinjuku.
Weird and cool!
PS. I’ve captured some pictures of the summer festival in my neighborhood from the weekend.
PPS. Riddick was exactly as I expected: muscles, fighting, guns, knives.
