Unsuspected meeting

Alan and I decided that we wanted yet another beef bowl. This time, we wanted to time ourselves to see just how long we had to walk to get there. The result was very surprising: 45 minutes one way. At this rate, we burn off the beef bowl just from walking there and back! In any case, it was delicious.

A couple months ago a picture surfaced on Facebook of my fourth grade class. Many of my old classmates and myself were tagged in it and were able to view the picture. I was curious about where my classmates had ended up and began clicking through each of their profiles to see what they were up to. Surprisingly, I found one classmate who had joined the Navy and was stationed here in Japan. I sent him a message and, sure enough, he was here and had been for a while. We kept messaging on Facebook until Alan and I had arrived but had yet to meet. We figured we would run into each other on base sometime as it is small and crowded.

While Alan and I were eating our beef bowls, at least a two mile walk one way off base, another person came in who was obviously from the base but sat down elsewhere. As Alan and I got up to leave, we recognized each other, my friend from elementary school, and laughed at how we could meet in the beef bowl place in the middle of Japan but not on base where people are practically living on top of each other.