We’ve met a lot of people in our travels, some of whom we really like. We might keep in touch for a year or two, send a card for the holidays, but in the end we lose touch. For practical reasons–distance, time, money–we cannot follow up the chance encounter that began our friendship with another visit.

One October afternoon in 2015 in Grenoble, we spent a very pleasant afternoon hiking up to the Bastille, tasting wine and regional cuisine along the way in a festival called the Millésime. We had a nice chat with a young Chinese woman, Jiaojing Wang, who was in Grenoble for her studies. (JJ took the photo of us that is the feature photo of the first post in this blog.)

The following year, JJ was in Lyon working for Volvo. We had a home exchange there, so we thought we’d see if we could meet her. JJ was happy to see us, and introduced us to her favorite Chinese restaurant in town. We had a very nice meal and a chance to catch up.

She moved to Paris, where we’ve seen her several times now (each time at a different very good Asian restaurant). On short notice, JJ made time to meet us last night over another fine meal, this time at Songsan, a Korean restaurant in the 15th. She seemed genuinely happy to see us, and we were happy with the chance to hear about her life in Paris and the evolution of her young career in the year since we last met.