The population of Tokyo (area) as of 2023 is 35.8 million people. 3.6 million (of not necessarily unique ones, I grant) of them pass though Shinjuku station every day - that is, uh, 10ish% of the total? So, in that sprawling mad anthill they still insist on calling a station, randomly running into someone you know, is not very likely, right? Turns out it happens. Several times in not too many years, in fact.
Or how about this. You go to a relaxed evening out at a gay bar with friends, snap a photo with some random Japanese lady, move too far to visit it again. End up going back 7 years later, intentionally with one of the original friend group (who, by the way, worked for some Estonian company or sth in the meanwhile, but is definitely not Estonian). Guess who else is also there and about to completely freak out over the old photo you are about to show her.
One of the rare times getting out of the apartment to go to a part of the city you've never been to before (to find a specific ink only sold in one place, of all things, don't ask, not my idea), only to return to a message from a friend saying he liked the dress I was wearing. Met that particular person through a get-together of Estonians (yes, in Tokyo, that also happened) about 6 year prior, were close-ish for a while, then completely lost touch, because life happens. Oh yeah, and the dress? Blue-black-white one I bought for when president Ilves was visiting here.
Wife of D's colleague? Born in Tallinn.
Almost certain I've mentioned this in some context already, but... The Kansai area is quite a bit smaller place, I know, but still, likelyhood of one of the ten people turning up for a meetup being at that point a complete stranger whose apartment you happened to visit for a bathroom break during Halloween with some friends of friends or sth like that?
Back in Tokyo and present day. Went on a rare (have, sadly, gotten out of the habit otherwise, plus it is waaay too hot to do anything anyway, so..) nighttime walk. Ten minutes away from home were hailed from a car going the other way. Neighbors and kids all waving from the windows, happened to go down just that particular street in the spiderweb of roads in the area. OK, reasonable.
A few minutes later got stuck at a traffic light, waited, waited, waited, then gave up and crossed under the red (street empty of cars), when D stopped to address a biker - I gather that the dude is somehow involved in the same uni as him, they met some months ago at an event. Then I look at the face. Yup, know him too, from an event in Kansai, some four years previous. A Latvian independence day karaoke event (or sth along those lines) to be precise (not really sure how I ended up there, actually).
Walk continues a bit incredulously. We decide to step into a shop for dinner, find kohuke (of the Latvian origin) in the freezer next to ice creams.
Get home, receive a message from mom saying she went shopping, you guessed it, in Latvia.
Food-related add-on:
Getting ice-creams in addition to the English breakfast ingredients we set out to get resulted in a) skipping dinner (ok, fine, fine, ate half of a raw potato, again, don't ask, and 3 'German' chicken wieners) and b) deepening disappointment in the pudding-taste ice creams. 2/3 in the recent weeks have been nigh inedible. And, of course, the third was amazing, as are the memories of similar things from past summers. So what I've got here now is a total first world problem.
Ah yeah, and the population of Estonia is 1.3 million. How... I don't even.. good grief..
Cheers,
Hedi
