In my quest to shake my horrible sinus infection, I still had to eat.  The one thing that hadn’t deminished was my apetitite and God forbid I’d miss a meal in restaurant rich Kathmandu. So, I did go out for meals here and there, even  though most of the time I stayed in my room resting. I’d look out the window much during my recuperation and kept looking at the sign and activities of a restaurant I had been curious about just outside my hotel room window with the most intriguing name: Pyong Yang Arirang. Pyong Yang, why isn’t that the capital city of North Korea? I couldn’t resist. Besides, I like Korean food anyway. But to come face to face, with the North Korean’s, that was something I just could not resist. So I went in and waiting to greet their only patron were three lovely yellow, pink and green classic North Korean puffy dressed girls who gracefully led me to a table. One of them had a puzzled look and in very rudimentary English asked me where I was from. When I told her, shock and delight ran across her pretty face. “America?” she asked. Finally two countires “at odds” with each other realized people are just people and politics unfortunately taints everything. I asked her if she met an American before and she said no. I said I’ve never met a North Korean before. I found this to be a complete uplifting of my spirits.

I ordered a bowl of rice and noodles soup, with an egg and various side dishes, including my favorite kimchi, spicy vinegar pickled veggies. The meal came out and instinctively picked up the chopsticks. I was sort of toying with the soup with a huge fried egg covering the soup. One of the lovelies in green came over and picked up the spoon and cut the egg in pieces for me, and said eat that way. I said okay as she handed me the spoon while exchanging smiles. I could get used to this. I ate my meal and had all kinds of questions for them, mainly how’d they escape this ruthless regime anyway?  Well, I never really got such an answer but it seems the hotel above the restaurant is full of North Koreans and dear Kathmandu is their sanctuary. I wanted to take their picture but they said no, and so I mocked taking a picture with my hands and they all laughed, the yellow, pink and green puffy dress gals.

What was interesting is that as I was their first American they ever met, I found out they had been here in this restaurant for a year. And I was the first American to eat there? Lucky me! I said goodbye and in unison they called out, see you again. You know it!