Just before leaving for a Navy shipcheck, while I was getting my station secured, I heard a Singapore station on CW, calling CQ. I answered him and we had a good, short QSO during which he introduced himself as "Simo". On CW, of course, I couldn't hear any accent, so I assumed that "Simo" was a Malaysian nickname.
I told Simo I was going to be in Singapore in just a day or so. He gave me his home phone number and his work phone number and told me that if I was there longer than I expected, to give him a call and we'd meet face to face, have a beer and an "eyeball QSO". I wrote down the numbers and stuck them in my wallet.
It turned out that the ship (USS NIMITZ) wasn't quite near enough to Singapore to pick us up right on schedule - we were there (at full per diem, thank you very much) for almost 4 days! I did call Simo's work number and he told me that this particular day was his wife's birthday, and would I like to join them and their two kids for dinner at their apartment. Would I! He gave me the information to tell the cab driver how to get to his office. As it turned out, "Simo" is a perfectly common man's name IF the man is from Finland. Mr. Simo Hoikka was "Mr. Nokia" for the whole Southeast Asia territory at that time!
When dinner was served, I quickly took stock of what was happening: here's an AMERICAN, in SINGAPORE, sitting down to have dinner with a family from FINLAND. The dinner had been cooked by their MALAYSIAN housekeeper/cook. Any guesses as to what it was?
Some of the best made-from-scratch lasagne I've ever eaten!
I told Simo I was going to be in Singapore in just a day or so. He gave me his home phone number and his work phone number and told me that if I was there longer than I expected, to give him a call and we'd meet face to face, have a beer and an "eyeball QSO". I wrote down the numbers and stuck them in my wallet.
It turned out that the ship (USS NIMITZ) wasn't quite near enough to Singapore to pick us up right on schedule - we were there (at full per diem, thank you very much) for almost 4 days! I did call Simo's work number and he told me that this particular day was his wife's birthday, and would I like to join them and their two kids for dinner at their apartment. Would I! He gave me the information to tell the cab driver how to get to his office. As it turned out, "Simo" is a perfectly common man's name IF the man is from Finland. Mr. Simo Hoikka was "Mr. Nokia" for the whole Southeast Asia territory at that time!
When dinner was served, I quickly took stock of what was happening: here's an AMERICAN, in SINGAPORE, sitting down to have dinner with a family from FINLAND. The dinner had been cooked by their MALAYSIAN housekeeper/cook. Any guesses as to what it was?
Some of the best made-from-scratch lasagne I've ever eaten!
