Koreans got bogged down in the US blizzard. Behold, a couple promoted an unexpected meeting

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Alexander Campagna and his wife, Andrea, lifelong residents of Buffalo, New York, were prepared to wait out the blizzard. They had stocked the refrigerator and planned a quiet holiday at home in suburban Williamsville, as long as the power stayed on.

Then, on Friday, the 23rd, with the storm swirling and the snow rapidly accumulating, making the roads impassable, they heard a knock on the door. Two men in a group of nine South Korean tourists heading to Niagara Falls asked for shovels to pull their van out of a ditch.

And so began an unlikely Christmas weekend, in which the Campagnas welcomed the travelers and their driver. They became “innkeepers by chance,” said Alexander, a 40-year-old dentist.

Before departing Washington on Friday morning, tour participants, most of them from Seoul, seemed unaware of the worrying weather forecast, said Yoseb Choi, 27, of Pyeongtaek. He was traveling with his wife, Claire, on the tour they had booked for their honeymoon.

A day earlier, Choi was worried when he received messages from friends warning him of the approaching storm. On Friday, the van ride was slippery and windy, and passengers were nervous. So, after hours of watching the weather deteriorate, they ended up getting stuck near Campagna’s home.

The Campagnas, aware of the dangers that the storm presented, immediately invited travelers to enter, “knowing, as residents of Buffalo, that this phenomenon is of another level, it is the Darth Vader of storms”, said Alexander, in reference to the villain of “Star Wars”. So seven women and three men occupied the three-bedroom house, sleeping on couches, sleeping bags, an air mattress, and in the guest room. Among the travelers were a couple with their daughter, a college student from Indiana, and two college-aged friends. Three of them spoke fluent English.

They spent the weekend telling stories, watching the Buffalo Bills defeat the Chicago Bears on Christmas Eve and sharing delicious Korean meals prepared by the guests, such as “jeyuk bokkeum”, a spicy fried pork dish, and “dakdori tang”, chicken stew with strong red pepper. To the surprise and delight of the Korean guests, Campagna and his wife, both fans of Korean food, had all the necessary condiments on hand: mirin, soy sauce, Korean red pepper paste, sesame oil, and chili flakes. There was also kimchi and a rice cooker.

“It was a surprise of fate,” Choi said of being lucky enough to arrive at the Campagna home with the equipped kitchen and unhesitating hospitality. He said the hosts were “the kindest people I’ve ever met”. One of the guests, the Indiana college student’s mother, was a fabulous cook, he said. “We destroy so much food,” he added.

Campagna, for his part, said the unexpected guests were a pleasure. “We enjoyed it so much,” he said, calling it a “unique blessing” and adding that the experience inspired the couple to plan a visit to South Korea. “We’ll never forget that.”

Choi said he spent some of his high school years learning English in Michigan and Kansas, but his wife had never been to the country, so the tour was a chance to travel to several cities she wanted to see. The plan was to visit New York, Washington, Niagara Falls and Montreal.

After landing in New York on Dec. 21 for the tour, organized by a South Korean company called Yellow Balloon, they visited the Empire State Building and the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, took the ferry to the Statue of Liberty, went to the MoMA and the Oculus at the World Trade Center, all in one day. In Washington, they visited the White House, the Lincoln Memorial and one of the Smithsonian museums.

“We were tired but it was exciting,” said Choi. Even the unexpected snow disaster added to the experience, he said, allowing the couple to experience a “warm welcome from true Americans.” “We are happy and luckily having a great Christmas with Andrea and Alex.”

On Sunday, the snow cleared and the road was cleared, but the van remained stuck. Drivers arrived to pick up the tourists, who were headed back to New York, where most of them will fly to South Korea. Choi said he and his wife will stay a little longer to ring in the New Year in Times Square.

If they’d been stuck one more night, they were thinking of making bulgogi, Korean barbecue, for Christmas dinner.

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