You travel halfway around the world and guess who is the first guy you bump into? None other than someone from Hong Kong, which once again proves the old maxim that the world is indeed a small place.
Leung Kai-chung, whose family is from Fanling, is the first London Olympics volunteer I meet as I get off my flight from Colombo. He is one of the thousand-odd Games helpers posted at Britain's busiest airport, the entry point for the multitudes coming in over the next few days.
He is as surprised as I am when we discover a common identity. London-born, the bespectacled Leung says he had no hesitation in applying to become a volunteer at these Games, the third time this city is hosting the world's greatest sporting extravaganza.
Leung, a student at West London University where he is doing a degree in travel and tourism, paves the way for me, a member of the somewhat pretentiously called 'Olympic Family'. These are the athletes, officials and media who will number more than 25,000.
Being part of this fraternity results in being fast-tracked through immigration. But there are no queues to be seen elsewhere either. Are all these horror stories about Heathrow and its lengthy delays for passport checks a myth?
I ask Sanjay, one of five immigration staff, who gather around the computer terminal attending to my entry into Britain. He says with a smile that it is all a ploy to put visitors on edge ahead of their arrival and then deliver a pleasant surprise when they touch down.