On a steamy summer's day in 2004, Daniel Kolbe finally boarded a plane home to Hong Kong from Tokyo after getting lost in the airport rail system and missing several flights. The exhausted German, still new to Asia, only wanted to sleep but his window seat was taken by a stranger.
That day turned out to be the luckiest one for him. The woman who took Daniel's seat was Iva Law - whom he married in front of 150 guests from Hong Kong, Germany, Japan and England on April 2 at The Peninsula hotel.
'All I wanted then was to get some sleep but I guess I found a reason not to,' Daniel, 29, recalls.
Daniel offered Iva his seat and sat down next to her. Feeling obliged to break the awkward silence, he tried to strike up a conversation.
The 32-year-old TVB actress was reluctant to reveal her occupation but, embarrassed about taking the wrong seat, told him what she did. However, Daniel had his doubts. 'Obviously she's pretty but what are the chances for me to meet an actress on an economy flight? I thought it was impossible,' says Daniel, who runs his own IT consulting firm specialising in banking. 'I had only been working in Hong Kong for two weeks before the Japan trip. I never watch TV.'
Slightly offended, Iva's plan was to go back to sleep. But Daniel offered to show her a comedy on his laptop, with only German subtitles.
'I was exhausted from the trip but he insisted on showing me a film and translated all the jokes, which I found not funny at all,' she says.