Dani stopped outside a candy shop.
Wooden barrels filled the store from floor to ceiling. Each overflowed with brightly wrapped sweets in every color imaginable. Along one wall, glossy candied ducks stretched across souvenir boxes like oversized gummy bears.
We grabbed a plastic bag.
The labels meant nothing to us.
An employee watched us closely enough that we understood the rule without having to ask. No sampling.
So we watched everyone else.
A woman reached into a barrel.
I reached into the same one.
A man picked something from another.
Dani picked something from that one too.
By the time we reached the register, our bag held a cheerful mix of purple, blue, and green wrappers.
We carried it down the street.
Dani opened the first one.
She bit into it.
She stopped.
“What is it?”
She handed it to me.
Dried fruit.
I opened another.
Dried fruit.
Another.
Dried fruit.
We stood there looking at the bag.
Different wrappers. Different shapes. Different colors.
She folded the bag shut and carried it to the next trash can.
~
Six hours after later, we still hadn’t eaten anything real.
My stomach growled.
Dani looked at me.
“I need food.”
“Yeah.”
Our rules were simple: not flashy, not filthy, and preferably full of locals.
We had already walked the neighborhood twice.
The second time, we started looking into restaurants before we passed them. Empty tables were a bad sign. English menus were a bad sign. Anything that looked designed for tourists was a bad sign.
Then we saw the noodle shop.
It was tiny.
Every table was full, and several customers had bowls balanced on the narrow counter that extended toward the sidewalk.
We stopped outside.
The owner saw us looking.
She pointed at a worktable piled with dirty dishes and a jumble of chopsticks, then waved us toward it.
Before we could move, a family at one of the nearby tables started waving.
They shuffled their chairs together.
One of them pointed at two empty seats.
Dani looked at me.
We went in, squeezing ourselves between them
Someone said something to Dani.
She smiled.
“Sorry.”
The woman tried again, slower this time.
Dani shook her head and pointed at herself.
“American.”
The woman laughed.
That seemed to solve something.
They pointed at their bowls, then at us, asking something we couldn’t understand.
I pointed at the noodles too.
They nodded.
We ate.
Every few minutes someone tried again. We answered with the handful of words we knew, then gave up and smiled. The children watched us with the same curiosity we had for them.
When the family finally stood to leave, they waved goodbye.
We waved back.
Then I pointed at Dani’s empty bowl.
“Another?”
She nodded.
I caught the waitress’s attention and held up two fingers.
She brought another pair of bowls.
Steam rose between us.
Dani picked up her chopsticks.
The waitress stopped.
She looked at Dani’s chopsticks.
Then at Dani.
Then back at the chopsticks.
She reached into her apron.
For a second I thought she was going to correct us.
Instead she pulled out a fork.
She held it up between two fingers and grinned.
Dani laughed, put down her chopsticks, and took it.
When we finished, Dani leaned back and looked around the room.
At the next table, everyone was drinking from squat ceramic jars with paper lids and straws poking through the tops.
Dani watched them.
I followed her eyes.
“Get one.”
She shook her head.
“I’m too full.”
I waited until she looked away, then pointed at one of the jars.
The waitress understood.
A few minutes later she returned with one.
Dani looked at me.
“I said no.”
I shrugged.
She peeled back the paper lid and took a cautious sip.
Her eyebrows lifted.
She smacked her lips.
And took another sip.