We skipped breakfast in Shanghai because we assumed Hangzhou would be easy.

By noon, we still hadn’t eaten.

First Dani found a coffee shop.

Inside, everything was pale wood and Scandinavian furniture. The tables were full, the pastries looked good, and the prices looked like San Francisco.

We left.

A few blocks later, I found a cafeteria. Food sat beneath yellow heat lamps. Fish heads stared up from one tray. Octopus filled another. Steam clouded the glass.

We stood there for a moment.

“No.”

We left.

On the way out, I took a wrong turn and found myself in an underground supermarket.

“Come look at this.”

Inside, the shelves overflowed with food, but we recognized almost none of it.

We stared at prepared meals we could not identify, prices we could not decipher, and wrappers we no longer trusted.

Eventually, Dani and I bought bottled water and two yogurt drinks.

Then we began our journey around West Lake.

In the rain and fog, we barely noticed any of it.

We circled the southern edge of the lake in silence, stopping whenever we smelled food.

The first restaurant had plastic tables under a blue tarp. Steam rolled from a kitchen doorway, carrying the same smell as the cafeteria.

“No.”

We kept walking.

Another restaurant had glass doors and white tablecloths. A waiter looked at us, then at our wet clothes, then back toward the tables.

“Maybe not.”

We stepped back outside.

Rain collected on our umbrellas. The lake disappeared into the fog beyond the railing.

Another restaurant.

Another menu.

Another smell.

We kept walking.

Near a ferry dock, Dani proposed surrender.

“Let’s take the ferry back across the lake to the train station. Go to Shanghai. At least we can eat there.”

I looked at the map mounted nearby .

“You do like your boat rides. And we’ll have to cross Three Ponds Mirroring the Moon on foot.”

I pointed out one of the famous “Ten Scenes” of West Lake on the sign.

“Maybe we’ll see something other than rain.”

~

In the fog, the island appeared only gradually: curved bridges, wet stone paths, pagodas fading in and out of white clouds. We crossed as quickly as possible.

Near the return dock, Dani found a vendor selling hard-boiled eggs from a rice cooker.

I busied myself with my camera, trying not to watch the transaction.

“Hey.”

She elbowed me, then opened a paper bag.

“Two are for you.”

We ate them standing beside the water, the shells stained brown from soy sauce and tea leaves falling among the foliage at our feet.

I glanced at my wife as she licked the last drops of soy sauce from her fingers.

She smiled.

~

Then the ferry returned us to the mainland, and the pagodas rising through the mist looked strangely familiar.

The map along the trail with its familiar “you are here” confirmed it.

We had accidentally crossed the island only to arrive back at the same southern shore where we first boarded the boat.

“Do you want to walk the rest of the way?”

I was smiling when I asked.

Electric minibuses slid silently along the paths behind us before honking us out of the way.

Lotus flowers floated beside the walkways in clusters of pink and green.

Places marked as “scenes” appearing briefly as gray shadows through breaks in the clouds, then disappeared into white.

By sunset, the familiar landmarks of our journey’s start parted the fog.

We still had not eaten a real meal all day.