(CNN) — With one of the world’s most diverse food scenes, China makes it nearly impossible to put together one single list that truly encompasses the “best” Chinese dishes.

But with such a huge variety of flavors on offer, it’s immensely helpful to go into the country with an introductory list of essential eats that will give you a well-rounded culinary experience.

Can’t wait till then? Some of them can surely be found in your nearest Chinatown community.

We have included both English and Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese, depending how they are more commonly known) names in this story.

Peking duck

One bite into this small mountain of crispy duck skin, juicy meat, radish, cucumber, scallion and sweet bean sauce wrapped neatly in a thin pancake, and you’ll understand why Peking duck has been captivating stomachs — including those of ancient Chinese emperors — for centuries.

It’s said that roasted duck first started tantalizing taste buds more than 1,500 years ago in Nanjing, when the city was the seat of ancient Chinese imperial regimes.

The capital relocated to Beijing in the 1400s, and the imperial families brought those tasty roast duck recipes — and the chefs — with them.

It was there that the current way we enjoy the duck, wrapped in that delicate thin pancake, was invented and then popularized around the world.

Vermicelli with duck blood

Many Nanjing residents will indeed tell you it’s their city — not Beijing — that’s the true duck capital of China.

The city’s obsession with the bird is evident in its wide array of duck offerings, including salted duck, pancakes made with duck grease and duck dumplings.

But nothing speaks to a duck lover’s heart quite like a cheap bowl of vermicelli soup with duck blood.

Made with duck-bone broth, duck blood curds and bits of duck offal, such as liver and gizzards, this street food dish fully utilizes every part of the bird to deliver incredibly intense flavors.

Steamed fish

It may look simple, but steaming fish is a difficult art to master.

Timing is crucial. The number of minutes — or seconds — you should steam a fish is dictated by the type and size of a fish, as well as the strength of your own stove.

Undercook it by a minute, the flesh won’t detach from the bone; overcook it, the flesh will tighten too much and the fish will lose some of its moisture, tenderness and flakiness.

Cantonese steamed fish is usually served in some sweetened soy sauce and scallions.

Dan dan noodles

It’s nearly impossible to dislike China’s soul-comforting dan dan mian, or dan dan noodles. The question is: Which version to try?

Dan dan noodles are named after the way they were originally sold more than 100 years ago — on a dan dan, a carrying pole, by street hawkers.

There are many ways to serve this famous Sichuan specialty. Some think dan dan noodles should contain a dry mix of noodles, made with minced meat, chopped scallions, spices, crushed peanuts and various sauces. Others disagree, preferring dan dan noodles in a hot, spicy, salty and nutty broth albeit with similar ingredients.

But most people would agree that dan dan noodles taste better when topped with a handful of rou saozi — finely chopped pork that’s been pan-fried in lard until golden brown and crispy.

Steamed fish head with chopped salted chili

Cuisine in the mountainous, landlocked southern province of Hunan (also known as Xiang cuisine) is often cooked with a generous portion of oil, salt and chili.

The province even has its own chili-themed folk song, with lyrics proclaiming that “it doesn’t count as a dish if there is no chili. A touch of chili triumphs over an exquisite meal.”

No other dish represents Hunan cuisine as well as steamed fish heads served with chopped salted chili (duo jiao yu tou).

Duo jiao, a staple relish in Hunanese homes, is made with chili peppers that are dried, diced then preserved in a jar of salt, ginger, garlic and baijiu (Chinese liquor) for at least a week.

The thick blanket of duo jiao gives the steamed fish head a salty and spicy kick. The leftover juice is a delicious dip for noodles or dumplings after you’ve devoured the fish.

Roasted goose

Warning: Once you’ve tried a Cantonese-style, woodfire oven-roasted goose, there’s no going back. No other goose dish will please your palate in quite the same way.

Upon hitting your mouth, the goose magically falls apart, offering an explosion of combined flavors from the crispy skin, melted fat and tender meat.

Some restaurants will use special types of wood, such as camphor wood or lychee wood, to give the bird a special smoky taste.

Chaozhou cold fish/crab

Seaside Chaozhou is known for no-frills seafood dishes that serve one purpose — to maximize the fresh ingredients’ original umami flavors.

Among the best dishes showcasing this style is Chaozhou-style cold fish or cold crab.

To preserve the freshness of the seafood, fish and crabs are lightly seasoned in salt before they’re steamed. They’re then cooled and served at room temperature.

The fish is often dipped in a special soy bean paste from Poling, while the crabs are served with a garlic and vinegar sauce.

Cross-the-bridge rice noodles

Legend has it that cross-the-bridge rice noodles were invented many years ago by a loving wife. Her husband studied on an island, so the wife would travel across a bridge to deliver him his daily lunches.

As the food would be cold after the journey, the disheartened wife decided to bring a pot of scalding hot chicken broth, along with the rice noodles and raw ingredients.

It was an ingenious plan, really. The chicken oil on the surface of the soup would keep the liquid warm. When the husband was ready to eat, she’d cook all the ingredients by pouring them into the hot soup.

Today, many noodle shops offer their own style of cross-the-bridge rice noodles, offering a choice of different ingredients and soup bases.

Kungpao chicken

One of the most internationally famous Chinese dishes, Kungpao chicken is made by stir-frying diced chicken pieces with scallions, ginger, peppercorns, chili and deep-fried peanuts.

There are different origin stories, but many believe the dish was inspired by a former Sichuan governor in the 1800s called Ding Baozeng, whose nickname was Ding Gongbao — alternatively romanized as Kungpao.

It’s said that Ding loved a sour and salty fried chicken dish from China’s Shandong province. After he was relocated to Sichuan, he asked his chef to add some local chili and peanuts to the dish — and the rest is history.

Sweet and sour pork / Lychee pork

Deep-fried pork can feel a bit heavy, especially in unforgiving summer weather. Thankfully, we have sweet and sour pork.

The pineapple in the dish and a sauce made with sugar, vinegar and soy sauce add some freshness to the crispy pork.

If you’re a fan of sweet and sour pork, you should also try the Fujian version of the dish — lychee pork. By incising the surfaces of the pork pieces, they resemble lychees’ uneven skins after being deep-fried.

There is no lychee in the dish traditionally — the sweetness comes from sugar, but some restaurants add lychee or use lychee sauce to match its name.

Bonus: The rugged surfaces on the pork hold more sauce and have a more tender texture.

Dumplings

Who needs French fries when you have dumplings?

Whether you love them steamed, boiled or pan-fried, jiaozi pack a full punch of carbs, proteins and vegetables in one mouthful.

Rouyan pork dumplings

One of the most interesting styles of dumplings is Fujian’s rouyan version — delicious enough to earn their own spot on this list.

The mini pork dumplings have an extra chewiness to them as their wrappers are made of pork and some flour.

Wenchang chicken rice

While Hainanese chicken rice isn’t actually from China’s Hainan province (it was first served in Malaysia), the dish was inspired by the tropical island province and its famous Wenchang chicken.

Made with a special breed of poultry from the island’s eponymous city, Wenchang chicken is prized for its thin skin, tender meat and sweet flavor.

The most common way to cook a Wenchang chicken is by blanching and air drying it. Similar to Hainanese chicken rice, the Wenchang version is often served with yellow chicken fat rice and chicken soup.

Hainan locals usually prefer garlic and ginger paste, chili sauce and the juice of small tangerines as condiments.

Mapo tofu

A memorable mapo tofu packs a boatload of zing — salty, peppery and spicy flavors should all hit the taste buds in a single spoonful thanks to the different types of spices, peppers and chili used in the dish.

Discerning local gourmets insist that the best mapo tofu should be made with Hanyuan peppercorns and broad bean chili paste from Sichuan’s Pidu district.

It’s most commonly cooked with minced pork or beef — and tofu, of course. But as the Sichuan dish is so wildly popular nowadays, restaurants often serve creative versions of mapo tofu with different types of meats.

Pork belly with dry, pickled Chinese mustard

Tender, well-braised pork belly is naturally irresistible — but the star of this Hakka dish is actually mei cai, a dry, pickled Chinese mustard that gives the hearty stew its sour and salty taste.

It’s said that every Hakka family, a traditionally nomadic tribe in China, pickle their own mei cai.

When they make too much of it, they will whip up a mei cai relish that’s a great topping for plain rice and noodles.

Fried rice

Jian bing guozi

One of the most welcome sights on a cold morning in Tianjin in northern coastal China is a jian bing stand, with its sizzling hot pan.

Jian bing guozi is composed of two elements: Jian bing (crepes) and guozi (deep-fried crisps).

To make a jian bing guozi, first, a mung bean mixture is fanned out with a ladle onto a flat-iron pan. Eggs and scallions are then spread out on the crepe.

After the pancake is flipped over, a dollop of bean paste, sheets of guozi crisps (or, sometimes, deep-fried breadsticks and vegetables) are added before the vendor — usually an elderly man — folds the stuffed and toasted pancake and hands it to you in a paper bag.

Xiaolongbao

Wondering whether the xiaolongbao wrapper will break on the long journey between the steaming basket and your mouth is one of the most suspenseful moments that can take place at a dining table.

Amassing a huge following in and outside China, xiaolongbao, also called xiaolong tangbao (translated as “small basket soup bun”), is a mix of soup and pork packed inside a thin dumpling wrapper.

In addition to pork, the soupy dumplings can also be filled with crab meat and crab roe.

Chen cun rice noodles

If you’re one of those people who thinks the real star of beef chow fun is the noodles and not the beef, you should try Chen cun fen (Chen village flat rice noodles).

Chewier, wider and thinner than the usual flat rice noodles, Chen cun fen is a specialty from Chen village, a town in Shunde district in the Pearl River Delta.

In addition to being stir-fried in a noodle dish, the semi-translucent and smooth Chen cun fen make a great base layer for dishes such as steamed spareribs and seafood as the noodles absorb all the flavors from the other ingredients.

Dongpo pork

Named after famous poet, painter and statesman Su Dongpo (who lived about 1,000 years ago), Dongpo rou is made up of braised pork belly, rock sugar, soy sauce, yellow wine and other seasonings.

The result is a richly flavored and extremely tender pork slab that can easily be pried apart with chopsticks.

It’s a delicious dish that goes well with steamed white rice.

Hot and sour soup

Surprisingly, China’s famed hot and sour soup isn’t just great at warming up your body in winter.

Local Sichuanese believe that the soup can also expel excessive humidity and hotness from one’s body in summer as well.

A bowl of hot and sour soup should have a balance of sourness (from vinegar) and spiciness (from peppers) — but not hotness from chili.

Shreds of tofu, Chinese mushrooms, wood ears and bamboo shoots are some of the common ingredients found in the thick soup.

Dim sum

Dim sum refers more to a style of serving food — it’s a type of meal in Cantonese food culture — rather than a specific dish.

It’s a cunning way to include many different varieties of small plates — from pan-fried radish cake to prawn dumplings to siu mai — in one meal.

At the same time, dining on a combination of these dishes during a dim sum session is far more enjoyable than eating just one version on its own.

Beef/fish poached in chili oil broth

Don’t be fooled by its bland-sounding Chinese name — shui zhu, which translates literally to “water boil.”

Shui zhu is a cooking technique that was first developed in Sichuan cuisine. The word water (shui) refers to the hot, spicy chili oil broth that is used to poach thinly sliced beef (shui zhu niu), pork (shui zhu roupian) or fish (shui zhu yu).

Today, the photogenic crowd-pleaser is often served with sliced celtuce (a type of lettuce) and flat mung bean noodles in the broth, too.

Barbecue pork

The best barbecue pork should be slightly charred on the outside and contain just the right amount of sweetness and saltiness from the maltose, wine and soy sauce.

A Cantonese roast shop will let you choose the level of fattiness you want in your char siu, Cantonese for barbecue pork.

Half lean, half fatty char siu is the go-to option if you are a newbie.

Barbecue pork is a highly versatile ingredient served in many delicious dishes — from char siu macaroni soup for breakfast to char siu bao — steamed buns –– at dim sum.

Bao

Bao — a steamed bread roll filled with a variety of ingredients including meat or vegetables — come in many shapes and sizes.

It could be a plain bao with a glossy and smooth exterior (mantou), or an oversized steamed volcano-shaped bao stuffed with an entire meal’s worth of food (da bao, or translated as “big bao”).

But one of the best baos is undoubtedly sheng jian bao.

The pan-fried bao is filled with pork and broth, while scallions and white sesame seeds are sprinkled on top.

Rou jia mo

The Mausoleum of Terracotta Warriors is usually the reason travelers visit Xi’an, but this western Chinese city’s delicious and similarly historical rou jia mo is another great reason to head there.

The ubiquitous street eat consists of a grilled mo (flat bread) and an overflowing amount of shredded pulled pork belly that has been braised in soy sauce, rock sugar and spices such as cinnamon, star anise, cloves and peppercorns for hours.

Undercooked mo is a big no-no. A common saying in Shaanxi province goes “tie quan hu bei juhua xin,” which means “iron ring, tiger’s back and chrysanthemum’s heart ” — the perfect patterns you should look for on a well toasted mo.

Cantonese herbal soup

Cantonese parents are the real experts when it comes to therapeutic herbal soups, which are simmered for hours to infuse the liquid with healing qualities and deliciousness.

Various seasonal ingredients offer different cooling or warming qualities to restore balance in the body.

For example, apple, snow fungus and lily petal soup will hydrate your body, whereas winter melon and barley soup will cool you down in hot weather.

Preserved sausages

The Chinese version of salami is often categorized into two main types: Laap cheung and yun cheung (in Cantonese).

Laap cheung is preserved meat sausage that has a slightly sweet taste. Yun cheung, on the other hand, is mostly made with offal from poultry, giving it a stronger and gamier flavor.

Unlike their European counterparts, Chinese preserved sausages should be steamed before eaten.

You can find them wrapped in buns, stir-fried with sticky rice or steamed in a clay pot.

Sweet taro paste

The secret to a delicious Fujian-style taro paste is binlang yu, a special breed of yam from Fujian’s Fuding county. The white and purple flesh of a binlang yu has vibrant fragrances and an earthy, nutty and sweet taste.

To make the dessert, the taro is cooked and mashed before it’s mixed with sugar and lard.

The thick, silky taro mash will then be garnished with sweet toppings such as dates, candied cherries and gingko.

Congee

When it comes to nourishing your digestive system, in sickness and in health, it’s all about congee (porridge, commonly made with rice).

A popular breakfast item in many parts of China, the versatile cheap eat can be served plain with a drizzle of soy sauce and scallions, or stewed with savory ingredients such as chicken or fish.

Lean pork floss and century egg congee is one of the classics served in the south of China. Congee made with millet instead of rice and flavored with pumpkin is popular in the north.

Those who are extra hungry can order a side of soy sauce-fried noodles, deep-fried breadsticks (youtiao) or soy milk. These can be enjoyed on the side, or you can tear up the breadsticks or add some noodles to the congee.

Chaozhou beef balls

Most people who visit Chaozhou can’t resist picking up a family-sized bag of super bouncy and flavorsome meat balls made of beef beaten by hand to bring home with them.

Highly praised for their understanding of beef, Chaozhou people are also famous for other dishes such as beef hot pot.

Sweet rice balls

One of the most loved desserts in China, sweet rice balls, or tangyuan, can be found in many regions.

Ningbo is one of the best places to sample these round mochi-like desserts.

The soft, pillowy exterior is made with sticky rice while the filling is made of black sesame, sugar and lard.

The lard gives the filling an extra fragrance and sheen.

(CNN) — Rachel Décoste landed in West Africa’s Republic of Benin in August 2018, anticipating an important journey of self-discovery, but not predicting the extent to which the trip would change her life.

On her first day exploring Benin, Rachel asked a passerby for directions. Two weeks later, Rachel and the stranger were engaged. Within six months, they were married.

Rachel grew up in Ottawa, Canada, the daughter of Haitian parents who’d immigrated to Canada in the late 1960s. As an adult, Rachel relocated to Washington DC for college, later working for a bipartisan tech program associated with the United States Congress.

Rachel loved this job, she loved the diversity of Washington and loved working in public service. When her US visa was up for renewal, Rachel, then in her early 40s, figured she’d work remotely for a few months before returning to DC.

But rather than working from Canada, she hatched a plan to set up her desk further afield.

Earlier that year, Rachel had submitted her DNA to an online ancestry site. Rachel had long known she was the descendent of enslaved Africans, but until she got the results, she hadn’t known where her forebears had lived. Now, she had a list of countries where she had roots: Senegal, Ivory Coast, Togo, Ghana and Benin.

Rachel arrived in Benin towards the end of her five month remote working trip. She’d already visited the other countries on her list, and her African trip was shaping up to be an extraordinary journey of self-discovery. Nevertheless, Rachel didn’t know what to expect from Benin.

“Honestly, I don’t know if I could find Benin Republic on a map before this,” she says.

She booked a room in a bed and breakfast in the port city of Cotonou, planning to stay there for two weeks — working from the B&B and exploring the country in her spare time.

Following a couple of days settling in, Rachel ventured out for the first time. She planned to visit Ouidah, once one of the most active slave trading ports in Africa. She expected this would be a moving and thought-provoking experience.

“I’m sure that one of my ancestors passed by there, just because of my DNA test,” says Rachel.

Exiting her room, Rachel searched around for the manager of her bed and breakfast — she was looking for guidance on how best to travel to Ouidah.

“She’s nowhere to be found. And then I look for the security guard, and the security guard is on break.”

Rachel figured her next best bet was asking a passerby outside, so she opened the gates and glanced around.

The first person she spotted was a man about to get on a motorcycle, parked just outside.

Rachel greeted the stranger in French — as a French Canadian, French is her first language and it’s also the official language of Benin — and politely asked him how to get to Ouidah.

“You have to go to a certain intersection downtown, where all the bush taxis are,” explained the stranger. “You find the taxi going to your destination, you pay for your seat, and then you’ll get there.”

He started passing on directions to the intersection, but then, realizing they were a bit complicated, changed his tune.

“If you want. I can bring you there, it’s about 10 minutes away,” he suggested, gesturing to his bike.

It was about 9 a.m. Rachel was wary of trusting someone she didn’t know, but she decided she was unlikely to come to harm in broad daylight. She agreed.

“I take a chance, hop on the back of his motorcycle, no helmet,” she recalls.

Traveling together

The motorbike-riding stranger was Honoré Orogbo, a single father and business owner in his thirties who’d lived in Cotonou all his life and just happened to be passing by that morning.

When Rachel opened the bed and breakfast door, Honoré had just finished eating some breakfast he’d grabbed from a nearby street kiosk.

From the outside, Rachel’s accommodation wasn’t obviously a B&B. Honoré says he assumed she was the owner of the house. It was only when she asked for directions that Honoré realized Rachel was a visitor.

When Rachel and Honoré arrived at the taxi rank in Cotonou city center, they realized the one heading to Ouidah was pretty empty. Honoré explained it would be some time before it departed — the driver wouldn’t leave until the taxi was full.

Rachel was disheartened. She didn’t have time to wait around — she wanted to spend the whole day in Ouidah without feeling rushed, and to safely return to Cotonou before sundown.

Sensing her disappointment, Honoré came up with a suggestion. He had a friend in Ouidah he’d been hoping to visit — while he hadn’t been planning to go that day, he could, he had a day off.

“I’m like ‘Cool. I’ll pay for gas. Let’s go,'” recalls Rachel.

Just over an hour later, they arrived in Ouidah.

“He shows me how to get back — where the bush taxis are that I can get back that afternoon — and he shows me where the Slave Museum is. And I’m like, ‘Okay, good to go. Thanks, sir,'” recalls Rachel.

But before they were due to go their separate ways, Rachel asked Honoré if he wanted to get brunch. She wanted a bite to eat before she started her tour — and extending the invite to Honoré felt like the polite choice, he’d gone out of his way to help her, after all.

Honoré agreed, touched by the gesture. The two sat down to eat.

Rachel was aware that she was a woman traveling alone, and while Honoré had been nothing but polite and respectful, he was still a stranger, so she told him she was married.

She also didn’t share details of her job, or her life in the US. But she did explain how she was hoping to travel around Benin over the coming days. She asked Honoré if he had any friends or contacts who worked as chauffeurs or tour guides, and who might be interested in escorting her around over the next couple of days. She figured that might be easier than relying on taxis.

Honoré contacted a tour guide friend, but he was fully booked

“So I said, ‘Well, how about you? Can you be my escort? You helped me out this morning, can I just pay you to do that for three days?'” recalls Rachel.

“No, I’m not a I’m not a tour guide,” said Honoré. “I don’t know my country’s history by heart, and that’s not what I do.”

Rachel backtracked. She didn’t really need a tour guide — there would be experts at all the historical sites she planned to visit — she just needed a ride.

After a bit of back and forth, Honoré agreed to drive Rachel.

“When she insisted, I said ‘Why not?'” Honoré recalls today.

He wanted to help Rachel, Honoré says. She seemed like a “good person,” based on the way she’d approached him, the way she’d asked him questions and the way she’d invited him to brunch.

The two agreed Honoré would drive Rachel around for the next few days, starting that day in Ouidah, and Rachel would pay him for his services.

Growing closer

For the rest of the week, Honoré took Rachel to Benin’s most important sites.

Touring Benin was a powerful experience for Rachel. She says visiting the slave fort, inside Ouidah’s Museum of History, “is a pilgrimage that every afro-descendant should visit to remind us of the cruelty that our ancestors survived.”

“I didn’t know this before going there in person, but if Las Vegas was taking bets on the survival of enslaved Africans, the odds of my being alive today would have been slim to none,” says Rachel. “I am a walking, talking miracle. I am the ‘one percent.’ I owe it to those who didn’t make it to live my best life.”

While traveling around Benin, Rachel and Honoré talked. While Rachel still didn’t disclose many details about her personal circumstances, but she found herself opening up to Honoré about her thoughts and feelings. Honoré opened up in turn.

“First conversations were about learning about myself, my family, my situation, who I am, who I really am,” he says.

“We were very open and very candid, because we were strangers and we’ll never see each other again,” recalls Rachel.

She remembers being touched when Honoré explained that he didn’t have a new model of motorcycle because he put all his money towards his son’s education.

“He says ‘I’d rather have my kid have those opportunities than drive a fancy motorcycle.’ And I thought, ‘Wow, those are the values of my parents.’ I saw myself in those values,” says Rachel.

In one of their many conversations, Honoré mentioned his brother was a tailor. On their fourth day together, Honoré took Rachel to a market to help her buy fabric that his brother could make into a dress.

Rachel was overwhelmed by the choice — so much so that she asked Honoré to pick his favorites. He opted for two pieces of colorful, bright Ankara fabric. The third option was a white, gray, lace style, called lessi. Rachel loved it, and figured the resulting dress could be “appropriate for a baptism or some kind of special occasion.”

In one of their many conversations driving to Benin landmarks, Honoré mentioned to Rachel that he would usually travel to Lomé, the capital of the neighboring country of Togo, when he and his friends wanted a night out.

Rachel was intrigued.

“I can’t guarantee that I’ll ever come back here. This is a once in a lifetime trip where I’m getting paid while I’m working in a foreign country. I want to take advantage of every opportunity,” she remembers thinking.

“So I said, ‘Well, I have to go back to work this week. But next weekend, if you’re willing, I could get two hotel rooms and we could go to Togo together.”

The following weekend, Honoré took Rachel to a poetry slam night in Lomé, followed by a bar with live music. They stayed out all night.

“We’re dancing. It’s just pure joy,” says Rachel.

It was around this time that Rachel started to feel things shift. She felt comfortable around Honoré in a way she’d never felt before.

“We get along great. He laughs at my jokes,” she recalls thinking. “I had a bit of a meltdown a couple times — which I’m not proud of — where he didn’t freak out, because usually angry Black women scare people. But he took it all in his stride.”

Rachel even briefly met Honoré’s son.

She described the situation in an email to one of her close friends back in Ottawa.

“I think I think this person should be my husband. But am I crazy? I’ve known this guy for a week. Is that stupid? Tell me if I’m crazy,” she wrote.

Her friend wrote back: “Rachel, you are not a stupid person. You have good judgment. You are a good judge of character. If he’s the one, grab him.”

For Honoré, the trip to Togo was a turning point too.

“I think it’s that night that the lightning struck,” he says. “It was not lightning but it was a feeling of love. I think that’s where the feeling of love started.”

Rachel only had one more week in Benin before she was set to return to North America. She decided she had no time to waste.

“I told him that I really wasn’t married. And he was very happy to hear that. And we got together,” she says.

“I was kind of surprised,” says Honoré now. “I thought a woman like that would probably have a husband.”

“Next day I saw her differently,” he adds. “Not like a tourist but my soulmate. That’s how the relationship started. Step by step.”

For the remainder of Rachel’s time in Benin, Rachel and Honoré spent as much time together as they could.

Long distance engagement

On the evening of Rachel’s departure, Honoré recalls sitting with her on a beach. He was enjoying the moment, but also considering Rachel’s impending return to Canada, and what it meant for their burgeoning romance.

“We were facing the ocean. In my head, I was thinking ‘the past two weeks that I’ve spent with you, I have no regrets. We had a great time together. I was really happy to meet you.'”

The two talked about the future, and if and how they could make a long distance relationship work. They realized they were both equally committed, and so they decided to get engaged, and that Honoré would relocate to North America.

It was a big decision. They’d only known one another for a couple of weeks. And for Honoré, emigrating had never been a goal. It would be a big change for his son. But Honoré says he decided to “follow my instincts, to follow my heart.”

Meanwhile, Rachel quit her life in DC, and went back to Canada. Rachel says her friends were shocked, but supportive and happy when she told them about the whirlwind romance. Her parents were more skeptical, she says. But they came round when they met Honoré, and saw how in love he was with their daughter.

Rachel returned to Benin six months later, in January 2019, for her wedding to Honoré. She wore the dress made from the white lace fabric Honoré had picked for her in the market the summer before. It felt like fate.

Meanwhile, the couple planned a Canadian wedding celebration for the following year, navigating Honoré and his son’s immigration journey in the meantime.

“I took the time during the separation to start preparing myself mentally and psychologically for a big move,” recalls Honoré. “I had to think about the huge life change that was going to be ahead of me, the cultural differences. I know people who went to the Americas and it wasn’t necessarily easy.”

Honoré also prepared his child for the move.

“I explained to him that, ‘My son, we will go to a different country and we will start over together. With time, you will have new friends, you will have new cousins. You will have everything you wish for. everything that you have here you will have over there, in time.”

Canadian reunion

Honoré and his son arrived in Canada in the middle of winter.

“It was really really really cold,” he recalls. “I just didn’t understand how cold it could be outside. Because the cold of Africa is a whole different kettle of fish, than the cold in Canada.”

Still, once Honoré was kitted out with Canada-appropriate boots, coat and mittens, he started adapting to life in a new country.

Rachel and Honoré say they were over the moon to be together. The months apart waiting for Honoré’s visa approval had been long.

Honoré’s son settled in very quickly, and Rachel adapted to becoming his stepmother, a role she says she loves.

“I’m embracing the challenge and the joys of motherhood,” she says now.

“It’s not easy when you’ve been single since forever to adjust to having to share your life. But he’s a good kid.”

Today, Honoré and Rachel live in Ottawa. Rachel works as a diversity and inclusion expert, while Honoré is studying.

The pandemic put a stop to their big Canadian wedding celebration plans, but they enjoyed a small ceremony in summer 2020.

Reflecting on their journey together, Honoré says their story makes him consider that “sometimes you shouldn’t force fate.”

He sees meeting Rachel as “destiny” but considers moving across the world to be with her as proof of the importance of trusting your gut.

“Just follow your heart,” he says. “Follow your heart with reckless abandon.”

As for Rachel, she says their love story is a reminder to her that “it’s never too late.”

“You’re not too old to just travel alone by yourself, in a country that you don’t know, where you don’t know anybody. You’re never too old to find love. You’re never too old to become a mother.

There is no expiration date on opportunity. And grab life by both hands. If I can do it. You can.”

Local residents, students and officials gathered to celebrate the art island’s trademark sculpture as it was placed back on the pier on Naoshima Island, which is in the Seto Inland Sea. It had been there since 1994.

“Since (the pumpkin) was a symbol of Naoshima, it is great to see the same artwork installed again at the same spot. We are happy to share the joy with residents in Naoshima,” said Yukari Stenlund, a spokeswoman from Benesse Holdings, the company that manages the sculpture and the rest of the island’s art offerings, told CNN Travel.

The sculpture, which is two meters tall, 2.5 meters wide and made of fiberglass-reinforced plastic, was swept away into the sea and broken into three pieces in August 2021.

According to Stenlund, Kusama’s production team opted to create a brand new yellow pumpkin sculpture — while staying true to the original — after evaluating the extent of the damage.

The artist’s production team started working on a new pumpkin earlier this spring and made the sculpture’s outer shell 10% thicker than the original so it could withstand strong waves and wind in the future. In addition, a hook was embedded into its stem so it could be easily dragged to safety if another typhoon hits.

“We hope to exhibit the pumpkin as a symbol of the connection between Naoshima and the world,” Stenlund added, saying that message underpinned the 1994 “Out of Bounds” exhibition, which saw the sculpture first installed on the island.

Naoshima is a quiet with 3,200 residents, located in the Setouchi Sea, north of Shikoku. With three modern and contemporary art museums, it is known as an “art island,” The yellow pumpkin, which contrasts with the blue sea, has long been a popular site for Instagram photos.

The main way to access the island is a 20-minute ferry ride from Okayama city, which is 50 minutes away by bullet train from Osaka.

The pumpkin’s timing couldn’t be better. Japan opens its borders to leisure tourists on October 11, and the Setouchi Art festival runs until November 2022.

Photo of the “Yellow Pumpkin” welcoming ceremony courtesy Tadasu Yamamoto