Last month, nearly 1,000 miles from home, I met a South Korean girl touring the same city as me.

 

She asked me, in her limited English, if I knew whether a nearby café was open.

 

In my non-existent Korean, somehow I managed to convey that I didn’t know, and we had a conversation about TV, pop music, local food, and her return flight home.

 

We said our goodbyes, and I watched her walk down the hill and pause for a moment to smell a beautiful pink rose in a nearby garden. Then she turned, and retraced her steps up the hill to hand me a piece of lavender she’d picked from a nearby bush.

 

Little things, and the simple pleasures in life, do mean a lot.