Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! It's a long weekend here and I've been getting settled in. I finished my unpacking, which was the easy part. Then there's the matter of making sure I have supplies like laundry detergent (I have a little washer) and dish detergent. And of course, making sure I can eat. This includes basic groceries and also scoping out some places to grab food when I'm not cooking.
I had been told of the Walmart nearby, which is a full grocery store in addition to having other things as we Americans know Walmart. And when going out to dinner on Thursday, my colleagues had mentioned that the first floor of the department store we were in had a food space.
So yesterday I went on an adventure. It took a lot of oomph to have the energy to go, because knowing that behaviors and customs are different, and particularly when you don't know if you'll be able to read any signs and you're unlikely to be able to speak with anyone... well, it's a bit mentally taxing to accomplish tasks.
But I went out, hitting the department store first. I took a tour of the first floor and found some "luxury snack" stands (mochi mochi!), and several food-court style places. I made note of the pan-fried dumplings, noodle shop, and the japanese restaurant for later, and then took a tour of the drug store there. All good stuff to know.
Then it was off to find the Walmart. I had not brought the map, but I have a pretty good memory, so after going slightly off on half-a-block, I course corrected and found my way to the main street to the Walmart.
I was thinking it was a bit far when I saw it, but there it was! Groceries! Since I would be carrying everything by hand, I knew I had to keep the list relatively short.
First task at hand, however, was to figure out how checkout worked. Do people unload baskets like I'm used to? Do they have bags? How do people get their stuff out the door? Once I observed that part of it, I did a full tour of the place to see where everything was and what was available. I started picking up a few things along the way before grabbing a basket. The place was crowded but I made it through all the places I meant to.
I wanted to get stuff to do some simple cooking, at least one meal, so I wanted some soy sauce. I realized in looking at 12 shelves of soy sauce, very few of them having anything other than Chinese characters on them, that shopping might be a bit of a challenge. Still, I did find the soy sauce, Tide detergent looks the same even in another language, and so does dish detergent. The only other challenging part was vegetables and fruits. Once again I followed others and observed behaviors until I finally figured out that there's a weighing station in the middle of the store, and that's where you get bags and get things weighed before checking out.
I saw lots of wacky snacks, though I don't know what most of them are. I found the animal innards portion of the meat area, saw some yummy steamed dumplings, observed some cool vegetables, and also found the best "fast food" for cooking: pre-chopped meat and veggies packed together. Easy stir fry! I picked up one of those, some oil, spices, and soy sauce. Got some detergents, some milk for coffee, and some yogurt for snacking, and then made my way to check out. It went quite smoothly and I also learned that they do have bags to use, they just charge for them so most people bring their own. Good to know!
So I made my way home, and cooked up my first meal here. Some kind of meat (I'm guessing pork), tofu, and green peppers stir fry over some what noodles. It was pretty tasty, if I do say so myself, and I even had leftovers. Next time I go out I should probably get some food storage containers, though.
Today for a late lunch I ventured back over to the pan-fried dumplings place. Holy moly are they good. I may eat about a million of those things before I head back to the states. And you get four big, juicy dumplings for 6 Yuan, or slightly less than $1. Some things like nuts and milk are expensive here but it's a decent trade off, I think.
Given the amount of focus I needed to get through my "how do I do this?" tasks, I wasn't taking photos, but I will definitely get some shots of the meats and veggie choices at the grocery store next time. Now off to relax for a bit before my night meetings. Shanghai may have the day off, but the US does not!
No comments:
Post a Comment