Thursday, April 16, 2009

Shopping

Yesterday was my first trip out to the store and what fun! The people here work! I've seen so many examples in 3 days of how they work. These people are work horses.

All day each day I can hear construction outside of my window. Saws, nail guns, hammering, constant chatter.. The facilities where the gym is has several people around wiping down counter tops and sweeping. On the way to the store there were 2 people dressed complete with rubber shoes and sunshades on their head picking weeds from the grass. Weeds! Who does that? Especially on public lawns. The street sweeper passed us by cleaning the gutters of the road, which were already spotless.

The grocery store attendants were all hard at work, stocking shelves, taking inventory, writing forms. I went to weigh my fruit so she could tag the bag with price and she was in the backroom for a moment and as I approached the desk the man nearby called to her and she came shuffling her feet back to help.

My neighbor with whom I went to the store has a 15 mth old son who is blond as he can get with little curly ringlets in his hair. Everyone just adores him and showers him with attention and smiles! It really breaks the ice with the locals.
We are constantly greeted with HELLO! and BYE BYE from everyone.

Deciding what to buy in the store is a whole other story. I managed to leave with some fruit, shampoo, water bottles, a non stick frying pan, 2 mugs for Canadian style tea, 2 small tea cups meant for Chinese tea but we will use them as espresso cups! No handle but they will do.
What else... apples, don't worry I won't forget to remove the skin. A bed sheet that does not fit the bed, in fact I bought the wrong sheet altogether..it's the ruffle for the base of the bed. I was hoping for a bed sheet as I thought it was, with pillow covers! Chips! Butter cookies imported from Denmark.
A whole store of groceries and I couldn't sort out most of it. Even trying to decide which was shampoo and which was conditioner!!

Planning for the weekend to go to a larger market type store. Sounds like it's no big deal but believe me, it is!! Since living in both Europe, traveling to places like Mexico and now China I realize that living in Canada is so easy with all that we have.. I am having trouble finding a light for the side of the bed to read with! Where's Walmart when I need it!

Oh btw, they don't allow foreigners to drive.. which makes it a little difficult to get around. I am keeping my eyes peeled for a bicycle, or a moped!! I don't think I'll be so lucky.


Next to where we live. The climate here is so warm and rainy that these flowers are in their paradise!

The front of the grocery store.


Not too sure what it is.

Click the photos to enlarge them.

3 comments:

Mike C said...

Wow, those look like meat jerky (various fowl wings and feet). I didn't know they sold those!

The Denmark butter cookies are popular there, beware that some of them might not be actually made in Denmark!

T said...

ah, thanks for the tip..the cookies taste pretty good.

Unknown said...

HAH shady Denmark Cookies parading around as Denmark Cookies!! We have some washers in Male that are far too manual for my liking (luckily ours is brand new and the same as at home). When I washed my jeans in the hotel bathtub in Taipei, they were wet for 6 days in my air-conditioned bathroom. 6 DAYS!!! Are cabs expensive there?