Shopping with Mary:: all-day grocery shopping!

August 28, 2012-

So, you say you need groceries???  Well, get ready to go to about ten different places to find the item you need ….when back home you could get most of your shopping done at one grocery store.  

Okay….maybe not ten stores but at least five!!! 

Today Mary said she'd come along with me.  It IS a LOT nicer to go shopping with friends.  I HATE shopping as it is.  At least shopping with friends makes it tolerable!!!

First up is Metro….it's at least a 45-minute drive (or more) from here.  Some days I can find certain things at Metro and other times they don't have it.  Whew!  My shopping cart is FULL.  Time to go check out!  Oh great!  Now what???  Apparently I don't shop often enough at Metro and my card number has been locked.  Whatever that means.  Thank Heavens someone came to the rescue and I could still check out.  It just stinks that I don't know enough Chinese to communicate properly.

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Looky what we passed by driving to AoCheng shopping area?  A bright, shiny green John Deere tractor!

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Next, lunch!  We're heading to AoCheng shopping area and there are lots of restaurants to choose from in AoCheng. Wonder where we'll go eat???  The vote is in!  We're heading to a Tex Mex restaurant.  Mmmmm!!!!  I got a yummy vegetarian burrito with real guacamole and a Corona with lime.  I'm feeling a lot better now.  ;-)  I might survive!

Time to go check out the new import store I've heard everyone talking about…D-Mart.  Why is it called D-Mart?????  We've got an E-Mart and RT Mart….so does this mean that someone will open a B and A marts as well????

D-Mart….and check out that pile of glass shards. (!!!!)

Mary is checking out all the stuff in the cooler section. A little bit of this and a little bit of that but no plain yogurt and no sour cream. And I really, really miss all the cheeses we used to get back home. Thankfully we can get brie and camembert (in sealed metal tins) and sometimes we can find goat cheese and fresh mozzarella on the rare occasion.

We can get Skippy peanut butter and Hershey's chocolate syrup….and Mott's applesauce. Funny to see these things in the IMPORTED goods store, isn't it???

BBQ sauces! Steak sauces! Ketchup and other condiments!

Little bottles of real maple syrup for only 119 RMB.

Blue boxes of mac & cheese – yes, we can find them here!

Check this out:

Can you tell what is glued on the wall???

Let's get a closer look:

Bottles and bottles of OPI nail polish!!!!!

That seems like a cool advertisement for this nail salon, don't you think????

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We've got one more stop…to the fruit and vegetable market.

I think these are moon cakes for the autumn festival next month.

What are these packets of papers for????

We saw several ladies folding golden looking papers into these boat-like shapes. I bet it took a lot of time and patience to make this big bag of folded "boats".

It looks like they're stringing the "boats" up into these pretty looking "chandelier".

Looks like they are getting ready for the Autumn Festival next month!!!  I want to try some moon cakes but I want some help picking them out.  ;-)