Going to a Chinese grocery store is an experience that I am unable to give justice to with a description. First you walk in, and the smells hit you. Smells you have never experienced, or want to again (but you know you have to if you want to eat). There are vegetables and fruits you have never seen or heard of, and a few that are familiar. There is this fruit that smells like sour milk. I think that the name even translates as stinky fruit. You must know that the treasured parts of meat that you have grown up with are no longer treasured. The favorite parts are stomach, heads(with all of the head-parts), and feet. There are aquariums full of every fish, eel and snake you can imagine. Even Turtles. They cut them up right there and then for you (live) so you can take them home fresh. Rachel had a special experience at the grocery store when she got light-headed and fainted right in front of the "cut up live turtles and snakes" stand. There was no air conditioning in the store and she was dehydrated. We had 2 carts full of food and Eli in the other cart. I stood there trying to hold her up, but she kept falling down. Everyone in the store just gathered around and watched(that is what Chinese people do. They will gather around to see whatever is going on. Mike and I think we could stand on a sidewalk and pretend to stare at something and we could gather a crowd of at least 20. Maybe next date night we'll give it a go!). Finally some workers came and gave her a chair, a fan, and some sugar water. A bit scary, but she was ok.
Well, we spent the first couple of weeks probably near-starving. But of course, we have gradually figured things out. We eat a combination of Chinese and Western style food. But there are never the right ingredients. We eat a lot of Rice! Thankfully my family have been angels and haven't complained once about the food. There is a Pizza Hut, McDonalds and KFC. We have tried each once. The Pizza Hut doesn't smell like a pizza hut, but it tastes pretty good. When we went their with Jay for his birthday, we looked around and were the ONLY ones eating with our hands!(of course we used hand sanitiser first) They were all struggling with knives and Forks-It's like us struggling with chopsticks.
Rachel and I have both made the mistake of ordering Shrimp. They give you the WHOLE shrimp. I got 6 inch prawns once and there they were looking up at me!!!! I was proud of Rachel. She picked out the shrimp from her soup and prepared them herself and ate them. She said she didn't want shrimp for a long time after that.
