Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Sun - Aug 20
4am. I can’t get back to sleep after 6 hours. My cellphone works, but email has now stopped. So I log onto the system and start clearing out email. I want to find a real grocery store today; I got a name from my colleagues. Based on the challenges with directions yesterday, I start the day on the web looking up the locations of the 5 Carrefour stores to see which is closest. This brings up the second major challenge here. When you hit the internet from the hotel room, the ‘net thinks you are in hong kong and defaults everything to Mandarin. So when get to the Carrefour site, it is in Mandarin. They do have an English site, but most English sites are not as robust as the Mandarin sites and this is true for Carrefour. So I use our next most useful tool: Google Language Tools. If the guy who invented this was with me right now, I would buy him dinner and beverages for life! It is wonderful. Anyway, I have google translate the mandarin site for me and I start looking up the addresses and locations. Now, if the google tools could only translate map pictures….
I pull out the best map of Beijing (these are not to scale and do not include all streets or street names) that we can find and start the word search puzzle of matching symbols to streets and vice versa. I am able to plot 4 of the 5 sites in about an hour.
Later, I take the marked up map down to the bell captain and the cabbie and we figure out the closest/fastest one to go to. If I had not done the homework, I would have been stuck again, since no one knew where these stores were.
When I get to Carrefour, I am amazed. It takes up half of a city block and is 4 floors tall. It is like a Target / Walmart, but also has other stores on the bottom level. The coolest part was taking the shopping carts up and down the moving ramps between floors. I traveled through the entire complex looking at prices of everything from socks, pants, clothes, and electronics to food. There really is a big difference between the native and imported goods.
When I got to the food floor, you could hear a commotion in the produce / meat section on the far end..it was more like cheering and bidding. I decided to save that for last and tour the other aisles. The goal was to get breakfast food so I did not have to buy the expensive hotel breakfasts every morning and see what the dinner options might be, in case I get tired of restaurants. Frozen breakfast foods were not at this store, English muffins did not exist and I do not have a toaster. I found the breakfast aisle and the choices were expensive oatmeal ($10), sesame and plum paste, and some instant noodle and congee bowls. I opted for the instant noodle and congee bowls. I have no idea what flavor they are, but they do contain meat (rou) since I know that character.
I also got a case of Diet Coke and seltzer water and then bought a sampling of the various fruit juice choices which are abundant here: orange, carrot/peach, apple, carrot/banana, etc. I will see what is good and what is not.
I then headed to the dinner section and found some instant noodles and soup. The directions will be challenging since they are in Mandarin and I am not quite sure what flavors I got. I have learned the symbol for jellyfish and eel and try to make sure that they are not on the label. And I splurged on $3 Knorr’s corn and chicken soup.
I then head to the produce and meat area to see what is going on. The meat / butcher area is self-serve. The butcher ground up meat, veal, beef, etc and puts it in big tubs. If you want dumpling mix, you grab the trowel and fill your bag your self and hand it to the butcher to weigh and mark.
I get to the seafood area and again amazed. Most of the fish are alive in big fish tanks. There are nets there and a fishmonger. You catch your own fish and put it in a bag and hand it to the fishmonger. He will gut it for you, if desired. I saw people use the nets and then there were some real pros that put a plastic bag over their hands, reached into the tank, snagged a fish and reversed the bag in one motion. It was amazing to watch. There were also live prawn tubs with the prawns jumping out and live crab tubs with crabs escaping. There were boys and girls chasing the escapees down and putting them back in the tubs.
I got to the deli counter and found the commotion. Throughout the store are people preparing different products having you try them to spur sales. At the deli counter, the hawker was auctioning off her stuff as people order similar competing products. It was almost a carnival atmosphere. She inevitably made the sale and everyone was having fun.
I found the roast duck area as well, where the butcher was carving to order. There were 50 or so ducks laid out. You point and tell him what you want, the knife flies and the meat goes one way and the carcass the other. It was interesting to watch.
While I stand out as a minority over here, my case of Diet Coke appeared to get the most attention in my cart today. Every one stared at it. Even the check out clerk was gesturing to make sure that I wanted all 24 bottles.
I met some colleagues for dinner last night in a nice courtyard restaurant. We had mushrooms, fish and tofu, Chinese broccoli, and some really sweet dough. Total bill for 4 of us to eat was $30US. We then went to the Hou Hai area where there is a lake with many nightclubs and patios around the lake. It is more like a European café setting where everyone strolls around the lake listening to the entertainment while there are people trying to get you inside or sit on the patio to charge you for listening.
I then came back in another wild cab ride to the hotel and crashed into bed at 10pm.
I pull out the best map of Beijing (these are not to scale and do not include all streets or street names) that we can find and start the word search puzzle of matching symbols to streets and vice versa. I am able to plot 4 of the 5 sites in about an hour.
Later, I take the marked up map down to the bell captain and the cabbie and we figure out the closest/fastest one to go to. If I had not done the homework, I would have been stuck again, since no one knew where these stores were.
When I get to Carrefour, I am amazed. It takes up half of a city block and is 4 floors tall. It is like a Target / Walmart, but also has other stores on the bottom level. The coolest part was taking the shopping carts up and down the moving ramps between floors. I traveled through the entire complex looking at prices of everything from socks, pants, clothes, and electronics to food. There really is a big difference between the native and imported goods.
When I got to the food floor, you could hear a commotion in the produce / meat section on the far end..it was more like cheering and bidding. I decided to save that for last and tour the other aisles. The goal was to get breakfast food so I did not have to buy the expensive hotel breakfasts every morning and see what the dinner options might be, in case I get tired of restaurants. Frozen breakfast foods were not at this store, English muffins did not exist and I do not have a toaster. I found the breakfast aisle and the choices were expensive oatmeal ($10), sesame and plum paste, and some instant noodle and congee bowls. I opted for the instant noodle and congee bowls. I have no idea what flavor they are, but they do contain meat (rou) since I know that character.
I also got a case of Diet Coke and seltzer water and then bought a sampling of the various fruit juice choices which are abundant here: orange, carrot/peach, apple, carrot/banana, etc. I will see what is good and what is not.
I then headed to the dinner section and found some instant noodles and soup. The directions will be challenging since they are in Mandarin and I am not quite sure what flavors I got. I have learned the symbol for jellyfish and eel and try to make sure that they are not on the label. And I splurged on $3 Knorr’s corn and chicken soup.
I then head to the produce and meat area to see what is going on. The meat / butcher area is self-serve. The butcher ground up meat, veal, beef, etc and puts it in big tubs. If you want dumpling mix, you grab the trowel and fill your bag your self and hand it to the butcher to weigh and mark.
I get to the seafood area and again amazed. Most of the fish are alive in big fish tanks. There are nets there and a fishmonger. You catch your own fish and put it in a bag and hand it to the fishmonger. He will gut it for you, if desired. I saw people use the nets and then there were some real pros that put a plastic bag over their hands, reached into the tank, snagged a fish and reversed the bag in one motion. It was amazing to watch. There were also live prawn tubs with the prawns jumping out and live crab tubs with crabs escaping. There were boys and girls chasing the escapees down and putting them back in the tubs.
I got to the deli counter and found the commotion. Throughout the store are people preparing different products having you try them to spur sales. At the deli counter, the hawker was auctioning off her stuff as people order similar competing products. It was almost a carnival atmosphere. She inevitably made the sale and everyone was having fun.
I found the roast duck area as well, where the butcher was carving to order. There were 50 or so ducks laid out. You point and tell him what you want, the knife flies and the meat goes one way and the carcass the other. It was interesting to watch.
While I stand out as a minority over here, my case of Diet Coke appeared to get the most attention in my cart today. Every one stared at it. Even the check out clerk was gesturing to make sure that I wanted all 24 bottles.
I met some colleagues for dinner last night in a nice courtyard restaurant. We had mushrooms, fish and tofu, Chinese broccoli, and some really sweet dough. Total bill for 4 of us to eat was $30US. We then went to the Hou Hai area where there is a lake with many nightclubs and patios around the lake. It is more like a European café setting where everyone strolls around the lake listening to the entertainment while there are people trying to get you inside or sit on the patio to charge you for listening.
I then came back in another wild cab ride to the hotel and crashed into bed at 10pm.
