SINGAPORE—Wednesday, April 3, 2013

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Wednesday, April 3, Christopher went into work for what he thought would be a half day and we planned to meet for lunch at the Mall. However, he got hung up later at work than he thought and we were finished with our grocery shopping before he was ready to leave.

We decided to get some groceries, check out the ATM again, and buy some of the bulkier things we didn’t bring from the States with us, like Ben-gay. We didn’t leave early enough that we could just catch one bus to Vivo Center, so two buses later we arrived at the center about lunchtime.

Chris had told us that there was another food court near where the ATMs were, so we went there first for lunch. The place served mostly Malay food and since it was so like a lot of meals we had been having, we decided on McD’s. It was interesting to see people getting a cup of corn as an alternative to fries. Not Valerie; she thought the fires were just fine.

Next we headed to the drugstore and then on to the hypermarket, Giant, located on two floors. On the top floor it is a clothing/hardware/electronics/linen/etc. store on the top floor and a grocery store is on the lowest floor of the mall.

We had a fun time looking at all the different food and practices in this store. For instance, fresh eggs are not refrigerated, but were stacked for sale in the aisle at the end of the produce section. They sold black chickens—not only are the feathers black, but the skin is black. LeeLi said the Chinese believe them to be good luck—Christopher, as a vegetarian, of course remarked, “Not for the chicken.”

Our fascination with the amount of shelf space a grocery store gives to certain items in various countries continued, as we looked around this store. Two full aisles were allocated for rice--much in huge bags we would not finish in 5 years-time, two for noodles both front and back, and one whole aisle for oil.

Since no meat is allowed in Christopher’s home, we bought some veggies for dinner and headed on to his apartment via 2 buses for a relaxing evening.

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