Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Stream of consciousness post

I am really tired. I am running myself ragged during the week to get it all done and crashing on the weekend. I feel my immune system is coming to a screeching halt.
Tomorrow I am in Hong Kong for part of the day. I loathe intraday travel as it is such a time suck. Immigration is a chore, my passport is busting at the seams. I just wish Macau and Hong Kong were twin cities. I was up at 6 this morning to get my morning run in. I am running most mornings and am really tired of my music but am too lazy to do anything about it. I miss mellow music. I am either listening to hard core running music but never the soft chill out music. It is a noticeable void. I am off to bed and fighting a runny nose. My head, my feet, and my nose are all running today….

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Grocery shopping

At the insistence of minjenah I am updating my blog to a topic that is slightly more... uplifting.

I love to grocery shop. I didn't so much in the US (except Trader Joes! I was totally tingly just walking through my old Manhattan Beach store in December!). But I also used to go thrift store shopping in the States which is virtually non-existent in the Pearl River Delta [this must be an Asian thing. My mom used to think it was so bizarre that I bought and wore used clothes! I guess if you grew up in war torn Korea where you were lucky to have your older brother's leftover threadbare clothes on your back it would be a bit ironic). So going grocery shopping is a bit of the hunt of the treasure that thrift store shopping was.

Matt thinks that this propensity of mine to grocery shop continually is a bit eccentric. But you really don't know what you will find here, particularly in Macau. I am a lifetime Weight Watcher (which is generally boring but I have seemed to maintain some sort of gusto towards it these days) and it is difficult to find some items - like low fat brownie mix (which I get at Gateway in Sheung Wan HK) or steel cut oatmeal (which Matt just found at Oliver's in Central HK). Strangely, there are other things that I think are niche that are readily available here - like bulgur or unprocessed wheat bran. This I attribute to the Portuguese influence. A couple of months back all of Macau was out of salsa - so Matt and I made an emergency run to HK and stocked up. Now whenever we see salsa (anywhere in the world - most recently Singapore and Melbourne) we buy it. It is uncertain times that we live in and salsa is a staple for our equilibrium...

A typical week involves 4 grocery stores - Park 'n' Shop for 98% fat free soup and Fifty 50 oatmeal (and generally horrendous lines), the fruit market 4 doors down, the grocery store by McDonald's that has proper Australian milk, dill pickles, and a (comparatively) impressive Mexican food section, and the French market down the road for day-of needs like broccoli and garbanzo beans. Once a month I will go to Hong Kong to get whole wheat flour and canned pumpkiin.

My piece de resistance this past week was Hormel Turkey Pepperoni at the market near McDonald's for a mere $42 MOP ($5 USD). At CitySuper in Hong Kong, this easily goes for $75 HKD (roughly $10USD).

I would easily win some sort of Western food version of The Price Is Right here in Macau...