Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Yesterday we went shopping again. It seems like this is our new pastime. Conceptually, I understood that we would have to buy everything except clothes once we got here, but it's only now sinking in just how much stuff that amounts to.

Since Jason had beds here when we arrived, my first priority is the kitchen. In my previous post, I mentioned what our kitchen looked like upon move-in. Empty. Very, very empty. A few days before, we picked up a stove top, and a set of pots and pans, but we were still missing important things like mixing bowls, mixing spoons, and the ever-important food required to make a meal.

So yesterday we bought a dish drying rack (that's right Americans, dishwashers are rare here), a super large toaster oven since they don't have a lot of actual ovens here, a few microwave and refrigerator-safe containers, a vegetable peeler, mixing bowls, spatulas, and some Ragu spaghetti sauce (we had to buy this at the "foreign" store).

So my kitchen looks almost like an actual kitchen now.

About the shopping experience....shopping in Bangalore is quite a bit different than in the States. At home, if I needed lots of stuff, my first choice would have been a superstore such as Target or Wal-Mart. Those types of stores don't really exist over here - at least in terms of the vast array of items to choose from.

Here, it's much more likely you go to an appliance store for appliances, then a home furnishing store for pots and pans, then a grocery store for food. Which of course makes the excursion quite a bit longer. Oh, and I bet you've never seen one of these at Reasors -

Not sure whether the gift vouchers are for the frisking or not. Security is very strict here, and it's completely normal to walk through metal detectors for every store. Also, my purse has been searched so many times I finally cleaned it out, just so I would stop holding up the lines. In some of the mall-like buildings, you are not allowed to bring purchases from other stores into another. Instead, they have a "baggage check" where you leave your things and are given a card with a number on it to retrieve it later.

And everything comes in odd containers. Here's what our milk looks like:

And as far as we can tell, the milk is not homogenized, and it tastes quite a bit like it came straight from the cow. Since I generally bought 2% in the States, this is a little much for me, so we've started buying the "Slim" version shown above, which is still too rich for 2%, but at least it tastes like whole milk.

Another thing that has caught my eye lately....there is no such thing as being PC (politically correct) in advertisements. I noticed that almost every television commercial for home cleaners, laundry detergent, food, etc has a woman handing this "new improved" product off to a maid to use. They don't even pretend to do their own cleaning. And advertisements like the below are everywhere.


Notice the words "...a woman's true friend" imprinted on a dishwashing sponge.

So, in summary...lots of things are the same, but nothing is quite like home. Still, it's fun to experience everything firsthand.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

We here (in Serbia) rarely have dishwashers to, :-)I have one but it is broken never try to fix it, it is faster to wash by hand I wear gloves...

And milk like that is still sold here to but as the cheapest option but it need to be boiled first...

We are free of security metal detectors, but we have store sellers who go all way around were you to help you choose something, we generally all hate that so we look and look to make them nervous:-)
They are especially strict in perfumes stores so you want use to much testers.

Only in Sephora they let you try free every perfume I was so happy no one flowed me!
So I was excited by given freedom and deiced to try every one I wished before to know and after trying 17 perfumes at once (in 10 min) my taste of smell couldn't stand artificial scent for whole month :-), I could only smell food and natural odor, when I finally healed my nose, it leaved trace. Now I can not try more then 3 at one testing without headaches:-)

My best friend used to work in perfume store and bring me tester but now she dont and there is rare chance to get them because store workers took all samples for their use and their family use...

One friend of my after followed by man officer all around the store turn and ask him Can you please, help me, to find tampons, hoping that woudl learn him lesson :-)

We have large shopping houses (like Walmart) and small ones to, but big store chains are threatening to ruin lovely small stores...

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