Grocery Shopping

I went to the grocery store tonight, and I thought while I was there, I would take some pictures of things that are really typical in grocery stores here. Grocery stores are much smaller here. Imagine your local Payless/Kroger/Big Box Store food section and take about 25% of that. That's the size of the whole store. This means that the selection is much more limited as far as brand selection, but there are also just lots of things that aren't in the grocery stores. 

There are some products and brands that are quite familiar. Koreans seem to love instant coffee. They are all over the place. 

Then there are some things that you probably wouldn't find in your local grocery store. Exhibit A: Canned roasted silkworm larvae. There are actually street vendors that roast giant vats of this on the street. They don't smell very good. 

Broccoli is quite normal in America, but in Korea it is a specialty item. This means it is quite expensive. Each one of these packages has one tiny head of broccoli, and it costs about $2. 

Peppers are also readily available, but quite expensive. Three tiny bell peppers (think half the size of American bell peppers) are about $4.

Green onions, celery, something I don't recognize, and leeks. 

There is a lot of selection with the dried fish, but I've never purchased any of them. 

You can buy normal eggs, or you can buy quail eggs.

There is an entire aisle dedicated to various types, shapes and sizes of seaweed. 

This is about as close as it gets to a lunchmeat section. There are some things that are kinda like hot dogs, and a lot of meat that is the same as spam. 

The green things are pumpkins, but I think they are a little closer to an acorn squash. You can buy bundles of dried garlic too. 

This is a very popular Korean side dish. It is pickled yellow radish, and it's definitely not my favorite thing to eat. 

I was surprised, because a lot of liquid laundry detergent and fabric softener comes in bags instead of bottles.

I saw this bag that sells "Viscos Bath Towel". I'm not really sure what it is, but there we have it. 

This aisle is dedicated to ramen. If you go to a big box store in Korea, there are usually two aisles of ramen. Koreans definitely love their ramen!

There are even more familiar things! The Korean writing in blue is a phonetic transcription of Nesquik. 

One of the differences about shopping is that stores charge you for grocery bags. They are much more substantial than normal plastic bags, so you can re-use them. Because of this, people tend to cram a LOT of stuff into a single bag. This was my entire shopping trip tonight. I weighed the bag when I got home, and it was 22 pounds. 

All spread out, here's what it looks like. Bread, dried mangos, udon noodles, dark chocolate ice cream bars, 4 cans of kidney beans, 1 jar of strawberry jam, 2 cans of tomato paste, 1 package of napkins, 1 toilet cleaning brush, 1 bottle of orange fanta, 1 bottle of apple juice, 1 box of milk and 1 bottle of kitchen cleaner. It's all terribly exciting, isn't it?

Meat tends to be ridiculous expensive here. I sometimes get cans of tuna, which run about $2 each. Ground beef is about $5 a pound. I order chicken breast online, and it is about $4.50 a pound. Sometimes I get ground pork for $3 a pound. I've never tried to buy a steak in Korea, but I've gotten pork tenderloin once or twice, and it is also quite expensive. For meat, I tend to shop at Costco once every couple of months and stock up. Most of my produce I buy from street stands. And that's grocery shopping in Korea!