You Can't Take It With You . . . Unless There's Some Room in Your Container

What do you do when you find out you aren't close to filling your 40 foot container but there's no way you could reduce it to a 20 foot? Why you make the most of it of course! And how do you do this? Well, if you're us (and we are) you think of anything you might possibly need on Tao Bao before you go. When you realize that this will take up about 2 cubic feet of space because let's face it, you're just buying computer cables and travel slip covers for your shoes, you look toward bigger things.You look for furniture.

Now let me add the caveat that our children truly do need new furniture because we're leaving their old stuff behind. We thought about just waiting until we get there but everyone who has gone before us has lamented NOT getting more while they were here. So it only seems smart. (ok maybe smart and a few other things, but mostly smart).

My first attempt was to go to a place a friend of mine recommended that makes furniture. They were happy to make what we needed within our budgeted time, but when she texted me later with her quote, it was obvious they wouldn't do it within our budgeted money. Oy!

In the past, we went to a furniture place out in the boonies and bought a few pieces that we love from a great couple. Since then they have moved their warehouse twice, once in the past two weeks, so we had mostly given up hope that they could help us. We thought we'd give it one more try though and emailed them pictures of what we wanted made. To our great surprise, they emailed back and invited us out last Friday. And hope was restored (cue the peasants dancing).

After an hour long drive to a new part of the boonies, we found them. We were able to order 8 pieces of furniture for a third of the price that the other place quoted us, so we upped our joyful dancing. Not only that, it's just ridiculously cool to walk through their warehouse, take pictures, and dream about how you could possibly (and simply must) incorporate an antique pair of Chinese doors into your new Florida home.

This is how it's done

I have wondered more than once how a place like Metro does business in China. Metro, for the uniformed, is like Sam's Club. Theoretically, you need a membership card, though I just tell them every time that I don't have a card and they write a slip for me to go in. Inside, there are carts larger than you've ever seen elsewhere in China (I used to shop at a place where a "cart" was a double decker place to put plastic baskets - have fun shopping for 10 items!). There's everything from lawn furniture to appliances to food to household goods. And in good Chinese fashion, in addition a gallon vat of mayonnaise, you can buy a 2 liter jug of soy sauce.
(side note: despite the massive size of much of what can be purchased at Metro, they do not deliver. Go figure).

The reason I wonder why they don't close shop is that I rarely see people buy any of the larger items. Case in point: today the woman in front of me was buying an 8 pack of Mentos gum, a 3 pack of glue sticks, and a small jar of Dijon mustard. The guy in front of her, a package of noodles. The woman behind me had a bag of frozen dumplings.


This is what I had:
This is easier to understand when you know that until very recently, many Chinese households didn't even have refrigerators. Their kitchens are small, without storage. They shop meal to meal, or at least day to day. True, occasionally I'll see someone with a large amount of alcohol, or an economy pack of holiday treats (currently moon cakes), but they generally have a look of wonder and excitement on their faces that says, "I can't believe I'm buying this!"

So I ask myself, "Is it just us foreigners keeping this place open? Or is the restaurants to whom it is supposedly marketed?" (you can buy lots of restaurant stuff there). If so, maybe we should go more often, cause I don't think I can live without my 2.5kg bag of oatmeal for 29.99Y or the 2kg vat of vinegar for 19.99Y.

The funny thing, they're all staring at my cart like I'm insane, and I want to say, "Hey, this is how it's done here people!"

Market shopping

Whenever I run along the canal, I see an outdoor produce market that opens in the wee hours of the morning. Every time I think, "I should come here," and then I don't.

I want to go there because I have a strong suspicion that the prices are much cheaper than the grocery stores. But more importantly I want to go there because it reminds me of how we used to live here (seriously, if you don't like me going all grandma on you, you just shouldn't read my blog). We used to have a produce market like this at the bottom of our building where I bought 90% of my produce, and even some of my meat (that's right, we live on the edge!). It was so cheap I remember one time walking away with 10 lbs of food for $1.50.

Finally this morning I dragged the kids out on their bikes, threw my panniers on mine, and headed down there (it's about a mile away). Since it was already 9 a.m., the place was really hopping. I unfortunately only had about 20Y of small bills and several hundreds. 100Y bills are death at places like that because no one wants to take them, but thankfully the man selling asparagus did. Altogether though, I only spent about 50Y (about $7.50) and walked away with carrots, cucumbers, eggs, lettuce, asparagus, bananas, rice, peaches, and a large fruit called "ha mi gua." I don't know what it's called in English, but I would call it, "sweet piece of heaven in my mouth" and it looks like a melon. The man who sold it to me said I was the first foreigner he'd even seen in that market, which made me rejoice just a little. The kids confirmed this by saying they'd been barraged by questions at the playground and were quite ready to go home. I told them next time they should stay with me, because that guy gave me a piece of ha mi gua for free and it was delicious.

A new way of living

I never anticipated the significant impact on the buying and storing of food these things make:
1. a car
2. a large refrigerator
3. cupboards

The first time we lived in China, we didn't have a car. Our purchasing from the local store was limited to what we could carry in our two hands, or two hands and a backpack. My grocery bill was rarely highly than $25 per visit.

Our refrigerator held about as much as 3 dormitory fridges, with one of the three being freezer space. But it was double hinged so you could open it from either side which was SWEET. I digress. The point is, you could buy about a week's worth of meat. And nothing taller than a soda can.

When we moved into our first apartment, the kitchen was devoid of cupboards. We had a few made - enough for dishes and cooking stuff. We had a buffet that held any other food.

I mentioned last week's Carrefour chicken expedition recently. There's no way I could have fit the amount of chicken I purchased in our previous refrigerator. Nor would I have had any place to store the massive amount of food we bought today at Metro (like Sam's Club). And if we weren't borrowing a friend's car, I cringe at thinking about putting all of that into a taxi who would drop me off at the gate, leaving me to make about 5 trips in to my house while hoping no one stole what I left on the street.

This whole idea of stocking up - buying what non-perishable items we might use in a month - is something which has slowly left me in Asia. But we do have a car, and a large refrigerator, and while our kitchen isn't huge, there's space for food! I can't explain what a mental shift this is for me. Erik was overjoyed to see how much we bought (he really hates it when we don't have food in the house). I was feeling a little anxious. It's hard to spend 680 kuai in one place here! But I have to remind myself it isn't just for the next 4-5 days like our shopping used to be.

So my plan is that once a month I will hit Metro (for economy sized things), Carrefour (for that amazing chicken) and Jenny Lou's (imported goods - for everything else!). Then theoretically the other items I can buy weekly at local stores. It's a new way of living. I think I'm going to like it.

Adventures in shopping . . . or, I miss grocery shopping in America

There are few things in my life as unpleasant as the realization that I need to go to Carrefour on a weekend (admittedly, my life is pretty easy if that's what's dragging me down). I generally try to go to our local grocery store on Saturday morning. It might be, inexplicably, the only place where people don't shop on the weekend here, so it's relatively calm. And for the most part I can get what I need there. Then on Sunday after church we go to the Lion Mart, conveniently located AT church, to pick up any random imported items we can't find at the local store.

But this weekend, my regular plans were sidetracked by a wedding yesterday and the absence of our family from church. Add to that our desperate need for chicken, and I knew I had to make the trek to Carrefour. Because everyone in town should know (and now you do, if you didn't before) that the cheapest, best grocery store chicken can be found at Carrefour.

Here's why Carrefour is a life sucker on the weekend. On any given day, shopping at Carrefour is akin to shopping at Walmart at Christmas time, only people are less polite and the aisles are narrower. The only saving grace in the whole store is that the women who weigh the vegetables for you will not let others budge in front, even if you, the foreigner, are trying to have 10 different bags of fruits and vegetables priced. If they didn't do that, it could get ugly.

But Carrefour on the weekend is like shopping on Black Friday 1999, with Y2K and certain doom looming in the future. It's every man, woman, child, and grandma (because no one leaves grandma at home here) for himself. There are places where you cannot navigate at all because the carts are bumper to bumper. You have to REALLY want to eat.

This kind of craziness used to drive me over the edge culturally, but something's changed over the years. Maybe I'm just used to it, maybe the Spirit's actually got a little more control over me (let's hope it's that), maybe I'm just desperate for tender chicken, but I just put on blinders and trudge my way through it. I even let a man in front of me in line because he foolishly came only to buy lunch. He was going to jump in front of me anyway whether or not I gave him permission, but I felt better having waved him by.

Of all the ways I wanted to spend my Sunday, that wasn't my favorite. That's why I bought such an obnoxious amount of chicken that I got comments about it. I'm thinking I should have bought more. I wish it were possible to go to one place, once a week, to get everything we need here, but it's not. Carrefour has chicken and Land O' Lakes cheese but no canned soup. Metro has economy size popcorn kernels and oatmeal, but their meat isn't great (except the delicious steaks). Jenny Lu's is prohibitively distant and expensive. Our local store has no imported goods. Lion Mart has no milk. Where's a Walmart Superstore when we need one?

But I could manage to do a once a month drive by attack at Carrefour and buy an even MORE obnoxious amount of chicken. That is my plan. Here's to the quest for non-stressful shopping in Asia! Cheers.

That's not how we roll

Erik and I have been looking into buying a used car. We've been doing this with a fair bit of trepidation because we've heard used cars can be sketchy. Honestly, we've never bought a used car (the new car we bought in Singapore is the only one we've ever bought!) so we don't know what we're doing. We've hit a few used car lots but haven't found what we want.

The car we'd really like is called a Freeca. We have friends who own one (it's actually passed through three families of people we know) and they like it alot. We found two used Freecas at a lot in the south of town, so we borrowed a car and headed down there. Let me tell you a little bit about how things work at a Chinese used car lot. It might be different than what you have experienced in the States.

First of all, when you drive into a used lot, you will be inundated with people trying to buy YOUR car. I can't say how tempting it is to sell someone else's car, especially when you know they are actually trying to sell it. But we refrained.

We have yet to find someone who knew how to operate the car they were trying to sell. Rear defroster? No, that's a light! (No, sir, it's a rear defroster).

Safety standards are what we'd call "wanquan bu yiyang." (completely different). I kept examining the cars to see if the seatbelts worked or even existed. In one car that had two rows of back seats, there were none. I mentioned this to the woman and she said, "Shui yong?" (Who uses seatbelts??)

The whole idea of showing the car off well to the customer is a bit lost here. In one car, there was a jump seat in the back that was folded down. I asked the woman if she could put it up for me. She fiddled around for awhile trying to put the middle row down so she could do that, but she couldn't (see point #2). Finally she said, "It looks just like this one."
"Well, I'm going to have to see it."
"You can do it yourself when you buy it."
"How can I do it when you can't do it?"
Finally her friend who was smoking came over to help, leaning her cigarette precariously into the car while she did. I thought, "Lady, you might want to avoid leaving the smell and ashes from that thing IN the car" but I don't think it crossed her mind.

We did find a car called the Great Wall Hover, which we may buy new instead. Finding a used model was intriguing enough that we asked the man if we could test drive it. His response? "Are you going to buy it today?"
"Well, we don't know. We need to drive it first."
"Let's decide a price first. Then you can drive it."
"But we don't know if we want to buy it unless we drive it."
He was unmoved. So was the car. But we were moved to leave.

One thing I will say is that all the cars there look great from the outside. All of them were shiny and clean, even if inside some of them looked like they were 30 years old. I think we'll be buying new, but it was an interesting experience.

Loss of skills

I'm trying to think of what new skills I must have acquired in Singapore which pushed out skills I used to have revolving around cold weather clothing. I'm at a loss to know what those new skills are, but something has caused me to lose my ability to know two particular things:

1. When do you fully make the transition to cold weather clothing in your wardrobe? By this I mean putting away all the summer stuff and pulling out all the winter stuff? How long does this transitional period last?

2. Do I need just one jacket for the fall, or two? This was the question I encountered today while shopping for a coat. I have a winter coat, but I need something until then. I tried on one light weight coat, then found a similar style that had a thin wool/fleece like outside layer instead of cotton. Obviously warmer, right, but necessary? Couldn't I just wear more clothing under the first coat? I can't tell you how plagued I was by this dilemma. The little Minnesotan inside of me was ashamed. How could I forget this kind of information?? In the end, I let my money decide for me - I had to get the awesome shoes of the previous post, so I only wanted to spend enough to buy the lighter weight coat. I figure if I get too cold before I want to pull out my winter coat, I can go back. I also want to take Megan back because she want pink Uggs and a quilted pink vest.

Give me time. I spent the first 26 years of my life in Minnesota. We know how to do cold, and everything leading up to it.

Gina vs the Vendor

Bargaining at markets in Asia is fun for tourists. It's like a little game with Monopoly money. But when you live here, and you go with a mission to find something specific you actually need, it becomes like a show down at the OK Corral.

I went today looking for a fall jacket, shoes for cold weather other than the one pair I bought at Target about ten years ago, and a silver chain. I found these particular shoes in black leather and had that, "I must have these" feeling, while simultaneously trying to look only mildly interested. This is when the guns got drawn (cue The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly theme song):

First, the women try to convince me that it doesn't really matter what size shoe I wear. These are close enough. I counter with "they fit right or I walk." They find my size (this is a very abbreviated version of what happened. In reality, I saw about 4 pairs of shoes in two different colors).

Somewhere in the midst of finding a complete pair of size 7 shoes (these run small!) I inquire as to price. 500Y. My eyes narrow, just like in the Old West. I chuckle, and tell her she must be joking. She draws her calculator so we can bargain without others hearing. She drops to 480. This is where I leave the store.

Ah, but she grabs me and pulls me back in. I was prepared for this. I give her my highest price, 200. Her eyes narrow. She pulls out the calculator again. 450, 200, ok, ok friend, best price 400. 200, 375, 200, 350. I step away to field a phone call from my piano tuner, most of which I don't understand, but it impresses the vendor to hear me speak more Mandarin. She counters with her final price: 275. I stick to my 200 guns. She begins pleading with me to come up a little. She even drops down to 270. I'm weakening - my desire for the shoes and to be done with this transaction causes me to break my cardinal rule of never budging from my initial price: 210. That's all she needs - 220, she's reaching for a bag. The deal is done.

We wipe the sweat from our brows and promise to be good friends in future face offs.

Highway Robbery

I try not to bring too many things back from the States which I can get here, unless they are much cheaper in the US (and bringing them will not result in extra baggage charges, thus negating our savings). One thing I brought back this time was just for fun - some toasted hazelnut scented hand soap from Target. Of course we can get hand soap here, but not this kind. Or so I thought.

I did see the exact same kind (Method brand) at a place called Brown Rice Paradise yesterday, which is a health food store. I was surprised and thought, "Gosh, I could just buy it here," until I saw the price, which was S$13.50 a bottle. I think I bought this bottle on sale for US$2.49. With the current exchange rate, I saved $7.51 by buying it in the States. As we say in Minnesota, "Heckuva deal."

Another hot tip

I'm sure all of you rushed out and bought those frozen blueberries I told you about a few weeks ago. Well, here's another money saving opportunity: at Mustafa right now they have Raisin Mini-Wheats for $2 a box. That's right, $2. They were previously marked $8.80, but they expire March 31, so this is what the Cold Storage people call a "quick sale."

We bought three boxes last night. Erik had a bowl when we got back from the movie, and it was good. There were tons of boxes left so head on over there - level 2 straight ahead if you take the stairs over by the cosmetics on level 1.

Yours for inexpensive living in Singapore . . .

Hot tip on frozen goods

In our never ending quest to live frugally in the land of exorbitant prices, I was thrilled to make this find the other day: a one pound bag of frozen blueberries for $7.10. I also found a one pound bag of frozen raspberries at the same place for $5.65. Blueberries can run around $7-9 depending on where you shop, but that's for fresh ones, and maybe only 100-200g. We tried out our blueberries in some homemade muffins, but I neglected to drain them, so they were actually purple muffins. I'm really good at messing up recipes like that (I should tell you about the purple wild rice soup I served some friends for Christmas one year). But still - yay!

If you live in Singapore and want to take advantage of this, you can find them at this great little bakery store on Bencoolen called Phoon Huat & Co (right side of the road if you're heading toward Middle Road). They have everything you could possibly think of and more in regards to baking. I get lots of spices there, as well as food coloring (every color of the rainbow!) and huge cans of cooking spray for $8.

Here's to saving money in the year of the Ox! (my year, by the way).

Bras Brasah

I love finding new places in Singapore. The place I found yesterday came from a tip a woman in my Bible study gave me about where to find a book that's out of stock everywhere else. It's called Tec Man (the store, not the book) and it's a large Christian bookstore in Bras Brasah complex. Until now I thought the only Christian bookstores to hit were SKS (the monster) and the one our ministry runs (which is unfortunately shelved according to publisher so you can't find anything). And then there are also the chains of really tiny Christian bookstores that usually have nothing you need.

But this, this is big! And they had 30% off (or as they say here, "less 30%) storewide for members until Christmas. (Membership is only $6 a year) So if you can find what you need at SKS, or if you just want to buy something for Christmas and pay less, go to Tec Man, 4th floor.

And while you're there, go to Art Friend! I've always heard of this store, but never went, because my craft needs were mostly supplied by Spotlight, which is a Michael's kind of place in Plaza Singapura.

At Art Friend, you can find things you never knew you DID need! I walked around the store with my jaw on the floor. There was everything under the sun. Stuff I'd never imagined but now seems to beg, "Buy me, and do something crafty with me!" And yes, of course everything there is ridiculously price, but this is Singapore people.

So if you live in Singapore and haven't visited Bras Brasah complex (between Victoria and North Bridge streets downtown) check it out.

Build a Bear

Megan's top favorite things to do in the world are: write notes, play with stuffed animals, dress and mother her dolls, and play kitchen. If she can combine these activities, say in hosting a restaurant complete with hand written menus for her dolls and animals, it's like a little slice of heaven.

So it's no surprise that when she found the Build a Bear store here several months ago, her primary objective became, "Save enough money to buy a build a bear." This week, mission accomplished. She tromped down there with her wallet bulging ($12 in bills and the rest in coins) and plopped down $25.90 for the brown sugar dog (sadly, it's only US$10 in the States!). She had been saving up for this white dog with pink and red hearts, but it's no longer available here.

If you aren't familiar, in this store you buy a deflated animal. They take you to a machine full of fluff, and the kid gets to push on a foot pedal which allows the fluff to fill up your animal. Then they let you put a little red silk heart inside before they sew it closed. Next, they put your animal in a little "shower" and let you brush it while it is subjected to air flow so strong it could potentially strip it clear of fur altogether. Then, if you so desire, you can choose from a hundred fun little outfits for your animal, including accessories like boxer shorts and roller skates. I told Megan I would buy her one outfit. She chose the super bear outfit. Then she was able to choose a name (Jack) and print out his birth certificate.

She's been having a great time flying Jack around the house, but she's already informed me that it will be more fun when Jack has friends and more clothes. Her next aim is the zebra, because she will be able to buy roller skates for it. So if you are close enough to us that you'd like to buy Megan a gift in the foreseeable future, Build a Bear gift certificates would be like gold to her.