The foreign import store

Today we went into the big city to go to a store where you can find a lot of American foods. I was so happy to find cheese! They have the Land O Lakes brand and its pretty decent. I was also able to find Philadelphia cream cheese and Ritz crackers. So needless to say there is quite a bit more available than anticipated. There I also found the illy brand of coffee, (Mom will remember me raving about it this summer). I have only found it brewed at the little coffee shop in St Joe Mich by Silver Beach. I think the shop is call Tosi. I discovered it last summer when we frequented Silver beach and I had again this year after our D-Gen trip. I decided I liked it better than Starbucks. However, an 18 oz tin of this coffee was 100 kuai, which is about 15-16 dollars, which is not too bad for coffee in the US if you are really picky like me. Sadly I didn't have enough on me at the time to take it home:( The cheese per 8 oz bar was 36 kuai, and the cream cheese was 29 kuai. I spent 214 kuai on crackers, cheeses and canisters. Ouch... but it was really only 25 or 30 bucks. Not too bad...
So Mom, when you look at cheese prices compared to Kroger, be happy for the cheap deals! I thought of you when I was shopping today!

Later we went to fabric market. Its basically on big auning that could be a building but there are no doors that seal it off. There are tons of merchants, its kind of like a farmers market but with all fabric, buttons, zippers and threads. I bought 2 meters of a pretty patterned material and its lining for around 58 kuai which I will send to a taylor to have a dress or skirt made. I also found a lot scrap bins where I found purple and green eyelet knit material which will cover my couch and chair in my living room. So that should be fun once its all made. :)

Oh and have I mentioned they have KFC in china? I was shocked, it was really good too. You know how we have a choice of buffalo or ranch with the chicken? Well their choices were a sweet soy sauce wrap and a mexican wrap. I had the soy sauce one, it was really good.

Last night a bunch of us went to local restaraunt and had some real authentic chinese food. I had mutton, dragon eggplant(sweet and sour), some type of fried potatoes with some really good gravy and a really spicy chicken dish. Oh my goodness, the mutton! That was fantastic! They pretty much have everything here, but its all a little different. No Applelbees, Fridays or Hacienda but lots of fairly decent places to eat. And for all of you bubble tea lovers, we have three places close by... they call it pearl milk tea. I had coconut the other night, mmmm its better here!

So thats all for now!
Amy