Adventures in Grocery Shopping

On our first weekend truly on our own, we ventured to Carrefour, an international hypermarket headquartered in France whose location here in Shanghai is about a 20-minute drive away from us. Hypermarket is a good term: it's gigantic; it's Target and Walgreens and Safeway in one. 

Besides reveling in the fact that we could find our favorites from home (there's a well-stocked imported/international section), we enjoyed discovering, or mostly observing from afar, the local fare.  

I'll let you guess the animal parts. 

There was also quite the sausage display. Note the "untouchability" sign at the bottom. 

Beyond the meat department, we loved the efforts of American brands to infiltrate the local market by appealing to consumer taste.   

Yes, we bought a pack. 

And let's not forget last weekend's orientation tour of Metro, China's Costco, where you can buy entire slabs of pork. Here's me grinning through the terror.

 

I paint a terrible picture. In all honesty, there are plenty of food options, both in grocery stores and at restaurants. We're not going to starve. In fact, we've eaten some pretty good meals, including decent nachos and a very respectable pizza.