Groceries

I found my way to a grocery store today for some better shopping, instead of just the nearby 7-11.  Stores are still laid out very differently around here, as are sidewalks in many cases.  As I wander around with purpose, though not entirely with direction, I sometimes find myself walking toward nothing.  It's a little weird.  But, anyway, I found the grocery store.  It's about 2 kilometers away, so it's not far.  The only thing that makes it difficult is that, when walking back with a bunch of grocery bags, every cab in the city stops next to me.  Kind of makes it difficult to cross the street.

The groceries are kind of interesting.  A lot of the products are familiar, though packaged a little differently.  And then there are the unfamiliar products.  Labels and advertisements are... strange... in this place.  Advertisements generally involve a close-up of a single person, superimposed on a colorful background of seemingly nonsensical words and letters, sporting an absolutely insane smile.  Oh, and this person is as close to white as a Filipino can get.

The thing about those seemingly nonsensical words and letters... Clearly they must mean something.  Signs here have them all the time.  It's not as nonsensical as, say, Welsh.  Now that's a crazy fucking language.  These ones have that more Asian feel to them, not entirely unlike the weird advertisements you see coming from Japan.  It's just odd that the signs here mean nothing to me.  I'm not used to that.

Road signs are a bit different, too.  Though the messages are the same.  I'll have to get some pictures of them.

And the statues and monuments, those are pretty strange too.  There was one statue that looked awesome, but I forget where I saw it.  It was nearby on the cab ride from the airport, but I had no sense of direction at the time so I don't know where it is.  It was a statue of some Spanish-looking swashbuckler Zoro-ish kind of guy in the middle of a sword fight.  Pretty bad-ass.  The rest of the statues and monuments are, I don't know, kind of strange.  I feel like these are the kind of monuments the US would have if the Native Americans had won.  They would still have been heavily influenced by other cultures, particularly the Spanish, but would have developed their own nation.

The packaged groceries don't seem to be disagreeing with me.  Not yet, anyway.  I got some cheese and cold cuts for sandwiches, some Gatorade to keep me from dying after I go for a walk, cereal, lots of Ramen, etc.  Ramen is particularly important because I don't have any cookware, just a pitcher boiler.  Cups of Ramen come with their own bowls, so it works out.

The room does have some coffee cups that I can use as cereal bowls, and that's working out so far.  I'm a little concerned about the milk, though.  See, I'm pretty picky about my milk.  It doesn't taste bad or anything, but there is a date printed on the side:  19/10/2012  October?  You're telling me this milk expires in October?  What the hell am I putting in my cereal?  I guess we'll find out.

I'll probably need to make a couple more trips to the store to build a critical mass of wares and sundries in the room.  I'm also going to need to find a laundry service at some point.