Shanghai moment, part II

Ok, so the story continued.

Inside the shopping center, of course everybody and their mother was at this shopping center. I made my way to the grocery store and struggle to find the entrant to the grocery portion of the super market. Here is where my frustration got the best of me. Normally when I get to another city, at least the grocery/cooking thing is pretty standard. I knew how to go to the grocery store, when I'm there, I knew what stuffs to buy to eat and everything, here, all of that is thrown out of the window. I don't know what I'm buying is the same vegetables that I normally eat or not. I don't know what I'm picking up is beef or pork. I know it's definitely not chicken because the chicken isle is quite...scary. I don't know how to package things that I want that are in container because I don't see any form of bags to put it in or what I'm suppose to do. There are Chinese everywhere and I don't know the chinese phrase for " Get the hell out of my way" in mandarin. I picked up some veggies that I somewhat recognize, shop for some frozen dumplings since I figure my plan to cook Josh and I dinner is a bust, head straight to the alcohol section and picked up a bottle of Chinese wine that I have no clue whether it's red or wine. ALl I know is that it's horribly misspelled and grammatically f*up in english. Then i remember that I forgot to get my veggies bag and stickered by the veggies people, so I had to weave my way back, get the stickers and try to find my way out. I couldn't find salt or alot of the thing I wanted simply because there is nothing that could indicate for me that here is where all the seasonings are. I head to the check out lane, wait and then the cashier said to me in mandarin what I constructed to be " where is the price sticker for this?" about my packaged nappa cabbage. It came in a plastic bag already!!! Why do I need to get a price sticker for it? Couldn't you look it up like at home? I gave up in frustration and motion to her that I don't need it. Then the lady behind me came up to say something that I don't know and lean up in front of me to look at how much I'm paying for my grocery....??? I left that place is frustration and went home where Josh can clearly tell that I was having my moments. We laugh in pain while we drank this bottle of Chinese wine...which by the way, is only about 1.25 US dollars and are like grape juice. We cook some dumplings that I bought and had our dinner before heading out to the town to this party that somehow i got invited via one of my contact in Shanghai... That was a bust and I won't even convey to you guys the struggle of finding the place was. In the end, we gave up, bought some large bottles of Budweiser ( which is surprisingly delicious) take a cab home, in which the cab driver drop us off still far from our house because NO ONE SEEMS TO KNOW WHERE WE LIVE!!!!!! We got home, get drunk and call it a night because we both are frustrated by the experience.

So yes, Shanghai has been/still is a huge learning curve for me/us. There are time when Josh and I just look at each other and say " why are we china?" and burst out laughing because really, we can't believe what we just saw or what happened to us. I think i was reallly resentful of China last night due to the events of the day, I feel better today and perhaps try to explore different part of Shanghai today. One more day until work...that will be another thing on its own. :) At least then there will be my 2 european co-workers who hopefully can understand. Stay tune guys.