Shop 'till you drop

Part of our orientation has been going shopping every day. It's nice to have these little outings to show us where to go to get what and to have veteran teachers/staff there to answer questions. It is also very helpful to have the buses to help us get things back home, especially since we've had to buy a lot to set up our apartments. 

Since I lived in Korea and Korea is very developed and part of the global economy, I thought I had a good idea of what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that there is a MUCH bigger variety of familiar groceries than I expected. Yes, they are a little more expensive but not too bad and not as bad as I thought they would be. Electronics and other items...... not so much. I was rather unpleasantly surprised with that. They are for sure more expensive. 😞

Some shopping misc things: I went to the Diaso. It was cute and everything Diaso is, but even the Daiso was a little pricey. In the Korean Daiso most items were around $1. In the US Daiso most items are $1.50. Here most items were around $2. 

At the first grocery store we went to I found one of my favorite candy bars. It's totally random and I think what I like most about them is the memory of them and the fact that they're hard to find. No, not Pinkies- which probably are my all time favorites. It was the chunky caramel KitKat. I first found them in either Fiji or Australia- I don't remember which one. They were so common and I just figured it was a new thing that came out and that we would have them in the States. When I got home I was very disappointed to discover that no one had them. After being back for 1.5 years and moving from Texas to Arizona I actually found them at the 7-11 right by my house. And then that 7-11 burned down and I haven't seen them since, until I came here. 

We went to Ikea. Seemed a little pricier than normal but still very much the same. I bought a couple of shoe cubbies for all my shoes and spent 2 hours assembling them when I got home. I really missed my sister Rebecca who is known for being very good at assoymbing things. BTW- I love TOMS, as you can tell in the photo of my shoe cubby.