Eating cheap and Grocery shopping in Bangkok - July 31

Today was a day to get some necessities done....necessities like grocery shopping!  Friday night, some of Joshua's marines are coming over for dinner...so we needed to start looking for all we needed.  Food shopping isn't the easiest here in Bangkok...if you're a westerner!

We went to Siam Paragon...the shopping mecca with an unbelievable food court.  There must be 75 different restaurants on the same floor... it's unreal.  However, there is another section that is only Thai food...and they aren't really restaurants.  It looks like a cafeteria, except different people have different sections.  They are each cooking their own food..and the prices are much cheaper than in the restaurants of the food court.  

We decided to eat there.  After much deliberation, I chose this soup... pork, noodles, vegetables, in a delicious broth...for 75 baht...equivalent to about $2.50.  It was so, so tasty!

These are the napkin holders...

This is a panorama of that part of the food court...

After eating, we got a smoothie..and then before going grocery shopping, we made a stop at the restroom.  I thought this was the perfect time to take a photo of Thai writing/English writing.  Now, if you look at this, you can see that in English, it's 6 words....Thai?  2 words.  Although, I don't really think it's words.  Often, I've seen both writings together and the Thai will have NO breaks between the characters.  

Tonight on the way home from grocery shopping, I asked Sunshy - our driver - about the language.  I asked him how they knew it was a new word since there was no break...he chuckled and said, "You just do."  I asked him if it was hard to learn English... (Yes)...and he told me the tenses were difficult.  He said, go, going, went...that's confusing.  In Thai we just say 'go'!  I go to store... I go to store yesterday..I go to store tomorrow... 'go', it's all the same in Thai.  

From eating lunch, we walked to Big C...the grocery store where Erica has been doing her big shopping trips.  It's a trip to go there...with Thai writing, you just have no clue what the labels say.  I've been looking all over for buttermilk,  so I asked Sunshy if he had heard of buttermilk.  "Milk?" he asked.  "No, buttermilk,"  I said.  He just shook his head.  So...that's why  guess I haven't been able to find it.  I bought a lemon instead.

I remember when Joshua and Erica first moved here.  Joshua told me one day that Erica had come home from the store frustrated because there were so many fish sauces...today, I understood what he had been talking about... 

Do you need some oil?  Here's about 1000 different kinds...

Or if you need fish sauce, there's another 1000 different kinds to pick from...


Mushroom sauce???

How about some Heinz ketchup?

You just can't imagine the selections of some items.  Buttermilk choices?  ZERO
Corn tortillas?  ZERO
Wine?  EXPENSIVE
Bread?  only white :(
chicken?  it's not refrigerated in the store
eggs?  not refrigerated in the store
cilantro?  There's probably 5 different herbs that all look exactly like cilantro
etc...


On the way home, Erica pointed out that even though some homes look like shacks, they have a dish on the outside!  I hadn't noticed until she said that...

But as you can see, it's obviously true!

We also booked our trip to one of the islands next week... oh boy!

Another great day in Bangkok!