Grocery Getter

Grocery shopping is good and bad here in Korea.  Good because the stores seem a lot cleaner than what we experienced before.  Bad because we don't seem to have quite the import selection we are used to from China.  

We have a couple of neighborhood markets that carry a basic selection of produce, meat, dairy, and bread.  They also have some household goods, cereals and snacks.  Perfect for "hey Mark can you grab milk and jelly on the way home from work today?"  For our regular shopping trips we go to E-Mart, Homever, and Costco.  Costco is exactly like what we have in the US.  Except 2 stories.  E-Mart and Homever are like Wal-Mart and Meijer.  They have everything from toys and shoes to milk and bananas.  I prefer Homever's produce and meat departments, but E-mart has the better bakery for bread and bagels.  

When you arrive at these stores parking can be an issue.  Often there is a line of cars waiting to get into the parking lot.  At E-mart the parking garage goes 6 stories under ground.  The store it self goes 6 stories up.  Costco's parking garage is above ground, but the store goes two stories under ground.  Parking is always free if as long as you've made a purchase at that store that same day.  

You may not have to pay for parking, but you do have to pay for your shopping cart.  The carts are all chained together.  You have to put in your W100 coin and then you take your cart.  When you are done with your shopping, you hook the cart back together in the coral and your coin pops back out.  And if you didn't remember to bring your own environmentally friendly, reusable shopping bags, the stores charge you for the plastic variety.  Not really a big deal in our minds since we've been using the reusable bags for a while now.  

We're not starving, but we are still trying to navigate our way through the grocery stores.  We've had to make some menu changes and adapt our favorite recipes to what are able to find in stock.