Why Asian Walmart is a scary place.

¥25.00      Breakfast at Panini (Coffee + Panini)
¥6.00        Lunch (Buns + Soy Milk) 
¥2.00        Bus
¥475.20    Walmart
¥3.00        Taxi
¥12.00      Dinner (Beef Bone and Radish Soup + Rice)
¥56.00      Watson's Chemist'
¥6.00        Dessert (Papparoti Coffee Bun)

Total: ¥585.20 ($111.50)

Weekly Total: ¥3475.70

Total Spend: ¥3475.70 ($662.00 AUD)

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Since we don't have wifi yet in our rooms, we have been going across the road from uni to a nice little cafe to have breakfast and leech wifi for a few hours to start our day. 

Anyway today I spent a giant wad of money at Walmart. 

For those who don't know, Walmart is a huge retail corporation in the US with chains of discount department stores. Every time I go to a new country, I like to go to the supermarket to get an idea of what the local products are like, and usually you get a sense of what's considered important by the amount of space dedicated to the product, and its shelf placement in the supermarkets. 

For example, I distinctly remember that there was a huge aisle dedicated to pickles in Finland.

And in Walmart, there was a huge aisle dedicated to feminine hygiene products.

My mind goes back to those ads in Australia which show men looking confused when they buy feminine hygiene products for their partners - here, even I'm confused. Firstly there are different brands, then within each brand you have day and night, then absorbency levels, then length. And then you've got special ones under each brand such as scented ones and ones with cooling effects... 

 You can also buy live fish in the supermarket section of Walmart.

 And of course, there are heaps of different ways to buy rice. Back home, we get them in different sized bags, but here you can run your hands through the grains and fill your own bags as well.

That's one of the things I'm not used to yet - their approach to hygiene. You could buy a few different things in this way too, such as dried shrimp and dried food products. 

Being in China has also stopped me snacking because I don't know what brands are safe to eat, so I've just been avoidng chocolate and snacks altogether.

Not only that, the air pollution level has been hitting 180+ (In Sydney it's 30, so it's 6 times more polluted than Sydney making it very unsafe.) 

I'm trying to stay healthy but there's only so much you can do when you're breathing and eating it all.