Somethings its seems if you are patient long enough and look in enough places or ask around you can find, others you see once so buy it when you see it and then there is somethings you will never find!
Ice Cream: Not a lot of premium ice cream here like we are used to in the US at grocery stores, Haagen Daaz, Ben & Jerry's and Breyers can be found here but for about $15 for a pint! I did find Mint chocolate chip today in a Chinese brand so i will try tonight!
Graham Crackers- I was craving these with a little peanut butter on them but haven't found them yet!
Diaper Cream- so far nothing as thick and effective as Desitin at home, mostly like Vaseline consistency.
Sweet Rice Wine Vinegar: My parents are sending me some to use in making teriyaki chicken to satisfy the craving of no Samurai Sam's!
Jeeps: you really don't see a lot of jeeps here, there are a lot of car brands that you would see in the US but the models and different and have new names, most taxi's here are VW. Here is one jeep i saw in town today!
Things i have seen or found in China:
Post Office: Found the post office! So far i have received deliveries from UPS, Fedex, DHL, and USPS that have all made their way across continents. I ordered some decaf coffee and was expecting its arrival, so when i had a note taped to my door i figured that is what it was for, I asked my Ayi to translate for me and then text me in Chinese, i can get text messages to an app called "we chat" that then allows me to quickly translate to English. So the next day i asked our driver to take us to a specific location of China Post to pick up the package (it was all written in Chinese on the note). When we arrived we went into a pretty empty looking room with a tall desk as usual in a post office, however there were no shelves of packing supplies, tape, padded envelopes and forms, it was empty! My driver spoke to the person working and we were informed to go around the corner to another building. So we went around the corner to find the space below which didn't look so official, inside there were three people working and again mostly empty room, and they had my package! The reason i had to come in and bring my passport was there was a weight on the shipping label and then they weighed it and it was off, it appeared that one of the packages of coffee inside had been removed...ugh! So i signed for the package and got out of the shady looking building :) Then to go back into the China Post office and mail something to my parents....again the driver translated for me and i received a receipt for some reason in both Chinese and French so either way i can't read it but i believe i successfully sent something to the US without having the ordeal i usually have at the bank, one easy thing in China! Note: China Post is the post office, not to be confused with Postal Savings Bank of China...lol.
Postcards: I went in search of postcards that i could send home, i found that they are harder to come by than you would think! At the post office they had a collection of 20 i could buy that were cities around the world so only one postcard with China on it, then there were two others that didn't show pictures of China but had Chinese characters on them. I asked the driver and he said a book store would have something. So today we ventured out to the book store to find postcards with Twilight Characters and goofy cartoons on them, i found one package with some essence of China on them....and I did look in Shanghai not so popular i guess to send a postcard from China! If you were here for two weeks on vacation you would have to mail it the first couple days to arrive before you returned!
Diapers: Some kids wear diapers, some wear none, some wear diapers and the pants with the slit in them from front to back!
Money: Here is a photo of the funny money here, $1 = 6 yuan give or take.
Game of Thrones: We watch on HBO Go, because they air it one week behind (i think due to the time difference) and its at 10pm on Sunday night, you all know i am asleep by then! LOL
Fruit: The only fruit i haven't found fresh here that i recall from home is raspberries. They have imported fruits from Chile and they have lots of local grown fruits! We have had strawberries, watermelon, honeydew, cantaloupe, pineapple, grapes, cherries, dragon fruit, apples, peaches, nectarines, plums, etc!
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