Adam and I went on a quest for peanut butter. In a country that grows peanuts, it seemed absurd that we had not yet found the delicious butter from this nut. We decided the grocery store, the "Big C" must be where the peanut butter was hidden, and so we dedicated a day to navigating the grocery store.
The grocery store is entirely different from the street markets. The street markets blanket you with smells and sounds, all of which are unfamiliar. But we have navigated these in the past, and know how to squeeze through the crowds, pick out the best mangoes, and haggle our way to a good price.
We had never encountered a grocery store.
The first challenge was parking. Picture a Trader Joe's parking lot in Los Angeles on a Sunday afternoon (around 4:30pm). Then multiply the number of people and cars by five, then imagine that it is not cars that crowd the parking lot, but motor bikes. Thousands of motorbikes. Then you have the parking lot.
After a few rides on the elevator, accidentally arriving at a KFC and a shopping mall, we finally found the grocery store. The next challenge was getting in.
Backpacks had to be checked into a locker to which you would keep the key. If you insisted on bringing your purse into the store, it had to be put into a plastic bag and stapled shut.
Locker key in hand, we entered the turnstyle and were officially in the grocery store. There are few places that I feel more at home than grocery stores. I love them. I love looking at the food, seeing what people buy, reading every ingredient, scrutinizing prices...
In the end, we found peanut butter. We celebrated. We hugged.
But when trying to check out, we could not find the cash registers anywhere. That's because they ingeniously lead you to another floor where you have to shop more before you can leave. They won. We bought Adam new sandals, which were,to be honest, very needed.
We made it out, retrieved our bags, and managed to find our motorbike among the thousands in the garage. We haven't been to the grocery store since.