DISCLAIMER: I ENJOY LIVING IN CHINA BUT THERE ARE SOMETIMES THINGS THAT ARE FRUSTRATING.
Such as not having simple everyday needs/things in stores.
One such example is cheese. Sure I can go to the store and get cheese in blocks, bricks, slices, sticks, shredded you name it I can find it in cheese form. HOWEVER, I only buy cheese if I'm feeling particularly wealthy that day. A bag of shredded cheese here costs roughly 35-40 kuai roughly 6-7 USD. And anyone who is normal knows a bag of cheese is really only enough for one good Mexican dish or a couple of small salads. Or ya know just to eat in pinches.
Which leads me to Mexican food. Not a thing. NO taco seasoning. NONE! This means NO tortillas (except at special hole in the wall places) and NO refried beans. There are chili peppers and things to make Mexican food but lets be serious nothing is really as good without some Old El Paso taco seasoning. (I only have one packet left) And NO CREAM CHEESE WITH WHICH TO MAKE ENCHILADAS.
Salads: Not a thing in China. Along with NO RANCH DRESSING. All the makings of a salad are available with vegetables but that requires time, chopping, slicing, washing....I just want a salad I can pour out of a bag.
Ice cream: China is not known for it's sweet things. The Chinese children have been deprived of ice cream sandwiches, dilly bars, dip cones, bomb pops, drumsticks, and of course Ben and Jerry's. Here we have Haagen Daas at the wonderful price of around 10 USD for a single serving little cup of Vanilla ice cream. Then you have the wonderful choice of ice cream bars in wonderful flavours like Green tea, Durian, milk/coconut, corn and Red bean. I have managed to find some decent vanilla/choco swirl Ice cream bars after a chance buy at the local grocery store but nothing much better. We also had a Baskin-Robbins open up down the street but I haven't had a chance to frequent the establishment lately.
Cookies: Okay there are cookies in China like oreos and chips ahoy but all crunchy. Nothing chewey or peanut buttery.
Candy: Uhhh....lollipops. Skittles, m&ms, ridiculously overpriced Dove and hershey's chocolate. Annnnddd....that's about it that actually tastes decent. Every other piece of candy I have consumed in China is a diabetics most delightful dream. The candy has hardly any taste at all and basically no sugar content whatsoever. And there are supposed to be all these different "Flavors" like orange, pineapple, strawberry, and Chinese favorite flavor, MILK. (Which is DISGUSTING)
MILK: can we just talk about this for a minute?! THERE IS NO DECENT MILK IN THIS COUNTRY. Seriously. ALL milk comes in 1 liter sized BOXES and sits on a 'refrigerated' (NOT) shelf until it is bought. This is good for the store as the milk has a long shelf life but as soon as you open that little sucker you have around 72 hours until you need to start whipping that milk into cream. In fact sometimes it starts to get chunky the next day. And that's even AFTER I put it in my refrigerator. (As an aside I apparently am unable to spell refrigerator. I just spelled it wrong again and had to redo it.) I have tried probably close to 20 different brands of milk in China and the result is always the same.
GRANOLA BARS/CLIFF BARS/PROTEIN BARS/SOMETHING TO GET ME THROUGH LONG DAYS: CHINA HAS NOTHING!!!!!!!!
I'm just posting this without a title as protest.
*I really do love living in this country. I do. Promise* :)
Such as not having simple everyday needs/things in stores.
One such example is cheese. Sure I can go to the store and get cheese in blocks, bricks, slices, sticks, shredded you name it I can find it in cheese form. HOWEVER, I only buy cheese if I'm feeling particularly wealthy that day. A bag of shredded cheese here costs roughly 35-40 kuai roughly 6-7 USD. And anyone who is normal knows a bag of cheese is really only enough for one good Mexican dish or a couple of small salads. Or ya know just to eat in pinches.
Which leads me to Mexican food. Not a thing. NO taco seasoning. NONE! This means NO tortillas (except at special hole in the wall places) and NO refried beans. There are chili peppers and things to make Mexican food but lets be serious nothing is really as good without some Old El Paso taco seasoning. (I only have one packet left) And NO CREAM CHEESE WITH WHICH TO MAKE ENCHILADAS.
Salads: Not a thing in China. Along with NO RANCH DRESSING. All the makings of a salad are available with vegetables but that requires time, chopping, slicing, washing....I just want a salad I can pour out of a bag.
Ice cream: China is not known for it's sweet things. The Chinese children have been deprived of ice cream sandwiches, dilly bars, dip cones, bomb pops, drumsticks, and of course Ben and Jerry's. Here we have Haagen Daas at the wonderful price of around 10 USD for a single serving little cup of Vanilla ice cream. Then you have the wonderful choice of ice cream bars in wonderful flavours like Green tea, Durian, milk/coconut, corn and Red bean. I have managed to find some decent vanilla/choco swirl Ice cream bars after a chance buy at the local grocery store but nothing much better. We also had a Baskin-Robbins open up down the street but I haven't had a chance to frequent the establishment lately.
Cookies: Okay there are cookies in China like oreos and chips ahoy but all crunchy. Nothing chewey or peanut buttery.
Candy: Uhhh....lollipops. Skittles, m&ms, ridiculously overpriced Dove and hershey's chocolate. Annnnddd....that's about it that actually tastes decent. Every other piece of candy I have consumed in China is a diabetics most delightful dream. The candy has hardly any taste at all and basically no sugar content whatsoever. And there are supposed to be all these different "Flavors" like orange, pineapple, strawberry, and Chinese favorite flavor, MILK. (Which is DISGUSTING)
MILK: can we just talk about this for a minute?! THERE IS NO DECENT MILK IN THIS COUNTRY. Seriously. ALL milk comes in 1 liter sized BOXES and sits on a 'refrigerated' (NOT) shelf until it is bought. This is good for the store as the milk has a long shelf life but as soon as you open that little sucker you have around 72 hours until you need to start whipping that milk into cream. In fact sometimes it starts to get chunky the next day. And that's even AFTER I put it in my refrigerator. (As an aside I apparently am unable to spell refrigerator. I just spelled it wrong again and had to redo it.) I have tried probably close to 20 different brands of milk in China and the result is always the same.
GRANOLA BARS/CLIFF BARS/PROTEIN BARS/SOMETHING TO GET ME THROUGH LONG DAYS: CHINA HAS NOTHING!!!!!!!!
I'm just posting this without a title as protest.
*I really do love living in this country. I do. Promise* :)
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