Buying Groceries in Korea

Going to the grocery store in Korea the second day I had moved into my apartment was a really overwhelming experience. I knew where the grocery store was, because my nice neighbors had given me a quick tour of the neighborhood my first evening there. Since I live in a huge apartment complex where probably several hundred families also reside, everything I could possibly need is close by. I turn right out of my apartment, cross two little streets, and then reach the "downtown" neighborhood area, where I have only ever seen one other foreigner (a middle-aged Indian woman.) Here is a pharmacy, a doctor, a hair cutter (o.O I need to go soon), a live fish restaurant, a pork restaurant, a fried chicken restaurant, actually every kind of restaurant imaginable, some clothing stores, a lot of junky stationery stores (which I love), wannabe-French Korean bakeries (Tou Les Jours and Paris Baguette), and a lot of other stuff. There's a bigger grocery store about 3 blocks away but I usually go to the Lotte Super Mart which is a lot closer to me. Also, the people there are used to seeing me, so they are very nice to me and don't stare at me as much as the people in the other place.

Most product information is in Korean but you can occasionally find products with dual labels or even only English labels. Anyway, it's simple enough to tell what something is, usually, just by looking at it. If I want to double-check, I can whip out my phone, which came with a free built-in Korean-English dictionary (which comes in handy all the time.) Usually I know the name of what I'm buying, though. When I first started buying vegetables I kind of freaked out, staring at the endless display cases of various green and white plant things. I wanted an onion. I saw something that kind of resembled an onion and saw that the package said "양파/yangpa" which I knew was the word for onion. Yay, problem solved! I felt so smart.

Buying food for myself was also an adventure initially because I have never cooked before in my life. I started out eating GS25 sandwiches and making grilled cheese sandwiches my first week here. Soon I moved on to frozen dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets and pork cutlets and mandu (dumplings.) Now I usually eat a salad and pasta with some kind of seafood when I'm at home, including a sauce which I fill up with various vegetables. I even learned how to make Korean spicy seafood and ricecakes, which is incredibly easy once you figure out where to buy the pre-made sauce. If I had an oven, I could make cookies!

Food here is also pretty cheap. I buy about a dozen tangerines for about $3. Two onions are about 70 cents. A carton of milk that lasts me a week is $2 and a bottle of orange juice (I usually get Tropicana or Del Monte because it claims to be 100% real juice) is about $3. My favorite candy bars, Atlas Bars, were 3 for about 80 cents but then one day THEY MYSTERIOUSLY STOPPED SELLING THEM AND I DON'T KNOW WHY! The similar product is more peanut-y AND only has two for the same price. NOT OK. I WANT MY ATLAS BARS BACK.

In Korea people are very concerned about recycling and environmental protection so I always bring my own re-usable bags to the store. I put my stuff on the conveyor belt, bow slightly to the cashier, put my stuff in the bag, sign my name, bow slightly again, and then leave, all the while giving a sheepish "I don't speak Korean" confused smile.

Today when I bought groceries I thought they looked cute so I took a picture of them on my elephant rug (Costco, $40!):

What you see here is basically my weekly grocery haul, although I didn't buy any vegetables today because I was afraid they would go bad because I don't think I'll be eating at home again until the weekend. What do we have here? Let's start counter-clockwise from the apple juice. Some apple juice (usually I buy orange, but I wanted to mix things up; this was the cheapest but the taste is too sweet), milk (no idea what percent but skim milk doesn't seem to be common here), some "Light Coke" which is Diet Coke, Kellogg's Chocolate Chex cereal (my current obsession), Some "Oh Yes" sweet potato chocolate cakes, some almond and cranberry granola bars (the most expensive item on my list at 4 for about $4), two Lotte Ghana chocolate bars, two bananas (green- yay!- usually the bananas in the store are turning brown), some margarine (I finally gave up trying to eat the nasty corn butter I accidentally purchased at my afore-mentioned confused first trip to the grocery store), some gross sushi covered in mustard and Korean Chinese-style pork and vegetables for tonight's dinner (I was hibernating), and the tangerines. All this was about $30. Really not bad. How much do you think this would be in the US? $50?

Anyway I like shopping for my own groceries because it makes me feel very accomplished, and I like turning on the floor heat and snuggling up at my desk with homemade food and a movie on my computer to escape the frigid tundra that Seoul currently is masquerading as. WHEN WILL IT BE SPRING????