The Grocery Experience

It's been a long journey, but Mike and I are finally in Hyderabad!  I'm anxious to get settled into our new home and start "living" here.

The language, the food, the smells, the traffic, the sounds, the customs and the religion(s) are all new and different.  There are between 6 and 8 million people living in Hyderabad, so people are everywhere.  I think that is probably the biggest thing Mike and I will have to get used to.  

One of the first things I did, after I got the jet lag under control, was to go grocery shopping. That was an experience!  Just like everything else here, the grocery markets are organized chaos.  "Organized" may be a bit lenient.  For instance, I found jelly in 3 different places in the store.   

So far, I've been to 2 markets.  Hypercity is in one of the malls.  It's kind of like a Super Walmart, but much smaller.  The other one is Q Mart.  Q Mart is smaller than Hypercity and it seems to cater more toward Westerners.  You can find almost anything, but sometimes you have to know the actual name of the product instead of the brand name.  If anyone has any idea of what the products below are used for, I would love to know!  I do know what gelatin is, however.   :)

Here are prices of some of the products:

Hershey's Unsweetened Cocoa $10.42
Old El Paso Refried Beans $3.70
Pep Farm Goldfish crackers $3.50
409 Cleaner $5.69
Flour (1kg) $0.74
Sugar (2kg)  $1.72

By far the biggest surprise was Philadelphia Cream Cheese @ $12.72!!

There is a fairly good selection of fruits and vegetables, although I haven't ventured out of my comfort zone yet.  I'm sticking with the fruits and vegetables that I'm familiar with for the time being.  Baby steps...