Grocery shopping and culinary challenges

Grocery shopping, um… How does that work, exactly?

Here in Shanghai there's a completely different way of doing your shopping, of course. First we went to Tesco. It's a really big supermarket about a 2 km walk from our apartment. On the way we crossed the river, which gave me these two photos. We walked right through a "residential area". There were so many gigantic apartment blocks, it was unbelievable!

Once we got there, in the big supermarket, we still had to find our things. That was impossible, of course: everything is arranged differently from back home, so you don't know where to look.

Then we discovered Epermarket. It's an online store where you can order things like Nutella and Duvel. So we placed an order and they delivered it to the door the next day. Ideal! We ordered some food for breakfast: bread, salami, cornflakes, … We even got a complimentary box full of vegetables, so we could even cook!

Cultural and culinary adventures, and a Belgian pub!

Yesterday we also went to Jing'an Temple. It's an old Buddhist temple in the middle of the city. A really nice experience. The woodwork and the finish of the temple were beautiful. Here are some photos:

After that we went looking for somewhere to have lunch. In a shopping centre nearby we found a really cosy little place to eat. The food was delicious, and so was the beer! Only afterwards did we realise it was Japanese food and not Chinese!!

And that wasn't all for the day. Next we went to De Refter, a real Belgian pub! Every Wednesday De Refter has a beer tasting where you get 6 different Belgian specialty beers, so why not! We also ordered a friends platter, a plate with some fries, bitterballen and onion rings!

And to round off the day, this is Bernard and Delphine: my roommate and a friend of his. Luckily Delphine is bilingual in Chinese and French, so we never have language problems when she's around!

Medical tests, the Chinese way

Today we went for medical tests. Apparently you need them to get a residence permit, which we need to do our internship. First we also had to get passport photos taken in one of those photo booths in the metro.

Then we took a taxi to the medical centre, and that's when it started. We had to put on a kind of bathrobe, and then we had to keep walking through different booths: in the first one they X-rayed your upper body, in the second they took blood, in the third they did an ultrasound of your stomach, … It really was a production line.

I haven't had the results yet, but I'm sure they'll be fine!

That's it for this blog post! It's great fun here in Shanghai, and the food is delicious!