Chopsticks

One of our afternoon excursions was a visit to the local Asian(ish) grocery store (I say that because there's also a row of Latino products). This establishment is a new addition to the area, and while it's not exactly close, in North Charleston, it's the only one of its kind, so we're happy it's here. J refers to this store as the one with the bad fish smell, and he's right. The store is quite utilitarian, BUT they have products a transplanted Hawaiian girl like myself can't live without, like mochi crunch, seed, and frozen manapua (if you don't know what any of that is, you probably wouldn't like it!). In addition, we buy assorted necessities not readily available elsewhere, like coconut milk in bulk, assorted canned curries, won ton wrappers, and the best authentic sauces money here can buy.

On this visit, we scavenged around, looking for anything new or different, especially bento accessories (of which there were none; foiled again!). We tried to have a bottle in the little eating area, only to be booted because we weren't ordering food, which seemed a little much to me, but I was willing to leave and assembling my stuff...until it turned out we were having a translation problem and the woman only wanted to know if I was planning on ordering and didn't care if we sat there or not. We used the bathroom, which unaccountably smelled like mothballs, only "smelled" is too tame a word for what happens to a six by six foot space when you put a jar with at least a hundred mothballs in it under a toilet! We sampled random chewy candy, in berry and apple flavors, which was sweet but not sweet enough to be marketed to your average American.

Oh, did I mention it was raining outside? Buckets! We spent a LONG time at the grocery, because it was simply too wet to even think about going outside with the two kids. Eventually, there was a small lull when the downpour became a shower, and, even though this wasn't ideal, I had to take my shot. The fish smell did not, surprisingly, fade into the background the longer we were there. Once in the parking lot, I fed E and let J most of the rest of the candies and then climbed into the front seat to avoid getting out in the once again torrential precipitation.

Never a dull moment on our little adventures. Or, many, many dull moments. I'm having a hard time telling those apart these days!