Saturday shopping day

Saturday was a busy day because our first priority was sending off our Christmas packages to my sister in South Carolina and brother in Colorado since we won't be seeing them this trip. Ideally I had hoped to do this from LA but we just didn't have the time since we arrived late afternoon and had a 7:15 morning flight out. Anyway, everything was ready in our extra suitcase--two collapsed boxes already addressed, presents, pre-cut wrapping paper labelled for each present, gift labels, Xmas cards, tape and packing tape to seal the boxes. I wrapped the presents and sealed up the boxes and then about 11am we headed off (with Dad driving) to Fedex in North Haven to mail them.

That was done successfully so we then went on a shopping trip to Walmart for pj's for Jarrah. Unfortunately there was nothing his size so we compromised with a long-sleeved t-shirt and fleece track pants. Dad wanted to stop in to Goodwill as well as he'd seen a couple of nice baseball gloves a few days before that he wanted to show Jarrah. Unfortunately they were gone but Jade and I looked through the store and found a few treasures which we bought--two leotards and a gorgeous emerald green (her favourite colour) velvet dress with a glittery bolero-style vest attached to it. One of the leotards was also quite a find--a GK black velvet long-sleeved one with clear jewels on it. This would be about $100 new and there it was for $5! What a bargain! I know it must seem weird to be going to what we call an 'op' shop as one of the first things we do in the States. This shop though is one of the most organised second-hand stores I've ever seen. Everything is laid out beautifully on racks and the clothes are even hung by colour so all of the reds, greens, etc are hanging together. I've bought some gorgeous denim dresses there for Jade in the past and was hoping to find some more this time but no luck.

Once we finished there we went to have lunch at the China Buffet Restaurant at the Hamden Mart. The kids love these sort of 'all you can eat' places. I would consider the food at this place moderately Americanized Chinese food. It is good for what it is but it doesn't really have the more authentic Chinese flavours. To appeal to local tastes among the buffet offerings was also pepperoni pizza slices and garlic bread. Why not? There is also a huge flat wok like the one we've seen at a Mongolian BBQ restaurant in Melbourne and you can select your own ingredients and get the chef to cook them up in front of you. Jarrah did that and chose a Teriyaki sauce but when he sat down to eat it said the sauce just tasted like a barbecue sauce and not real Teriyaki. This restaurant had a lot of patrons and it was interesting to see a wide range of ethnic groups including Afro-Americans eating there. I think only one group of diners were Asian and they were more elderly. One lady in this group was watching Jade choose her dishes. Jade asked me the name of one dish that was labelled pork fried rice and when I told her what it was she said 'Yummy' and the Asian grandma laughed and smiled at that. The labelling of the dishes was haphazard as, for the most part, the labels didn't correspond to the dishes so ther was a bit of guess-work involved in choosing what to eat. I had some nice beef and onion in a sauce with rice and I tried a spring roll which wasn't very good.

After lunch we still had grocery shopping to do and I haven't mentioned we were operating on a short time-frame as a blizzard was coming and was supposed to hit about mid-day. Luckily it hadn't started yet. We took Dad home as he'd had enough excitement for the day and the four of us, with me at the wheel, headed out to Stop & Shop. This was the first time I'd driven on the right side of the road for quite a few years so I took it carefully especially when turning corners. I didn't really have any problems on the road but in parking lots I had to keep reminding myself to keep right.

Stop & Shop, although I've been there before on other trips, is always an eye-opener. The variety of food is amazing. Salad dressings, for example, take up half of the length of an aisle. And there must be a dozen brands of pancake maple syrup taking up a good one and a half meters of shelving and stretching from top to bottom. In Melbourne if you blink you will miss the maple syrup as I think there are only 2-3 brands hidden up high on the shelf in the cake mix aisle. Every type of food has a dazzling array of choices. About one of the only foods I can think of where we have more choices is in instant noodles--what are called Ramen noodles here.

We bought milk, bread, snacks, breakfast cereal (Jade thought cinnamon flavoured cereal was a yuck flavour) and meat and tortillas to make quesadillas for dinner. Jarrah enjoyed using the self-service check out which, here, is designed equally for large purchases in that there is a conveyor belt to put your purchases on after you have scanned them. In Melbourne, self-service is just beginning and the couple of stores that have it have it designed for people making small purchases. There is no conveyor belt after the scanner. Instead there is only the bag rack for you to put your purchases directly into bags after scanning. If you were to buy a week's groceries you'd end up with full bags all over the floor at your feet.

We came out of S & S about 4pm and the sky was dark grey and looked like it was going to start snowing very soon. We made it home before the snow which started about 5-6pm.