it is easy to find familiarity.

I went to the grocery store about half a mile from the hotel where I am staying. It is not a grocery store, but a 4-story, full blown department store. The bottom two floors were the food sections, third floor was health and beauty, fourth floor was clothing, shoes and bedding. It was an experience. I felt oddly calm in the food sections. It was all so familiar to me that it was scary. The layout, the food groups, the shoppers. I scanned every aisle for interesting finds. I didn't get much, but I spent nearly 2 hours there. Everything was intriguing to me. From the way they buy and sell raw meat (touchy-feely), to the shovelfuls of rice and the lack of dairy products, everything was fascinating. I roamed through every floor taking stock of all of the products, and it never got boring. Finally, I decided I have picked out all of the things I wanted, and I went down to the ground level to pay. The cashier checked out my food items without charging me for the pillow I had also picked up. Apparently I was supposed to pay for that on the "bedding" level. I had to walk out of the store and then back in, go up 4 flights of stares, and try to figure out how I was supposed to pay for this pillow. Luckily, I ran into some other American students who directed me. I had to go to an individual saleslady who wrote me a receipt. Then, I had to take the receipt to another lady sitting in a strange cubicle to pay for it (18 yuan, if you wanted to know). THEN, i took the new receipt I got from her back to the previous lady where I re-claimed my pillow.  Was it worth the trouble? Probably not, but I was not about to become a thief in a foreign country. 

Thus, I left the store and began my small trek back to campus. I became side-tracked by some pretty dresses in a window. I walked in to find that they were not poorly priced, and the workers were very nice. One of them got a bigger size for me and I tried on a traditional-looking Chinese dress only to be saddened by the fact that my proportions are not the same as Chinese women. The dress was too big in my stomach area, but too tight in the butt area. Conclusion: no one in this country has booty. The women in the store were very nice though, and I thanked them (xièxiè) and continued on my way with my pillow, peach juice, and Chinese Skippy (even though moms choose JIF).