Taiyaun Walmart

Our guide and our driver picked us up and we headed to Walmart. We are in a very busy city with lots of traffic and no real pattern or rules to driving. It is a free for all of cars, trucks, bikes, scooters and pedestrians. It is terrifying to watch so we try to not pay too much attention and laugh at the number of close calls you see. They literally ride bumper to bumper and along side each other with less than six inches to spare. It is amazing we haven't seen a fender bender or someone get side-swiped, not to mention a pedestrian or bicyclist get hit. We saw a mother with two toddlers on a scooter earlier. The younger one was standing between the mother's legs and the older one was sitting on the bike holding on tight. We laughed as we pictured me trying to do that with Livi and Isla who are three and almost two. It would be a disaster but this family was doing fine. We pulled in to a underground parking garage with the same bumper to bumper traffic in a dark, confined underground space. They dropped us off and we headed up an escalator. There was no sign out front or in the garage indicating we were at Walmart. We rode an escalator up and suddenly there we were in the Walmart lobby where you get your cart. It was very crowded and people and carts were everywhere. Apparently everyone here goes shopping on Sunday afternoon so we picked the busiest time to go. There were employees handing out samples of products and advertising their items, a whole row of live fish and seafood to purchase and eat and plenty of dead animal parts all in open displays. It was interesting to see all the meat, poultry and miscellaneous animal parts all in open displays on ice rather than in individual, sealed packages.

A bunch of smoked meats. They were very fragrant.

Pig's feet

Eels, I think (or some other long skinny, flat fish)

Live crabs (My girls would have liked this. We always have to stop and see the lobsters in the grocery. These were open so you could have reached right in)

We had a very difficult time finding peanut butter although I had heard from several people it would be easy to find here. Our guide had no idea what we are talking about and when we described spreading it on bread and eating it as a sandwich we were led across the store to the butter, as well as the mayo. She kept asking different employees and were searched the entire store before one employee told us they were sold out. I never even saw a section that was a logical place to put peanut butter so I didn't believe them and continued on our search. You would assume you may find it with jelly, honey or condiments or near the bread. Nope. I eventually found a few jars of Peter Pan peanut butter in a separate, small section that included imported items (I am a Jif fan but we will take what we can get). Thank goodness we found it and will be able to eat peanut butter sandwiches in the room when we get desperate. 

We also found all of these board books and flash cards which are written in English, as well as Chinese and pinyin. I think they were only a dollar or two each. I am so excited to have these to take home for all three girls to enjoy (Sorry about the sideways picture). 

We successfully found American brand diapers and wipes although guessing a diaper size was tricky because although they are Pampers diapers the weight is written in kg. Let's hope or rough kg to lb. conversion is correct and the diapers are the right size for Hadley.

We are ready. I have packed our Gotcha day bag and we will meet Hadley on Monday at 2:30pm China time which will be Monday at 1:30am Kentucky time. Check back for pictures of our sweet girl in our arms soon!