Stinks like hell, but tastes like heaven

This is how people talk about the fruit Durian, which is a real delicacy here. And you can really smell it from far away. It's forbidden to bring it on buses and trains. Same with our apartment. You can only eat it directly at the stand. The taste is reminiscent of sweet onion and afterwards you don't dare to open your mouth for a few hours. It's not even sold in supermarkets. Only in the form of well-packaged ice cream.

Supermarket: We have two supermarkets nearby. At least what Europeans understand as a supermarket, besides all the little stands where you can buy fruit and especially the beloved eggs of the Singaporeans (as long as a hard-boiled egg is in the soup, the noodles, the salad, ...).

The supermarkets are air-conditioned, because it can take some time to find the desired groceries. That is not only because they don't exist in the first place, but also because the supermarkets are somewhat chaotic. You can find cat food next to baby food, together on the shelf with chips. In addition, you are overwhelmed and overstimulated by the variety of groceries, colorful colors, and Chinese characters.

Unfortunately, the selection of dairy products is a bit limited and the price for them is quite expensive. For example, a liter of milk costs 2.30 SGD (1.47€) and you can get 8 slices of cheese starting from around 6 SGD. We also really miss dark bread, it simply doesn't exist here.

Once you have everything, the friendly ladies at the checkout are already waiting. They unpack everything, pack everything (in way too many bags... each item individually and then another bag... even the request not to pack it or the mention of my own tote bag is rather met with a smile and not understood at all. Eco freak!)

So we already have trash bags for the next 5 years...

But let's continue at the checkout: It's great that you go to the machines after the checkout and then pay there. This makes everything a bit faster and you can pay in peace, without the person behind you rolling their eyes because Grandma Gladdys is taking out all her small change.

Something else nice: it's always about promotions here. Buy 2 get 1 free. buy 1 get a lunchbox, bag, wet wipes, cereal bowl,... And there are many tasting booths in the supermarket🙂

Ordering food: Most Singaporeans apparently don't have a kitchen. And if they do, it's just a microwave. Unfortunately, our oven only works sometimes and nobody can repair it because hardly anyone knows how to do that here. That's why most people order food from Grab or Foodpanda (I prefer the latter, because they have pink bags with a panda on them). We have also ordered frequently. Funny enough, the driver is called Mohamed in 9 out of 10 cases and it's really a different person every time.

It is also exciting that we almost never know what we are getting. Because we would actually have to Google every dish to know what it is. That is sometimes too complicated considering our hunger.

But no matter what we finally order: there are only two flavors here: very very sweet and very very spicy. So spicy that the food is sometimes a real challenge for the circulation. Coconut milk is always our savior in the fridge.

Many people also eat outside. Mostly in the hawker centers. But we haven't been to any yet, as it's difficult to eat outside with Jakob so late when Alex comes home from work. We will test that soon on a weekend lunch.

I will comment on some of the uploaded pictures. So click on them🙂