70: WILD TOUR OF our LOCAL CHINESE GROCERY STORE - COME shopping with us!

Toilet paper. Mwah. This is something you won't find in a U.S. grocery store. There's a lot of plastic involved. I saw those in my bathroom this morning. And it's sexy and honey. Sorry boys. My favorite. What's this? Where are we going? We're always going somewhere. And we've always got these slingshot attached. We are headed to the grocery store right there. And we've never actually filmed the grocery store for you all. But we thought it would be interesting for you to see what kinds of things are there. Especially now. We thought we would do that today for you. Yeah, so remember when we were first here. How different it was and how fascinating it was. Okay, so all of you out there. And you know who you are. If you've never been to a Chinese grocery store. This is something you need to watch. And if you haven't subscribed. This is something you should subscribe. And hit the like button. And share. And the bell. And all that stuff. Because we're out here doing it. Because you either can't or you don't have to. Right, sweetie? That's right. Let's do it. Hey, come along with us. Yeah, just show him. That's interesting. You never know. You might need that. Is that for sale or are they going to use those? Two weeks ago we took about, I don't know, two hours. To get our green QR codes that are personal to us. That say. We've gone through quarantine and we are healthy. This is the first time in the grocery store. That we've been able to use that. Instead of the other scan. So now we don't need to be thermometer tested. We can just walk in if we have the green QR code. Here's where they've got discount items. And they never do this in the United States. But it's awesome. So the organics over here. Organics over here. If you know what this is. Tell us. Comment below. We need your help. Dragon fruit. It's super popular. You never see this many dragon fruit in the States. Baby carrots. Oh yeah. I've never seen these before. They're finally good and they're coming down in price. $16 is like $2.50 for these. Okay. It's expensive. Yep. Check out how everything is individually packaged. There's a lot of plastic involved. Just the way it happens. A lot of this is imported. Check that out. Oh, it's strawberry season. These strawberries are actually from the mountains. Here in Shandong. Yep. They're grown here. So they're really fresh and sweet. There's jackfruit. It comes from the big piece right there. Yay! They grow those here in Qingdao. And cherries. Oh wow. This is something you won't find in a U.S. grocery store. Durian fruit. And it's really expensive. That is like $25 U.S. dollars. And ouchie. I mean, you definitely don't want to play catch the durian with this. Because you'd have to go to the hospital. But the Chinese have a real big flavor taste for durian. And it's everywhere. Different flavors. Ice cream. And here's the fresh durian. The people that work here at the grocery store. These different areas. You can hear them speaking up. They're selling their own stuff. Chinese really don't like fruit that has any blunches or bruised or it's brown. So this particular fruit has just a little bit of a hole here. But we don't mind it because it just means it's more ripe. And it's perfect condition. And we get it for 10 cents on the dollar. You can see how much there is here. And, you know, U.S. stores don't do this. And here we have the same thing with veggies. Look at all of the plastic. Everything is wrapped individually in plastic. So one of the great things about Shandong province is they grow peanuts here. And so we get fresh peanuts that has nothing added to it. No sugars, nothing. Which is amazing peanut butter. And then this one here is sesame butter. And we use it as a replacement for tahini. It's a little darker, different flavor. For hummus and whatever else we want tahini for. So both really, really good. One of the other great benefits of living in Shandong province is the bees. The honey here is supposed to have some great medicinal purposes. Oh, did you mention these? Like, this is how you see cosmetics. I mean, it's sexy honey. Look at all the different varieties. And there's a lot of ready-made things here. So you don't have to make it at home. Here's all kinds of organ parts. Ni hao. Organ parts. Xie xie. Ni hao. People like to look at duck. And I can understand that. But in China, looking at duck is called Peking duck. Peking duck is really popular even outside of Beijing. And it's no longer called Peking duck. It's called Beijing duck now. Not Peking duck. We're getting ready to show you how people buy the meat. And they have it laying out. And they've got, like, a fork. People like to play around with their meat first. They have different rules now because of the coronavirus, though. Well, let's go see. Yeah, they don't like to play with it. Hot pot's a big deal. You may not even know what it is. It's a boiling pot of flavored water that you drop meat or vegetables into. It's like fondue, but with boiling water. And so here, everything's sliced really thin, paper thin. It's like prosciutto, shaved prosciutto. And here we have the bread. It's super processed, white, and sweet. Yeah, it's always sweet. There's usually red bean inside for sweetness. But it's all packaged. Just look at how perfect it is. One thing that's super crazy is the fresh fish department. You come here, and you would think it's kind of like a pet store. So here we have these laying out right here. Beautiful. But the Chinese, to ensure freshness, a lot of them just buy the live product. And then have it played right there in front of your eyes. So if you look behind, here are aquariums where you have the next victim. Years ago, before they had refrigeration, they were big into drying things. So now you can get pretty much any seafood in a dried and salted state. So there's your baby shrimps. And I have no idea, these are probably cuttlefish. We've got some fish in general. These are super expensive and a delicacy. And it's beautiful and delicious. It has very little flavor, and it actually is just kind of gelatinous. It's kind of weird. And these are super expensive ones, and they've got them in these gorgeous, fancy bottles. So if you want to spend a whole heck of a lot of money on a single cucumber, you got it. 2,700 RMB, which is about 400 U.S. dollars. I saw those in my bathroom this morning. Brown. One of the things in this store that they also have is an area for foreign foods. And it's really interesting what they pick out to distribute in a Chinese grocery store from foreign foods. Mainly sweets and more sweets. So I'll show you. It's called Imported Foods. They do import a lot from Russia. The Chinese love their yogurt really sweet. And you'll be able to see in a second that whole wall from there all the way down to the end of the wall is all yogurt. And it's all sweet yogurt. There's only one brand that we can get that has no sugar in it. Everything else is completely sugared up. And here I find the most interesting flavors of chips. Roasted chicken wing flavor. Grilled squid flavor. Ooh, grilled eel flavor. Fried crab flavor. Spicy crawfish flavor. There's a theme there. And then you have cucumber and Italian red meat. I'm not sure why anyone would want that. And then, thank God, there's an American classic flavor. What are you looking for, honey, that you can't find? I'm looking for some corn chips. Had enough corny jokes. And now I'm ready for some corny chips. Most of the time we buy our chips from the Korean store. The Korean store gets imports from the military bases in South Korea. And then she's reselling that to foreigners here. So that's most of the time where we get any kind of foreign product like Tostitos. This is the only corn product they have. But that's all they need, really. How can you beat nacho cheese, seriously? These are all jujubes. And they're supposedly very healthy for women. Every time the Chinese give them to me, they'll say, Oh, this is good for women. I have no idea what that means. When we first moved here and the first week we were here, Brown got really, really sick. And I went to the grocery store to buy some water for him. And I brought back two huge jugs of water. And I was really surprised because they were quite expensive for water. This is what I actually bought. Yeah, that would be called Baiju. It's basically 80 proof. That's enough to get, I'd say, a rugby team drunk right there, that one jug. And that's what I brought back for my poor sick husband who was completely dehydrated. It's our lucky day. If we buy this piece of processed meat, we get a free bowl with it that you can chop it up and put it in. The cheese selection is horrible. There are really no options other than the packaged sliced cheese. If you like high calorie processed snacks, you have an endless supply here. I have no idea what this stuff is, but I'm not sure I would even try it if I'm given the opportunity. And it just goes on and on. I like the non-refrigerated jello with the fruit pieces. Now you'll see that it's household goods to the right, and those kinds of things. Sales in the middle. I'm not sure what that's supposed to say. Alcohol, beverages. This is really beautiful. If you're looking for gifts for people, this is a great place to come. It's tea from Laotian in these beautiful packages. That is gift sets of the tea, and much of it comes from and is grown in Laotian, where we live. I think it's supposed to be some of the best green tea in the world. Okay, we all know what Spam is, but here in China, just so you'll know, here's what it looks like. You know when you're cooking Chinese food, and you're looking for Chinese ingredients, like soy sauce? You go to the aisle, and there's a little bottle of Chungking soy sauce, and you've got to move all the stuff out of the way, and it's really expensive. Well, follow me. Soy sauce. Soy sauce on this side. Soy sauce on that side. Give them a close-up. They have a lot of fried food, and if you want to know how much fried food they have, and I love it. It's tasty. Here is where the oil is, and most of it is peanut oil. Is this soy sauce and oil? And oil. It's a gift. And a combo. And the peanut oil comes from the Shandong region, which is where we're in right now, grows tons of peanuts, like at home in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia. And just look, and if that's not enough over here, just come down here. This is all peanut oil, and it's a rich, tasty oil, as long as you like peanuts. And it comes in white, medium, and dark. It's delicious. And every morning, afternoon, and night, we are smoked out by the peanut oil that is being fried by the people below us and above us. In both of the places we've been in, the first thing that we have to do is clean the kitchen because there's a layer. Like six inches of grease. Of grease everywhere. One of the things they do ask us when we move into a place is please don't cook like the Chinese. They don't want us to cook and fry, which is really interesting. And it can just catch the whole building on fire. On fire, too. So take a look over here. And look, there's even more down at the end. That's cornmeal and rice. So it's already pre-scooped, but you can also scoop your own. This is where we get our eggs. They're not refrigerated. It's a lot cheaper if you buy eggs out of the cartons. So these are super cheap. That's like $1 for 25 eggs, I would say. And if you buy them in a container, you pay $2 for those 12. I know you guys are going to eat your heart out when you see this, but... Toilet paper. You've got to love it. You don't have it back in the States. No shortage here. We have mountains of it here. Lots of toilet paper. I know y'all are jealous. He wants to know if we have a card and wants to know if we need bags, but we are green and bring our own backpack. So Brown actually is going to pay by WeChat. He just has to put this code in front of this little scanner. No cash, no nothing, no cards, no fingerprints, all done. I hope you enjoyed seeing a Chinese grocery store. It's the one we've been using for four years. And it's where we call home. One time it was very strange and all. We know how to negotiate it now. We know the people. They wave to us. It's just the way it works. A lot of things are in English now that weren't before. Yeah. We hope you enjoyed it. Make sure to hit that like button and subscribe. Yeah, that'd be great. And ring the bell so you know when we have posted a new video. Ring my bell. My bell.