EMart: A Shopping Trip

EMart is the largest retailer in South Korea. It is almost the equivalent of the American Wal Mart or Target but not nearly as obnoxious or filled with junk...so, its actually nothing like Wal Mart. EMart carries everything from home goods, electronics and apparel to live king crabs and mechanical pencil refills. They have an expansive food and grocery section in the basement floor that Caitlin and I take advantage of for our weekly restock.

Here is one grocery trip's worth of the typical items we pick up on a weekly basis...you can see that a lot of the same things are available here as in an American grocery store. I also put this picture up to prove to my mom that, yes, they do have eggs in Korea. Gwangju is the fifth largest city in South Korea and is largely developed. However, according to Google Maps, EMart has yet to be built and the now-highly-recreational park across the street is still just tampered soil.

We typically get our fruit and vegetables from the outdoor market, but during this time of year the pickings are a bit slim [nor does the market have a fine wine selection]...


Of course, any trip home from the market would not be complete without utilizing the highly efficient Korean bag-sharing method...

Just one last tidbit of information...while looking up grocery stores on Wikipedia, I found that although many American grocery stores donate their leftover food "the USDA estimates that 27% of food is lost annually." Shameful, yes, but we can all help change the way our food systems work...in the words of Michael Pollan, "Eat real food, not too much, mostly plants."

... you could also sign this petition for Food Deomocracy Now.