the grocery stories make me laugh now

Our three main food resources were our back yard (when we lived at the river house), the bi-weekly farmer's market and a little health food store called Bali Buddha which also is a cafe.  When we moved, our yard wasn't growing much yet.  We ordered from Kafe a lot as it's one of my favorite places on Earth and from Flava Lounge, which is owned by Robin's son, our friend, Noel. 

Contrary to this picture's main product, we did not purchase large quantities of beer here...or anywhere, actually.  I never drank alcohol in Ubud until the last two nights when I was no longer on call or volunteering with the clinic.  Just felt safer that way for me.

There were two main grocery stores we used and I certainly did not take enough pictures of the neat grocery store while we were in bali.  From the one you see pictured, we mainly, we bought produce, tempe, nuts, snacks and fun random items there.  This would include art supplies, dog collars and leashes for Bebe and Happy, a little kid's potty, and rubber animals for the girls to play with.  Most of the Bear's birthday gifts came from the grocery store: oil pastels, colored pencils that were watercolors, paintbrushes, notepads, rulers, and those rubber animals.   I am laughing just writing this!

At the other store, we mainly bought fruit, veggies, pasta noodles, sauces, and then random stuff like: towels, underwear, tank top undershirt things that E wore once and proclaimed too itchy to wear twice, notepads, some pots or pans and a poster with animals on it with their indonesian names below.  We tried to buy preemie clothes for one tiny babe at the clinic but never could find anything small enough for this wee one so bought the next smallest items we could find.  Oh, and we bought coffee here sometimes.  Available for purchase was also perfume and watches but we did not partake.  Fun times, really. 

I will spare you any details of how inadequate the bathroom facilities were; that was the very worst part of grocery shopping for sure.  They were horrible, oh, beyond horrible at both places.  If it hadn't been emergency situations in such a crowded on the street place far away from other facilities, we never would have gotten near them.  trust me.  yuh-uck.  i shudder.

The very best part is you now get to imagine us loading all of this stuff onto the back and front of our neighbor's  motorbike...with two kids.  It was awesome.  You may now understand my dilemma about wanting to buy the long handled broom and hubby's negative head nod when we thought about how to get it home...in the rain.  So, we settled for our short-handled one back at home.  Yep, laughing, again.