biabia (:

Did quite a bit of grocery shopping on this Wednesday. It was damn exciting to compare price across super markets, trying to find the cheapest salami, cheapest fruits, cheapest bread. Best deals around. Researching online with their brochures.

Bought raisin puree by mistake, was intending to buy raisins? to go with oat -.- took the wrong one cos it was cheaper.. Damn freaking lame. That’s to found out later that the more pricey supermarket, F?tex, was selling raisins at a lower price…

Anyway, over here, they don’t give out plastic bags at supermarkets, they have to be purchased. So people usually bring their own shopping bags. I think it is really a good idea. The incentive or rather decentive to use our own shopping bags in Singapore is just too little. If I’m not wrong the BYOB day is only on every Wednesday and you only get a 10cent rebate for a minimum of SGD10 spent. Over here, we pay like almost SGD1 for each plastic bag we buy. But of course, if we suddenly implement like charging for each plastic bag you get at NTUC, the whole lot of Singaporeans will just make a great lot of noise.

Here, you can decide how many plastic bag you want to use, not like in Singapore, where the cashiers pack our groceries for us – that’s why people will make noise cos they have no say in the number of bags the cashier uses. In Denmark, you pack your own purchases. Yes, being a cashier here is quite slack in comparison with in Singapore. They just scan, collect money, give you change, can they can to sit down while working. The “gan cheong” people are the customer:

1. We have to lay all our our purchases on the roller, out from our baskets/trolley.
2. Stack the baskets on our own. No placing of the baskets on the rollers.
3. Turn the barcodes up so that it is easier for the cashiers to scan.
4. Place the “next customer” sign between your purchases and the next customer’s on the rollers.
5. Struggle to get your money out, and they round up 50 cents/?re when you pay by cash cos that’s the smallest denominator of coins here.? Maybe that’s why most people here pay by card. That’s what I’ve decided to do too, not to let them cheat me of all the few ?res.
6. Rush to keep your purchases in your bag, cos the groceries of the next customer will come very soon.

In Singapore, we are just so pampered. Think I wouldn’t be used to not packing my own groceries the next time I visit NTUC, lol.