Adventures in Foodland

Foodland is a 24 hour grocery store near Nuch's house. On a lazy Wednesday afternoon last week, Nuch and I stopped by to pick up some fruit for her mother.

I stole this picture from the Foodland website. It's a fairly large chain of stores, so you would think that they could have found a picture or taken a different one with a nicer car in the parking lot.

Here we are looking for fruit. Foodland has many strange and exotic specimens to choose from. So many that it was taking a bit too long to find the right ones, and I started getting bored. After 15 minutes of squeezing, shaking, and smelling, I wandered off around the store and started taking pictures (until the manager told me to stop). Anyway, that's the reason you're getting this blog and why it's not any longer.

Here is some Dragon Fruit. The inside has a soft, juicy, white flesh spotted with black seeds. It's supposed to be extremely healthy, and really popular with tourists, but I'm not sure if we have it in the US.

These are Rambutan. Red with soft spines growing from its skin, they looks like something from outer space. In Thai, they're called "Ngoh". If you can pronounce it properly, you're half way to becoming fluent.


With a lack of proper refrigeration in many rural, Thai homes, UHT Milk with its shelf-life of 6 - 8 months is fairly common. If I drink milk, it's usually from a box and usually warm.

Foodland even has Jagermeister. Apparently, it's a herbal liqueur. I always thought it was for hazing pledges.

I saw this sign in the bathroom. "Just say no to be permanent only 6 days". In English that means the Action on Smoking Health and Addictive Foundation has a 6-day program that can help you quick smoking forever.

Foodland also has a little restaurant called 'Took Lae Dee', which means Cheap and Good. Nuch and I had already eaten lunch, but we decided to stop by for a quick dessert.

Below is a picture of the first Banana Split I've ever had. I didn't realize that they actually split the banana. I guess I had just always assumed that the ice cream came between/ split two whole bananas, which is one reason I've never ordered one before - two whole bananas makes a fruit salad not a dessert. But I guess if that was the case, it would be called Bananas Separated.

You learn something everyday.

Last but not least - Essence of bird's nests. Do we have this in the US? It comes from a particular kind of bird that lives in caves and makes their nests out of saliva. The edible bird's nests are among the most expensive animal products consumed by humans - wikipedia. Once again, just because you can eat something, does not necessarily mean you should.

According to Thai television advertisements, essence of bird's nests has supernatural properties that can make you live longer, stay healthy, and discover the last digit of 'Pi'.

In Thailand, it's the standard holiday gift for important people in your life that you don't know very well. For example, your boss, elder but distant relatives, your wife's high school classmates, and monks.

50 USD for this little basket.