Today at the Fivi-Mart: Update

It was another late night at the office today and was raining outside tonight, so I decided to get a pizza from ZPizza (anybody ever heard of that?  It's like CPK and I guess they're all over in California but I've never heard of it!  20 are coming to Vietnam though!).  Anyway, while I was waiting I ran upstairs to the Fivi-Mart, our neighborhood's local supermarket, to buy a tall cold beverage to accompany my pizza.

While I was wondering the aisles, I noticed all sorts of funky stuff that you wouldn't see at the local Safeway store. 

In the 'fridge section.  Next to eggs.  Anyone?

Also in the 'fridge section.  No clue.

 Nuts maybe?  Underneath the California raisins boxes.

My favorite!  Want Want Shelly Senbei!  Yum?

 Runny nose?  Cute tissue!

Not bait!  Fresh for dinner!

Obviously there's quite a bit of Japanese stuff.  Or maybe it's Chinese?  In any case, there's an inordinate number of products which are completely unfamiliar to me.  About the only aisle which feels remotely like an American supermarket is the bottled water aisle.  'Guess it's a good thing I can't cook.

The funniest part of the store comes at check out!  They have barcode scanners, just like home.  Your products ring up on a computer screen so you can see exactly what you've purchased along with the price, etc.  Since they don't take green stamps or credit cards, you pretty much have to pay cash, which is like paying with monopoly money and usually takes a good 3-4 minutes each time I buy as I sort through the funny bills in my wallet and try to figure out what each one is.

After annoying the line of customers tapping their toes behind me, I hand the checker my cash, she rings up the sale and open pops the cash drawer!

What you see is basically a wooden drawer with a couple of partitions for a few of the denominations, but they don't look very organized and they just kinda flop around in their sections.  (And, yes, taking this picture made for a very awkward moment or two!).  Funny, huh?

So that's my trip to the Fivi-Mart!  I need to head off to bed now, but not before I crack open my package of Want Want Shelly Senbei!

UPDATE:

While Chi and I were at lunch yesterday, we made a sidetrip to the Fivi-Mart and she explained what each of my mystery items are:

Further correction: These are "Pandan Mantou" and are Chinese (mantou means Chinese steamed buns).  Pandan adds flavor to these vegetarian buns.  Still, no cute kittie will convince me to try these.  

My friend Bill was right.  Kinda.  These are eggs, but just chicken eggs, not quail.  Had I looked more closely, I could have seen they were eggs.  But they're not in the refridgerated section, so that threw me off.

Japanese peanut snacks of some kind.

These are puffy round rice snack crackers...and not something I especially "Want Want".

Tissue. 

Fish.

Chi also gave me an update about the cash drawer.

If you look closely, in the bill section which would be just under the checkers hands (and second from the right), you can make out three candies.  The checkers give customers those lieu of change for small bill denominations the store no longer carries. 

So if your bill comes to 174,800 VND and you hand the checker 180,000, you'll get a 5,000 Dong note and a candy or two two make up for the fact that she doesn't have the 200 note (less than one cent) to give you full change.