Grocery Shopping in Cairns

We have arrived in Cairns, Australia (which the locals pronounce as "Cans" and I'm still deciding which way I'll pronounce it). So we rented a car...oh my goodness!!! Derek and I laughed so hard! This whole driving on the wrong side of the road thing is hilarious. (More on all of the differences we are noticing in a later post). Anyway, we made it to our hotel and even ventured out to the grocery store. The first thing we picked up was Milo (not our cat). It a malted chocolate drink (I think it's sort of like chocolate milk), which Heather had requested (this can is coming home for you, Heather). Grocery shopping was bizaare, as they don't have any of the same brands here, so you have to read each label carefully. We found chicken chips (which we tried about 5 minutes ago and decided NOT to finish), and Tim Tams (malted chocolate wafer cookies..mmmm).

Buying cheese was even strange. Cheese was labelled as Tasty or Super Tasty. Not knowing what this meant, we erred on the side of caution and went with 'Mild'. Milk was also strange as regular milk was labelled as not less than 4% milk fat (uh, no thanks) so we went with 'Light White' which we think is close to 1% milk.

Another strange thing was that Papayas were less expensive than apples here in the grocery store. Finally, when we were in the checkout, the cashier asked if we were from Canada or America. When we told him Canada, Derek asked "How can you tell?" and then said, "You aren't going to tell me I have an accent are you?" To which the guy simply shrugged and smiled. We are loving it here so far as the weather is 25 to 30 degrees celcius (unlike the unseasonably cold Syndey at around 15 degrees). We're off to the beach tomorrow!!!