Kindly Eggs

Today we took a wander out to the Industrial Park, to Saigon Department Store and Grocery, another visible reminder of our city's growing diversity (and in particular, its burgeoning Asian community). I'd never visited Saigon before but when a work acquaintence told me last week it had an impressive collection of bags and jewelry I knew it was a must-visit.


She was right - they do have an impressive collection of jewelry and bags, along with a LOT of other interesting imports - but nothing that said "buy me" to me today. However, I did snag this incredibly awesome solar-powered Hello Kitty who does a bit of a side-to-side bobble-dance for your amusement.


I've been a Hello Kitty fan since I was a kid. Any new source of Hello Kittiness is a reason to celebrate. (I held off buying the Hello Kitty desk lamp. For now. [She types, using her Hello Kitty mouse.])





The store also has an impressive grocery section featuring packaged and frozen foods from India, Vietnam, China, Korea, and a few dozen other source countries.


That's where we found the Kindly Eggs. We didn't buy the Kindly Eggs, but we were impressed by the fact that they're proudly LEAD FREE. That's what I look for in my groceries, boy.


Fredericton's individual Asian communities are really each too small to support specialized stores (except for the Chinese community, here for a couple of hundred years - there are a couple of Chinese-oriented groceries) but this group has taken the approach of serving a variety of Asian communities. The place was busy on a Saturday afternoon, and I hope they do very well. We'll be back.


Incidentally, these photos were taken with my new cellphone, the Samsung M450, sold in the US as the "Rant" and in Canada as the "Slyde". Its selling point for us was the slide-out qwerty keyboard - because of my hearing disability and habit we still send about six texts for every one call.


We got the new phones when switching recently from Rogers to Koodo. Koodo we picked after about a year of research. (Among other advantages, I'll now have coverage while visiting my parents in Newfoundland - Rogers didn't cover their part of the island at all.) But the best thing about the switch, by a country mile, was being able to tell Rogers, with their incomprehensible bills, their "system access fees", and their recent decision to make people pay to receive text messages - as well as send them - to go royally fuck themselves.


Ahhh. Sorry to work blue... but it feels so good every time I say it.


ronnie