Supermarkets vs. Talats

For efficiency, it's hard to beat Vons or Ralphs, but for adventures in shopping, there's nothing like a talat anyday! Po's secretary took me to get some little packages of colored pencils to give to the students on our last day, Friday, and we headed out on her scooter to my favorite place, a couple bans down the road. It's 2000k (about 25 cents) to park under awnings in the shade and those black scooter seats get hot awfully fast, so we opted to splurge. Then we headed through the vendors selling vegetables, the vendors selling fruit, one of the several clothing stands, past the beauty products. Watch your step! Rarely are the aisles level; there's usually a step up or a couple down--or both. The smells from the hot food vendors were pungent. Anyone for fish on a stick that looks like fish on a stick? Not quite the same as hot dog on a stick, for some reason. Around several corners, there were the school supplies, in all their glory--Tinkerbell rulers, Hello Kitty notebooks, alphabet erasers, pens and highliters of every stripe, and there are the colored pencils! Six choices were almost too many, but we finally settled on Barbies and rainbows and let the students' choose. We negotiated the price, retraced our steps, bought water from an enterpreneurial gal who knew you'd probably need it coming or going, put on our helmets and we were off .