shopping

shopping is one of my favorite ways to spend my free time. i don't actually buy much when i shop. in the states i just love to go to stores like anthropologie and smell all their delicious soaps and touch their super soft clothes. i think for me "shopping" is a way to get out of my house, surround myself with people, and imagine new possibilities - even if the possibility is as simple as new hand soap for my bathroom.

here in mongolia, shopping isn't the same kind of mindless pleasure filled with sweet scents and soft fabrics. instead, it's a rather conscious exercise in both language and culture practice. and it's more like a scavenger hunt than anything else.

case in point, i needed light bulbs for my kitchen. i bought one at a housing goods store, but it was too big for the light fixture. i went back to the store yesterday, but it was closed. so i went to the store next door, but they didn't have the right size of light bulbs. today i need to do a lot of shopping for gifts and stuff like that. i don't want to be carrying around two small, fragile lightbulbs all day, so this morning i woke up trying to figure out the best way to go about actually buying the bulbs and getting them to my house. this is shopping in mongolia. not sweet scents and soft fabric, but how to get light bulbs for my kitchen. hehe