Chinese New Year Shopping Frenzy and Another Local Kimchi

Yesterday at Aeon, there was quite a crowd at the supermarket.

My partner and I arrived slightly later than usual. The day before, Mum requested me to buy the Sunday newspaper for her.

So before our grocery run, my partner drove me to the petrol station (which was within walking distance right across from my brother's house LOL!) to pick up the papers. 

Mum is not the outdoorsy type and does not venture out of the house. Besides, my brother and I wouldn't want her to go out on her own as it is not safe for her.

After we dropped the newspaper, we made our way to Aeon. Wah, there was a queue to enter the carpark and we were not able to park at our usual spot.

There were so many shoppers, more people than usual. I think in the days leading up to Chinese New Year, there will be even more people, all in a shopping frenzy.

There is one more Sunday to go before Chinese New Year.

Then when it was time to check out, alamak the queue at all the cashier counters were so long, all the way to the back of the store.

As usual, my partner tried to find the shortest queue. As we moved forward, we realized that we had queued at the self-checkout counter LOL!

To cut the long story short, the self-checkout kiosk had many shortcomings. There was a staff to assist us and she apologized profusely for the inconvenience.

Well, well. I picked up another locally made kimchi.

I needed a benchmark against my (disastrous) homemade kimchi. 

The ingredients appeared to be all right.

It seemed clean enough.

I did not see MSG in the ingredients (if the disclosure is to be trusted). This is how the kimchi looks like.

It is not fiery red which means that mine has too much chili flakes. Tastewise I liked it very much except for one thing. This kimchi has a sweet taste.

I reckon, there is added sugar (after the kimchi fermented) because sugar in the initial kimchi paste is consumed by the bacteria and converted into lactic acid and some other by products.

But no regrets, it's good to try a few brands to taste the variations of kimchi made by different manufactures. It would be great if I could taste kimchi made by an Ajuuma!