In which I shop for dog food and Snooky meets a Chinese Cat!

Very humid and thundery with lightening here in Nanjing today, there’s been some heavy rain too. But I’ve been out exploring and on a mission to get Snooky some food.

I’ve got to admit its not that much of a mission as I was going to the big supermarket I went to yesterday, but today I was unaccompanied and I wasn’t sure if they sold pet food.  Snooks had to stay at home. This is because I don’t really know what the policy is about taking dogs into the big stores here, they probably don’t have one.

Anyway leaving Snooks at home on the bed with the air con set to comfortable for her, I set off to the supermarket.  These are a few more pictures of 'home' and the school campus.

The school from across the road

Main entrance guarded by steel gates on the right

 Walking towards my accommodation

 One of the buildings - notice the kids all in military uniform, all over the country school kids are doing their obligatory military training before schools starts. They spend all day from early till late marching in formation, doing drills and stuff I don't know about.

 This is one of the teaching blocks

 Accommodation blocks, I think - there are about 3000 boarders

 The baseball field and sports field

 Road towards my accommodation

 The little garden outside of the main door to my accommodation

Once out of the school estate, I caught the right bus (No 89) and soon was at the stop for the supermarket, so I was pleased to manage that – it was only 3 stops so not that hard (PS three stops on a Chinese bus route is quite a long way)

Once there I had a mooch around the local area of the supermarket. There’s a local indoor market with loads of different vendors selling fruit, veg and meat and a few shops, banks, hairdressers and so on.

In the supermarket I bought a few things and found the pet food section, so now Snooks has got pedigree kibble, which I guess its called.  I also got some dental chews for her, she likes those. 

It’s a bit posher than the Lidl pet food she was on before in the UK. I’m sure she’ll miss the chewy chunks that are in the Lidl food as these were the chunks she would particularly pick out and eat before eating the other biscuits.

Later once back at the flat I agreed with Steve, one of the other ex pat teachers (English), to go to IKEA.  This is a shortish taxi ride away and we both needed stuff for our respective flats.

Nanjing IKEA is the hell you can probably imagine. The restaurant is impossible to get into and the aisles are jamb packed. But we got the things we needed, then we got the obligatory hotdog, I got real ground coffee in the shop for my French press which will do nicely.

IKEA hell

We also saw this religious comment which we thought was apt as China is a non religious society, although why the message is hidden on a sweet bag in IKEA is beyond me.

The heavens opened as we were getting a taxi and the rain was torrential. We got soaked. My hat was sopping. So sopping that I accidentally left it in the taxi – doh! 6000 miles just to lose my hat.

Once home I took Snooks out for a walk across the road and up to a local smaller supermarket to get some bottled water. In the shop Snooks met up with a Chinese cat. I think the cat was really surprised to see a dog in the shop. It probably has never seen a dog as it’s not a great pet owning nation.  Keeping its fur on high alert it followed us, at a safe distance, around the shop with a confused look on its face.  Snooks was mighty interested too.

Tomorrow I have to go to Nanjing City proper which is a bit of a hike on the bus, unless I wimp out and get a taxi. I have to register for the two day training i'm doing with the Agency that employs me.  So that should be fun, although Snooks will have to stay at home, alone.