Fruit at Carrefour

The following are 2 different types of cherimoya (釋迦) that can be found at Carrefour:
	I grew up with this local cherimoya. It contains a lot of seeds and the hard skin breaks as one eats. A little messy, but extremely sweet. I haven’t been able to find it in the States.
	This kind of cherimoya started being imported to Taiwan since last year? Personally I don’t like it and can’t understand why Taiwanese would choose this one over the traditional kind.
And some other strange stuff:
	Chinese dates (棗子) are yummy! They are sweet and crunchy, with a big seed in the center. It’s a stone fruit and might be related to apples. I haven’t been able to find them in the States.
	Tons of gigantic persimmons (柿子)! And so sweet!
	This Dragon Fruit (火龍果) is really awesome looking! And so BIG!
	I forgot to take a photo of wax apples (蓮霧), so I pulled out a photo that I took earlier this year. The skin was extremely fragile (the main reason why it’s not in the States); the fruit is sweet and juicy. This particular one was a special case; it was much fatter than others but seemed pretty watery, too.
此乃牛塝是也. I have no idea what this vegetable is called in English.

Carrefour (家樂福)

A small Carrefour opened about 2 blocks away from my parents’ condo at the end of last year. Even though it’s much smaller compared to other Carrefour stores in Taipei, I bet that it killed quite a few small local business in the area. For example, except fruit, my mom buys pretty much everything there, including dinner. One time I questioned her how small business owners could compete against this giant, and she answered, “They can’t. They close their stores and go work for Carrefour.” Not a happy story.

On the other hand, this time I could definitely feel that the economy had deteriorated since my last visit in Feb: There were far fewer shoppers at Carrefour. In fact, Carrefour wasn’t alone; pretty much every restaurants and cafe I went, there were still plenty of seats. Very, very different from my last visit. Hopefully the economy will pick up soon! But with most manufacture factories moving to China, it’s hard for me to be optimistic.