Food

On the subject of food, the prices here are unbelievably high compared to UK.

E.g. bunch parsley + 1 lettuce + 1 yellow pepper + 2 large tomatoes + 1 lemon + 3 very small garlic = around £7.60, 1 seeded bread loaf okay quality costs around £2.75/3 at a cheap shop. A shop like Waitrose and you'll double these prices! 

Everyday items that in the UK you'd spend around £5 for are $10 plus 15% tax. We've found the Dollarstore ($1-$2 each item) and this has provided a useful retail experience for some basics like storage crates for clothes and food. Yet there are some more exciting items lurking in the dollarstores E.g. we've dined on escargo. 

The other newish experience here is buying food from the Bulk Food stores. Here you enter an emporium of dry goods stored in big tubs where you help yourself to what ever quantity you want into plastic bags and pay by weight. The unusual thing is that you find say organic spelt pasta right next to artificial sprinkles!*! It's fun selecting all sorts of things to try like tamari almonds and then buying storage jars for them. Mark has sampled a variety of sweetie delights, god only knows what's in them. 

We bought locally caught fresh cod and scallops from an ex-UK, now very happy Canadian fisherman. Delicious flavour and well priced too.