The unexpected finding on Cockburn Street, Edinburgh... A nice uncle, discounted plums and halal snacks :D

I wish I could take and post the picture of that nice uncle in this small grocery shop but I guess that would have been a breech of privacy. So a picture of the shop will have to suffice.
So anyway, here I was, as usual, wandering around, being amazed by the amazingly preserved old buildings in Old Town of Edinburgh, looking for trinkets to bring back home, when I stumbled upon this grocery shop.

And I decided to drop by because I saw the row of fruits on display. There were red and purple plums, strawberries, lemon, banana etc all sold at so cheap a price that I was rather surprised, and of course, delighted. Strawberries were sold for 99 pence a box (about 6-7 inside), the red plums were 30 pence a piece, so of course I scurried inside to ask for a bag.

Inside this warm shop (heater, of course lol sometimes I enter shops just to get myself out of the cold :p) was a sweet - looking middle aged Middle - Eastern - looking uncle, trying to converse in English with a group of non - English speaking tourists so I ambled around first. Much to my delight, there were samosas, sandwiches with halal labels, cup noodles (Singapore halal label), baked goods, dairy products, toiletries etc sold at such low prices. I mean, 500 ml of milk for 50 pence? Lots of useful groceries especially if you are renting an apartment that allows cooking. But then there are also non - halal meat sold and I think I can't really judge him for this as he's catering to non - Muslim market too.

So, back to my plums. I got my bag and got myself the 3 red plums of 30 pence and 3 purple plums of unknown price. And he charged me only 1 pound and 50 pence!!! Initially he charged me 2 pounds but as I struggled to look for the other 50 pence in my helplessly - cluttered bag he told me that the 1 pound and 50 pence I had put on the counter earlier was enough. Even as I insisted, he just smiled and dismissed me.

The same thing happened when I came back for the second time, and he even smiled in recognition, which sort of gives you a warm feeling when you are in a foreign place :)

Another thing, well, sort of related to this post, that amazed me is that the sellers here simply leave their good outside the shop unattended even though it's out of their view. I mean, that is one hell of trust level. But if you look around, there are many CCTV too in certain areas so I guess fair enough. I guess the security is pretty good then for them to be able to do so or the people's moral are pretty high.