Living in a city of (officially) 17 million leads to a lot of modernization and a lot of Westernization. A couple years ago I might have lamented the omnipresence of Western business in foreign lands, but as a person that now lives in one of those places, Thank God for franchising!
It does not take much work to find a lot of Western stuff, the grocery store is full of Oreos, Lays, and plenty of Proctor and Gamble products. When we need something more specific there are a few Western grocery stores scattered throughout the city that sell import products from around they world (cheese!). Finally, KFC and McDonalds are everywhere (Chipotle is still nowhere to be found though, and will be visited within 24 hours of my return to America, probably twice).
Finally, though, Western stuff means Western prices as things cost about the same as they would in America, which usually means twice as expensive as they cost here and as a result Pizza Hut is considered a popular date restaurant, KFC is a special treat, and Dairy Queen is a upper middle class location.
Of note, this post was written from a Starbucks, where I ordered my iced coffee in the local language and they spoke back to me in English . . . still cost me about 3 bucks.
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