Please give me more advice to live in Minneapolis. (St. Paul: 2015, apartments)

[Bagi]

I am Asian student and my boyfriend and me just came in Minneapolis 3 days ago. I had some difficulties so far to adapt our new lifestyle. Please give us your more advice.

1. I am studying English language. What opportunities can I improve my English in my free time? Especially conversation practice.

2. Right now We are living in Uptown and we need to rent apartment. We have found 2 bedrooms in Loring park and Laurel Village apartments. Do you have any experience and thought about those apartments? How about safe in the morning and evening?

3. We thought that there are more Asian immigrants living in Minneapolis. But within past 2 days we walked around downtown and pedestrians starred at us as a strangers. We were surprised and scared. Is there any problem for Asian or?

4. Our main meal is made by meat. We cant find grocery mall near Uptown with cheap price. There is Wedge Community Co-op grocery store, but price is high. We dont have a car and we cant go far away.Do you know any affordable grocery mall near Uptown or downtown?

We will appreciate your helpful advice and comments. Thank you.

[ellysbelly]

Welcome to MN!

I can't help with your first 3 questions, but for your 4th question:

If you have the ability to portion and freeze, if might be worthwhile to rent a car for a few hours or take an Uber (similar to a taxi) to Costco in St Louis Park; alternatively you might want to go to an ALDI store (there's one in Richfield-- and there might be another one closer to you).

Costco will require an annual membership (unless you can have someone buy you a Costco $10 giftcard, then you can shop there without a membership), but they have fantastic prices on meat and poultry, as well as a good bit of variety (the only issue is that they tend to sell in fairly large quantities). ALDI has smaller quantities, excellent prices, but less variety than Costco.

Hope that helps!

[CCbaxter]

As for #2, those locations are generally safe. There is some drug use in Loring park and of course there is always the chance of trouble in a large city, must overall Minneapolis is ok

3, the bulk of the Asian population in the metro lives on the east side in St. Paul. But it's not like people have never seen Asians in Minneapolis. Don't be scared, people are most likely curious, not hostile.

As for groceries there is a lunds or byerlys downtown, can't remember which and also a Target that has groceries. You should be able to get to both by bus.

Welcome and good luck.

[gweilo845]

1. I am studying English language. What opportunities can I improve my English in my free time? Especially conversation practice.


> Does your school have any programs for this? There also may be clubs you can join.

2. Right now We are living in Uptown and we need to rent apartment. We have found 2 bedrooms in Loring park and Laurel Village apartments. Do you have any experience and thought about those apartments? How about safe in the morning and evening?


> Loring Park is safe for the most part. There are winos/panhandlers around but they're more of a nuisance than a danger.

3. We thought that there are more Asian immigrants living in Minneapolis. But within past 2 days we walked around downtown and pedestrians starred at us as a strangers. We were surprised and scared. Is there any problem for Asian or?


> Minneapolis doesn't have as big of an Asian population as other cities like Chicago, NYC, LA, etc. But there are no real problems for them AFAIK. If you go near the U of M you will see tons of Asian people, mostly exchange students, but there are a fair number who live near there as well.

4. Our main meal is made by meat. We cant find grocery mall near Uptown with cheap price. There is Wedge Community Co-op grocery store, but price is high. We dont have a car and we cant go far away.Do you know any affordable grocery mall near Uptown or downtown?


> In Uptown, there is a Rainbow grocery store. Downtown, there is a Target that has a decent grocery department. In the Eat Street section of Nicollet Avenue, there is an Asian supermarket Shuang Hur that has stuff you won't find at many other stores. All of these stores are well served by buses.

[bfrabel]

Originally Posted by gweilo845

We cant find grocery mall near Uptown with cheap price.

> In Uptown, there is a Rainbow grocery store. Downtown, there is a Target that has a decent grocery department. In the Eat Street section of Nicollet Avenue, there is an Asian supermarket Shuang Hur that has stuff you won't find at many other stores. All of these stores are well served by buses.

The Uptown Rainbow is now called Cub Foods, it's at 1104 Lagoon Ave. Another suggestion for a large Asian grocery store is United Noodle at 2015 East 24th St. If you want to find other Asian people, that might be the place to find them.

Welcome to Minnesota, I hope you find that you like it here.

[LS35a]

Loring Park used to be notorious for gay cruising and there were bashings reported. I lived there and never had anyone threaten me, but I got tired of the cars driving by real slow looking to pick up guys.

[pete6032]

Loring Park is a good neighborhood, I would not be afraid of living there.

What Country are you from? There are many ethnic Asian groups in the Twin Cities but they tend to separate based on where they are from.

[Mplsite]

Loring Park is close to the Whittier neighborhood where there are Asian grocery stores which are cheap and a Mexican grocery store too.Laurel Village is right across from Lund's grocery store, but while convenient it is more expensive. I sometimes shop at Aldi's on Franklin Ave or Lake St which is really cheap and has good $2 frozen dinners when they're in stock. Target is next to Loring Park and cheaper than other options close by. There's Little India grocery store which is a bit far, but you can take the #10 bus and it has a huge selection of cheap Indian frozen dinners for $2-$3 each. Definitely worth a trip.

For English practice, do you drink beer? There are numerous bars where people would be more than willing to chat with you. There's also meetup.com and I'm sure there's a group for ESL (English as a Second Language) people looking to practice their English.

[bostonguy1960]

To practice English, you may enjoy listening to radio talk shows, whether local or national sports, news or politics or other topics.

You can listen while at the gym or out walking, even while in bed.

[Jenny979]

Your school should have resources to help you. I had a book of resources to help with all kinds of needs for Hennepin and Ramsey county.