Shanghai Calling #4-- Photo Ops

Before I delve into everything that has occurred here, I want to mention this briefly. NBC News Washington bureau chief, moderator of "Meet the Press", and veteran political guru Tim Russert died on Friday of a heart attack at the age of 58. A notable and highly trusted name in political reporting, he will surely be missed. Hmm...I knew something unfortunate would happen on Friday the Thirteenth. :(
The family lunch was very uneventful, but just as I thought, there was way too much to eat. Other than that, not much to say about it. We also strolled through some malls, which are all pretty much like the U.S. except bigger. To keep myself occupied, I've been on the lookout for ads featuring celebrities/models that aren't Chinese, people who I recognize, or just ads similar to ones we have back in the States. Yeah, I know it sounds stupid, but I saw some of the ads and had the urge to take pictures. At one mall, I was taking pictures of cosmetic ads, some of which were the same as ours. Apparently, these salespeople thought I was going to use the pictures for business or something, so some lady yelled at me. : Geez. She said it was mall policy not to take any pictures. Yeah right. I'm definitely going to go back and sneak in some pictures. I don't care if those freaking people yell at me. I did manage to get a picture of a Elizabeth Arden ad with Catherine Zeta-Jones, the same exact one I've seen at Macy's back home. Pretty cool, but I should have taken a picture of the Lancome Tresor perfume ad with Kate Winslet (also one I've seen at Macy's) and Lancome for Men with Clive Owen (2 ridiculously pretty British people, get the picture?). Sorry, I'm being lame and rather shallow. Today, we walked around The Bund and the shopping district on Nanjing Road. It was a bad day to take pictures; haze and clouds covered the skyline.
Bad news: for some odd reason, I haven't been able to access any Blogspot URLs, so I can't visit any of your blogs or mine. The problem only started on Friday, so I'm trying to figure out what's wrong. It's not a computer issue: I've tried it on multiple computers, so it might be an Internet thing. Oh well. Unfortunately, it also means I can't read any of your comments. :( Hope I figure it out ASAP!