8' Tall Blonde Baby Spotted in Shanghai!

Yesterday, Tim took the day off of work and spent it walking around Shanghai with Audrey, Joe and I. We learned the ropes of the buses and subway system so we could go out on our own today and find our way back to their place. Our stops included: The Oriental Pearl Tower, Bund neighborhood, Bund Sightseeing Tunnel, Nanjing Road, People's Square,lunch at Shanghai Godly Vegetarian restaurant (www.shgodly.com),then back to Tim & Laurel's to have some beers while Audrey took the world's longest nap (go figure!).
I must start here by saying that we really like Shanghai! A lot of the tour books don't really give it a lot of credit, but there are interesting neighborhoods, architecture, and good shopping. There's not a lot of famous sightseeing landmarks though. Anyways, the Oriental Pearl Tower is pretty much Shanghai's defining skyline architectural element, much like the Sear's Tower, Empire State Building, St. Louis Arch or the Space Needle. The funny thing about it, there are tons of photographers wanting to take your photo in front of it to sell you the photo. It's one of those buildings that you'll just never get a great shot of it all standing right in front. So the photographers' photos on display are pretty much people with "knobby ball heads" (like when you get your photo taken with a cactus and look like you have a cactus coming out of your head). And the other funny part about the photos, they all have a beautiful blue sky, which apparently is never the case.
The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel must be mentioned here. Technically, it's a way to ferry people under the Huangpu River, which separates the 2 sides of Shanghai, old and new. (Tim and Laurel live on the Pudong side, which is the new side) The ticket costs 40RMB ($5.70) but you can add other things to it, including an arcade located at the other side or a sex museum. The lady tried to upsell the sex museum to us, but Tim assured her that it was ridiculous to assume we would want to do that with a 2 year old girl in-tow. She sort of shrugged her shoulders like we were missing out and the kid would be fine. Odd. Anyways, you get on this little tram that runs on a track and you make your way through this dark tunnel under the river. There are lights, strange music and speaking going on the whole time. (ie, red lights made to look like flowing lava, scary music and someone saying 'Lava!') It was super odd, kitchy and sort of funny, but Audrey loved it of course and wanted to do it again! Sorry kiddo, but 40RMB was about 30 too many. :)
The Bund neighborhood is this section of town hugging the Huangpu River that is a throwback to the 1920s early Art Deco style. Its really pretty and reminds me of the scenery in Ang Lee's movie Lust, Caution.
We then walked along Nanjing Road, which is Shanghai's answer to Chicago's Miracle Mile or NY's 5th Avenue, but not quite as upscale as either of those. Just lots of shopping. Pearl Street Mall in Boulder perhaps... or somewhere in the middle. Anyways, this is where the 8' Tall Blonde Baby was spotted yesterday (were you wondering when that would come into play here?) At one point, Audrey rode around on Joe's shoulders and boy did that draw attention! We had heard that she would be popular here, having blonde, curly hair and blue eyes. Well, sitting up on Joe's shoulders, she was about 3-4' taller than anyone around us. Tim informed us that a lot of people were talking about her as we walked by saying, "Beautiful baby!" and some even snapped photos of her. The child rode her daddy's shoulders like an African princess rides in her thrown, held in the air by her faithful man servants (which Joe realizes, isn't far from the truth!). She had this sweet little outfit on, with ringlets bouncing with each step, and a regal, no nonsense look on her face. She glided through the air smoothly taking in her surroundings. Too too cute really. :)
We ended up at a vegetarian place for lunch that was yummy and inventive. We had a fake ham thing (I'm making this sound delicious I'm sure), eggplant in a yummy sauce, spicy bamboo shoots, chow mien noodles (Audrey loved these) and sesame seed 'soup' for dessert. It wasn't quite as good as the veggie place T&L took us to the day before (JuJu Tree or something?), but still fun for me to be able to order anything on the menu!