Eating Dumplings In Pajamas

Can you guess what I did yesterday?

Can you?

That’s right baby – Disney on Ice! Are you jealous? You totally should be, it was awesome.

Got tickets for M for Christmas. She’d never really been to an auditorium show before – a short one at the aquarium on her class trip in October, but this was her first “big show”. She spent most of the first half hiding behind the set in front of her, peering over the top, then shrieking when a character came on that she recognised (“Baloo! Mom! Look! IT’S BALOO!”), then going back to hiding behind the seat. Eventually she settled down and sat on one of our laps and stared with glazed fascination.

It was good fun, we all really enjoyed it. Since we don’t have any English language kids channels, M mainly watches DVDs, and she’d got a pretty substantial proportion of the Disney canon. She ‘knows’ that these were just people in costumes, but I think in that way that you can when you are 3, she really bought into those characters as being ‘real’.  She really liked the Jungle Book bit, that’s been a longtime favourite film. There was a Pirates of the Caribbean number (based on the ride, not the film, which is based on, erm, the ride…) that she liked. Also one based on the Haunted Mansion, which I quite enjoyed and thought was nicely done, and M mostly watched through her fingers from behind the chair.

Lately she has been getting into watching The Incredibles too; we have had it for a while but she never wanted to watch it until recently. Part of the ’story’ – such as it is – of the show involved the Incredibles having to save Donald Duck and Minnie Mouse, who have been put under a spell by Malificent. (You may remember her from Sleeping Beauty – the wicked queen with the spinning wheel? Yeah, that’s her.)

So it was a good time, fun show, everything all good, happy happy, brilliant family day out. Oh, until was time to leave, and M wanted us to buy some overpriced plastic piece of crap pirate sword, and we didn’t, and she had a massive meltdown that lasted all the way out of the arena and down two city blocks until we could get into a cab. In the cab she passed out, slept for a good 20 minutes, then woke up getting out of the cab and carried on having her enormous strop-to-end-all-strops for about another hour. *sigh* Three year olds, they really don’t know much about gratitude, I tell you.

I was talking to a friend (thanks, you know who you are) recently about this blog and how I felt bad that I am not writing more stuff more often, but that I find myself alternating between feeling like I have so much I want to tell people but don’t know how to say it, and feeling like my everyday life is really actually not all that interesting and not being able to think of much to say that I think anyone would want to read about. What she suggested was that I stop thinking about people reading it, and if I didn’t have something I was particularly burning to get out, just write down a paragraph or two about something, anything that I did that day or the day before, even if it seems like ‘nothing’ particularly happened that day, because there are things that we all become used to after living here for a little while that have become pedestrian to us, but that are still interesting for friends and family to read to get a picture of what life here is like. And, if I just start writing anything, likely it will prompt a bunch of other thoughts, and before long I’ll have written more than I had thought I would. Which is probably true because as most of you know, I pretty much never know when to shut up.

So, with that in mind, here’s some stuff I did the other day.

There is a ferry terminal over the road from where we live where we can get the boat back and forth across the river to Puxi. For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the city, Shanghai divided by the HuangPu River; one side is known as Puxi (“Pu-west”) and the other as Pudong (“Pu-east”). The ferry terminal on the Pudong side delivers passengers to the rim of the very symbol of Shanghai modernity, the concrete canyons of Lujiazui, with its bewildering array of skyscrapers jostling for attention in the financial district. On the Puxi side, passengers are disgorged at the edge of the “Old City” of Shanghai, the area that was once a walled fishing village before Shanghai became an international metropolis, and although no longer physically walled, still maintains dense warren of narrow streets inhabited by longtime residents accustomed to little privacy and even less living space.

When you get off on the Puxi side, you come out into an open area that is sort of part street, part construction site (well actually that describes most street in Shanghai actually, but this is a bit more broad than most). The route out to the main road crossing is lined with vendors proffering all manner of snacks -roasted sweet potatoes, tea-boiled eggs, rolled up egg pancake things, slabs of melon on sticks, fatty spicy lamb kebabs are some of the things generally on offer. Lately I’ve noticed a few guys selling an interesting looking confection off the back of their trikes like this bloke:

This fellow was a funny chap. He told me his name but sadly I’ve forgotten it. He said he comes from “a place near Russia”. The giant slab of stuff he is selling is, like, chopped nuts and seeds in a sweet, semi-solid mass, sort of like a marzipan kind of thng, decorated with candy fruits. I forget the name of this as well. (I know, I know I should write these things down straight away.) I bought a chunk of it and it is so dense and sweeeeeeet, I imagine it shall take me the better part of a month to get through it, as I can manage only two or three nibbles at a go. It’s really good though.

From there I headed over to the commodities market, a popular area to pick up… well, just about anything you might imagine really. In great quantities. I was actually off in search of birthday gifts for 4 year olds (M has two parties to go to this weekend) but this time of year of course Chinese New Year is coming up, so there are multitudes of stalls to go to buy all of your festive Year of the Tiger needs.

Or, if you prefer, a Spirograph.

Anyone want pizza?

I think that means “Merry Christmas!” I’m pretty sure but I’m to lazy to go look it up right now. You can see how lazy I am by the fact that it’s, like, two weeks after Christmas and I’m finally just now getting my butt in gear to write about it. Well hey, better late than never, right?

Part of the reason it’s taken so long is that I feel like there’s so much I want to say about Christmas in Shanghai, but then when I try to write it down I can’t think what to say. Because it’s a really weird thing. I mean, the question I was getting from some of you beloved friends and family was, “So do they like, do anything there for Christmas, or what?”

No idea what this stage is for. I think it is actually just for people to stand on whilst other people take their picture.

And the answer is that yes, they definitely “do something” here. Lots of things. Everything except, well, celebrate Christmas. Everyplace – I mean everyplace – you go there are decorations, trees, lights, windows with that spray snow stuff stenciled into festive shapes, poinsettia plants (real ones, fake ones) galore. Santa faces everywhere. Special sweets and treats for sale. Christmas carols playing in the shopping centres and cafes. The photo at the top of this post is pretty representative – that’s a 10 floor department store (see the people in the lower right, for scale) festooned with a super-size Santa.  But you know, here’s the deal: people here, they love to shop, and they love to decorate with multicoloured lights, both as often and as extravagantly as possible. So, they love Christmas.

One of about five thousand market stalls selling every bit of brightly coloured Christmas gear you might possibly ever need, and may you won't.

Everything but the, you know, the actual Christ part. Because it’s not a holiday here. Everyone (chinese) just gets up and goes to work, like any other day. They don’t really have Christians. There are a handful, but it’s highly discouraged. Foreigners can have religious services but only foreign passport holders can attend. Attempting to recruit/minister to local people is against the law and will get you deported. (Woo hoo, no Jehovah’s Witnesses knockin’ on my door on a Saturday morning.) But Christmas is as good an excuse as any to buy stuff and put up lots of lights and eat sweets and that sort of thing, so hey they’re into it. All except the Jesus stuff. What can I say?

But it is nice to hae something of a festive atmosphere, even if it is sometimes a little wonky (you’ll notice in the top photo, Santa has 3 Rudolphs – they try so hard here sometimes, but just don’t quite get it.) From Thanksgiving on, most of the bigger hotel chains have some sort of regular special events going, like boozy Sunday brunches featuring traditional western holiday foods – I’m a big fan of these, ha ha, although ’tis true they have done my waistline no favours. We went to a nice one the weeekend before Christmas at the Hilton (in an insane world, one can always go to a Hilton for a bit of serenity, anywhere in the world – globalisation ain’t all bad, folks) and they had a big electric train village thingie set up, a quintet playing classical music, activities for the kids, all very civilised.

Who doesn't love a giatn train set? No one, that's who.

Christmas Eve we went with another couple and their two girls to a ’stew and pie’ buffet sponsored by one of the Abundant Grace International Fellowship church at another hotel. Good food, not fancy but very homey. After the buffet there was a carol service, which we sort of half-attended – it was very crowded and we hadn’t finished our meal fast enough to get seats so there was only standing room at the back left. The two dads decided that they would be magnanimous and give up their standing space to others, in favour of retiring to the hotel lobby and having drinks.  There was space up front for all the kiddies to sit  on the floor so the three girls did that for a bit, but started to get a bit restless, so eventually we gave up and joined the dads in the lobby whilst the girls ran around and exhausted themselves. Ordinarily not behavior one might condone in a nice hotel lobby , but it was all good cheer and happy happy, and no one seemed put off by three little blonde girls dancing around the big tree shrieking “Santa is coming”. So we just let them get good and tired, then bundled off into a cab before it all ended in tears. (As many of you know, with toddlers, it can all go so wrong, so quickly…)

Look! Santa was here!

Fortunately, having been sufficiently exhausted the night before, M slept in fairly late on Christmas morning; no racing for presents at dawn, which G and I much appreciated. She was very excited to see that Santa had eaten his biscuits and drunk the nip of scotch we left for him, and of course, to see the big pile of loot he had left for her. Kind of a challenge for Santa to restrain himself – toys are plentiful and inexpensive here, even the ones not tainted with lead and other toxins.

No, it's not a very small tree. It's a very big Barbie.

The rest of Christmas Day was a fairly quiet affair. We hung around the house most of the morning into early afternoon drinking coffee with Baileys (well, G & I did) and eating pain au chocolat and other goodies.  In the afternoon we went out and had Japanese food and then went to the aquarium. So, not really a traditional way to spend Christmas, but we had fun!

Hello again peoples! Cannot believe Christmas is 3 days away, how did this happen? Anyway, sorry again for the long lag between posts, have still been working on my Chinese lessons and now that those have finished (for now, until after the holidays) I’ve been trying to get out into this crazy city and, you know, try to put them to use and stuff. So, here’s another collection of pics I’ve taken whilst out and about, I think you’ll be able to work out what links them – so, not quite as much commentary from me this time. Soon though I hope to post some photos pertaining to Christmas in Shanghai (and boy what a trip that is) where I’ll have lots to say, believe me…

Ni hao y’all. Here’s a random collection of pics, really the only thing that links them is that they’re photos I’ve taken on impulse as I’ve been walking around. I see loads of interesting stuff all the time but of course the problem is, even though I carry a camera almost all the time, when I see something by the time I’ve gotten the camera out and turned it on and all of that bother, the moment is gone. Ah well, I keep trying. Here’s what I’ve got, for now…

Kite seller on a market street near Yu Yuan having a little midday snooze

Impromptu card game. (Everywhere you go in this town, there will probably be a cluster of men playing cards.)

Random view up Shiji Dadao (Century Avenue). The tall building to the right of center with the phone mast up top is where G’s office is – 29th floor.

Workmen shiny-ing up the shiny bits at Jing ‘An Temple. At least that’s what I’m guessing they are doing. I don’t really know, I just make stuff up as it suits me really.

Practicing the cha-cha at Fuxing Park. (That’s pronounced Foo-shing, FYI, not Fuck-sing. Don’t say Fuck-sing, it’s wrong and naughty.)

Just a boy takin’ his chicken out for walk. As you do.

Fishin’ for goldfish. You pay a few kuai, get a bucket a rod and some bait, and then you’ve got 10 minutes to catch what you can. You catch it, you keep it.

Gutted lane house near Taikang Lu. I call this photo, Get Out! Son of Bitch You.

I don’t have anything clever to say about this. It’s just a picture of a gate.

Just a sort of typical street scene. Most regular small streets you walk down, it will all look kind of like this, one shopfront right after the other.

This was snapped out of the window of a taxi as we sat in traffic on the Yan’An highway, which is the main elevated highway running east-west across the center of the city. The building with the funny dome is a restaurant, but I don’t really know anything else about it. It’s just, you know, kind of cool in its kitschy idiosyncratic way. Like a lot of stuff here.

One day I went to the supermarket and in the little plaza out in front of it, there was this stage set up with some young ladies demonstrating traditional Indonesian dancing in front of a picture of a woman who was apparently even more surprised to see them there than I was. I have no idea why or what this is all about. I feel that way quite often here, actually.

So food here is like, way way way too involved and complicated and whatever whatever a topic for me to get all my thoughts down in one go, and of course there is no reason why I would have to. So, let’s subtitle this entry “Random Pre-packaged Snack Foods and Treats I Have Been Enjoying Lately”.

You can probably work out from looking at these that they are coated almonds. Coconut coated almonds, to be precise. And they are AWESOME. And I don’t have to share them with G, because he does not like coconut!

Steamed bean buns! To be honest I don’t eat these that often, I really prefer the cabbage or spicy pork variety. However, “bean bun” is much more fun to say. Go on, try it. Bean bun. Beanbunbeanbunbeanbun. See?

This, I have no idea what it’s called. It’s great though. It’s like, sweet black sesame crunchy stuff. I remember as a kid getting these sesame honey candies, maybe you know what I mean? They’re like that, except, um, black. And flat.

Pork jerky. Better than it looks in the picture on the package. (It would have to be, right? Because it looks like open wounds. Which is, for most people, really really not appealing.) I do love the drunk chef, though.

Ah, White Rabbit candies! This is a true Shanghai specialty. A creamy vanilla taffy-like candy, the kind that’s likely to pull out all of your fillings.  Made with condensed milk and possibly melamine. Curiously addictive. I’m going to go get one RIGHT NOW.

Sachima! If you live in a city with a Chinatown, you can probably find this in every food shop. It’s a bit like a Rice Crispies treat, except made with puffed noodles instead of puffed rice. They’re everywhere, but they vary according to brand. Some are really, really sweet, some are not so much; some are almost a bit soft, others are quite crunchy; some are made with big fat noodles, others with thinner ones. I like this brand (whatever the heck it is, Number One Smiley Cooking Man or what have you) a bit – it’s less sticky and sweet than some others I’ve tried and nice & crunchy. Apparently there are regional variations as well, Fujian province people make them with sesame, Cantonese ones often have coconut, etc etc.

This is nice stuff on a cold day. It’s like the local version of Swiss Miss, except it’s made with black sesame and not chocolate. Comes in little packets, you put the powder in a mug, pour on some hot water and stir it up, and voila. Very delicious, if  slightly offputting in appearance. (Don’t be fooled by the photo on the package. In the cup it’s a much less attractive, sludgy gray color.) Tends to leave a thick pasty sediment in the bottom of the cup as well, which I know doesn’t help sell it, but is actually quite tasty (like sweetened tahini, which I suppose is effectively what it is.)

M is all over these. They are little kid-sized dumplings with different fillings. She doesn’t usually eat very much – you couldn’t keep a parakeet alive on what she eats some days, it seems – but she will always eat at least half a package of these. I don’t want to feed her too much processed food in general but it’s good to know I can always default to these when she is turning her nose up at everything else. (Although last night she ate several mouthfuls of fresh spinach sauteed with garlic, of her own accord, with no begging, pleading or bargaining from me – HURRAH! Off topic I know, but I am just so damn pleased about it.)

Lastly another one of M’s faves. I don’t know what this is called. In our house we call it “waawaa!”, because in the commercials for it on TV, at the end of it they say “waawaa!” But actually the company that makes this makes several other food and beverage products and all of their commercials end that way, so it’s obviously a branding thing, and not the name of this specific product. Doesn’t matter though. We know what we mean when we say “waawaa!” in this house. It’s some sort of milky drink, but maybe not cow milk, maybe soy. It’s like Yoohoo, but not chocolate. Possibly it’s very bad for her and I am a terrible mother for allowing her to have it, I don’t know. Ignorance is bliss.

I know, I know, another long gap between posts. And actually lots has happened that I keep thinking ‘oh I need to write this down.’ Honestly I do not know where my time goes. Also when I started this I told myself I wasn’t going to just use it as a platform to show off my awesome kid and look, here I am doing it again! But I have to because I must tell you about our day at The Barbie Store.

There’s a 5 floor Barbie department store here in Shanghai. It only opened earlier this year, I think in Feb or March, and I’d read about it before we moved here. Hadn’t visited until about two weeks ago, on my own – sort of a recon mission before bringing The Little Empress, so I would know what I was getting into! G is in NYC this week, so us girls had the weekend to ourselves. It was really cold and rainy and I needed to take her somewhere where she could run around and have fun, but I honestly didn’t think I could stand going to another indoor playground ball pit thingie. It was time to introduce M to the great shrine of all things pink and plastic.

She’s not THE biggest Barbie fan, but she does have some DVDs of Barbie movies and a couple of (fake, from the street market) Barbie dolls. Right now it’s more about the movies than the dolls for her, but she has “Barbie stuff” as an entry on her list for Santa and she does really dig the movies. I knew she would have a brilliant time at the store – as you will see, it really is quite something.

We started out by having lunch at the Barbie Cafe on the top  (6th) floor, which, it must be said, is really rather good. I wasn’t able to get a good photo of the interior though, so you’ll have to tke my word for it that it is really quite chic. A bit art deco diner, a bit sixties pop art, a bit postmodern glam. Oh look, here’s a pic I was able to swipe off the net:

M of course wanted to sit in one of the pink booths and we ordered off the special “Mom & Me” menu – a prix fixe lunch menu with one adult meal and one kid’s meal, plus a special gift for the child, 150 RMB. Not bad value. The gift M got was a very nice Barbie (duh) writing kit, a case with several pens and pencils, erasers, a ruler, that kind of thing. She of course was all kinds of in love with it straight away. Lunch was quite good; I had a pumpkin soup, corn salad, mango pork stir fry and watermelon slices, and M had pink pasta (I don’t want to know how they make it pink), potato wedges with pink mayo dipping sauce (again, don’t want to know), watermelon and corn on the cob (reassuringly yellow). Our meal deal also included dessert – pink lemonade, pink cake, bubblegum ice cream, and pumpkin spice chocolate chip cookies.

So then it was time to head down to the store itself. The 5th floor is mainly clothes and accessories for girls. We bought some slippers as she really did need some – it’s gotten far too cold here for bare feet! – and hey, there was 75% off sale on a bunch of clothing, so we got a cute little top as well. There’s also a little “Barbie bedroom” area up there with a slide

and one of these ’stick your face in in the picture’ thingies (is there a specific name for such a thing?)

After this we headed down to the 4th floor. Connecting the 3rd-5th floors is a spiral staircase, walled in clear perspex with Barbies all dressed in differnt pink outfits – it’s really quite striking.

The 4th floor is where all the dolls are. Lots and lots and lots of dolls.

(I am somewhat comforted that of all the options, M seems to be drawn to ‘Baby Doctor Barbie’…)

The 4th floor also has a a photo studio where girls can go and dress up like their favourite Barbie movie character, have a series of photos done, then the photos get put into a storybook so that they are ‘playing’ the central character. I know this may come as a complete surprise to some of you, but Barbie is not always Barbie – she is an actress you know, she plays other characters in her films. It’s all very complicated. We gave that a miss, in any case, for now. On the same floor there is a Barbie exhibition gallery,  a pretty fancy schmancy one at that, featuring displays of iconic Barbie designs. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s actually really interesting and pretty cool.

There is also a ‘design studio’ where you can go in and design your own outfit for Barbie, but that’s all a bit beyond M at the moment, so we didn’t go in. (Was positively humming with tweens in there though; I think it might have been a birthday party.) Instead we hung out for a bit with the giant shiny poodle.

Then we went down to the third floor and ‘did the Barbie’

and bought some jellybeans.

We bought the Barbie Party Mix, which as you might guess is rather heavy on the pink: mainly bubblegum and strawberry cheesecake, with vanilla, lemon and orange.

You’ll notice in that last photo you can see a big image of Barbie with a towel on her head; that is because around that corner is where you can get the escalator down to the Barbie Spa & Salon on the 2nd floor.  Again, M is a bit young for this (thankfully) but apparently they do a roaring trade in birthday party packages.

Hours later we emerged, not too much poorer (aside from lunch we only bought the slippers, top and some jellybeans) but with glammy shopping bags to show for our efforts anyway. It was good fun, guess who slept all the way home in the taxi and hasn’t stopped talking about the place since?

This city. It’s so weird. So, okay, last night we went to this restaurant around the corner from where we live, called The Binjiang One. (‘Binjiang’ being the word for, like, ‘riverside’, or riviera, that sort of thing.) We’d never been there before but I’d seen an ad for it ages ago that said they have a “vodka snow bar”. Basically it’s a room that’s kept freezing cold, and they have something like 200 different kinds of vodka, and you go there and they give you a big parka to put on and then you can go into this freezing room and drink shots of vodka. It’s super-cheesy and super-brilliant.

Now I know what you’re thinking. “What do you mean you have lived there for nearly six months and until now you had never gone to the Snow Bar to drink shots of vodka?” Well honestly you might be surprised how very few opportunities parents of toddlers get to go out and knock back vodka shots. Even though quite possibly as a group we may in fact be the ones who most need to.

Anyway last night we left Miss M with our awesome ayi Xiao Gun and we went out to eat with a bunch of folks G works with (and can I just say, all-you-can-eat teppanyaki is one of the most fantastic concepts ever in the history of humanity), and afterwards we managed to convince our friends S and M to come with us to check out the Snow Bar.

Bizarrely, although it was Friday and about 10:30 pm, there was nobody else there. I mean there was the staff, and it was like they were all just standing there waiting for us to turn up. So they gave us our parkas and tah dah, there we were, with the snow bar and bartender all to ourselves. I probably should have been paying more attention to what brands we were trying, but I didn’t think of it at the time. (Mostly I was just thinking stuff like “oo! I want that one!”) I know we all started with one that was flavoured with elderflower, then we all started trying different stuff. I had one that was mandarin blossom, and one that was pomegranate, and one that was ‘mint mojito’. Marnie had a rose one which was a very pretty pale pink but I didn’t like it as it reminded me too much of the bathroom spray my grandmother used to use in her condo in Florida when I was a kid. G and S tried a wheat vodka they said was very smooth.

Well I don’t really have much more to say about this, other than that is was fun and now I regret not going there in, like, August, when it was so freakin’ hot here I thought I might spontaneously combust. So without further ado, please enjoy these photos of four people in big coats getting a bit tipsy.

OK first of all I apologies again for being so very very crap at keeping up this blog. I have started my Mandarin classes and even though they are only a couple hours a day, I feel like I really want to apply myself to that and try to maximise each lesson so I spend most free time I get studying. More on that later.

For now though I thought I’d just share with you a couple of wacky things that have caught my eye over the past couple days. First of all, have a look at these and tell me, do these not look like the most delicious thing you have ever seen?

(Answer: no, they do not.)

I have been thinking about getting remarried lately. Unfortunately though that would mean I would have to get divorced first, and I don’t really want that. The thing is though, if I don’t get to have another wedding, that means I will never have the opportunity to wear this dress:
and what girl has not dreamed of walking down the aisle in a beautiful gown like that?

And finally, today I walked past the hoardings for a construction site for a development that appears to be nearly finished. Looks like it is meant to be a new shopping/dining zone (not enough of those in this town yet, apparently), made partially from new buildings and some refurbed historic ones, a bit like a Xintiandi for Pudong (some of you will know what I mean by that, for those who are going “a whaaa???”, sorry). Anyway this site is near where we live, I have been past it in a taxi a hundred times, but never walked it before today. So on the hoardings there’s an illustration, a rendering of the finished concept if you will:

Never really scrutinised it before, going past it in a cab and all, but today I had a good look at it.

Notice anything?

Anything that makes you go, “WTF?”

Like this, perhaps?

Yeah, I don’t know what that’s about either.

Just after we arrived in China, in early May at a kid’s party thrown by a local expat organisation, I was approached by the party photographer who asked if I’d be interested in bringing M in for a test shoot. He does some work for local advertisers and Little Miss Blondie Blue-Eyes is always a big hit with the folks here. Some of you may have seen the stuff I written on Facebook about this subject a while ago, but for anyone who hasn’t heard me say it yet, walking around with M in Shanghai is, on some days, like being on tour with the world’s most famous pop star or something. Gangs of teenagers shriek and pull out mobile phones to pose with her and take photos. Old people stop in the street and point, and call other old people over to come stand in the street and point. People push their children towards her to stand with her for pictures. If we stop walking, crowds gather around her. It can be pretty freaky sometimes. The bottom line is, they love to look at her.

Anyway, at the time of the party we’d just moved here and I didn’t even have a phone yet so the photographer gave me his card. I got in touch with him over the summer but we couldn’t find a mutually agreeable time until now to get together.  So yesterday  was just, like, a ‘trial’ photo shoot, just to see how she handled it and all that kind of stuff, so there are no backgrounds, her hair’s a mess and she mainly just wore her own clothes – which included her “Belle” costume, as the way I convinced her to have a go was that we were going to “go take pretty princess pictures” to send to her friends and family. (The white dress in some of the pics was the studio’s.) Low pressure, we just tried to let her have a bit of fun. After we were done they downloaded all the photos onto a disc for me, there are 208 altogether but I’ve just pulled out a few to send to you as I can’t imagine anyone else besides me and Gus wanting to look at 208 photos of our daughter, as fabulous as she is.

What happens now is the phtotographer picks a handful he thinks are ‘best’ and puts them in his book of kids he is able to contact, then when a job comes in the clients will say something like, “oh we want a western looking girl, about 1 metre, maybe blond” etc etc and then he can show them the book. So, who knows, it may never lead to anything, or I might get a phone call now and again, whatever. If it comes to nothing, it was a fun day and we’ve got some nice photos of Her Highness for posterity!