Me on TV!.. my one minute fame...

They say that everyone has their one minute fame some time in their life. Mine surprised me on Saturday during a photoshoot.

I was out with Jochen and Miriam who are about to expect their first baby. We were taking some last pictures of just the two of them down at the BUND when we noticed that we were filmed by someone in the background.

A woman approached us and asked my photo models if they would be interessted to do an interview about the topic "Airpollution in Shanghai"...Very clever - I thought - they had picked one of the better days for doing it.

Miriam and Jochen were both in and gave a real good interview. When the interviewer - Momo was her name - had finished she asked if we mind that they film us a bit more whilst taking photos..
Sure - and I took the opportunity to hand out my business card.

We then asked what the material would be used for and thought it might be for some small local business. But no, we were taught that this film would hit the 8pm saturday night news on CCTV!..which has a coverage of some several million viewers??

We had expected that the interview was cut. But Momo wrote an Email that she enjoyed filming us so much that she kept us as the only ones speaking about the topic (only eliminated the bit where Jochen mentioned that we come from Germany and that the air is better there.. ;-) )...

She even took the effort writing back to me that in case they do something about photography in Shanghai they would get back to me... how great is that?

So here it is.. my 1 minute of fame.
You can only see me from behind the camera, basically me "behind the scenes"...

Skip to 19:40  if you want to go straight for the article:

Click here: CCTV interview

Have you seen my brain???

Today my head is full. It is so full that I could easily fill two heads with it. But it´s not my brain that occopies it - because my brain has gone missing.

I have read about this phenomenon about pregnant women and mommys who are somewhat "brain damaged" and forget everything. Until now I never really considered myself falling into this category because I have always been a bit of a confused person. But today it struck me and I must admit- I´m fully fitting this category.

Let me tell you about my day:
This morning was looking for my cell phone. And I couldn´t find it. Usually I don´t get nervous about these things because they happen to me all the time. Things go missing and ususally my mystery the come back again. But this one felt different. I remembered yesterdays taxiride home: It was one of those  gangster taxis which had blackened windows (Judith used to call them gangster taxis)  and looked like it had already driven to the moon and back. It was filthy inside and the driver stank of smoke. But I took it anyway as it was rushour and we were glad to find a taxi that would drive us across the river home. It is next to impossible to get a taxi to the other side of the city in the evening rush hour!

The ride took 1 hour for 8km of traffic wherefrom we were stuck in a tunnel with no air extraction for about 30 minutes of that. Hannah got restless. I had nothing left to eat for her, so I got my phone out and started entertaining her with some music I had on there. It worked a little but I still had to get her out of her carseat to keep her happy. Making a long story short I was glad when we stopped in front of our house. I offloaded Hannah and the shopping and just about remembered me the putting the phone in my bag.

Well this morning it was not there anymore. And over sudden I was sure that the phone had fallen out of the bag and I had forgotten it in the taxi. Loosing your phone is for most people a small disaster. But here in Shanghai it is even worse - for many things it is your identity. Without your mobile phone you are lost. I for example can not do any banking transactions or call taxi without it because my ID is registered by that number..."sh..." I thought...

But than I found the taxi receipt and phoned Sarah (our agent) to ask to help phoning the taxi company and ask if they found my mobile. I went upstairs, scanned in the receipt and sent it to her.
15 minutes later Sarah calls me back on my landline. Bad news: The receipt is a fake, the driver is not registered with this company. I had taken one of those mafia taxis!! (Judith, you were right after all!!)

She suggested that we could go to the police who could track the guy down with their spy cameras... I was not sure that a criminal who would have found my I-phone would still have it, let alone admit he drove the car.. and decided to start the process of collecting all phone numbers again and buying a new sim card instead. But then I remembered that I had still a card left which we use for visitors. I turned on my visitor phone and found out: number doesn´t exist "Please call for assistance" a voice told me. When I spoke to the hotline I was told that all "non-registered" phone numbers were blocked as a new law requires now to sell phone numbers only against ID. And I had bought the nubmer only quick in a small shop over the counter...

Making a long story short. The day went on and Hannah was at her super best " restless" day...must have been my mood. I didn´t get anything done. I could see my brain slowly walking out of my head... Paul cancelled my phone through the web and I changed my weekend plans to moving round Shanghai getting everything set up again.

When Paul was home I had planned to go out shopping. I left about 8pm and took the subway. After all my day could only get better.. haha...

** Subway card - forgotten at home **..
ok no big deal.. buy a ticket...
I go into GAP, find some nice clothes and trousers that are my size and not only size "0"...try to pay AND

**no money lef in my check account***
ok, no problem, I give you my credit card

*** wrong PIN!***
oh, dear really can´t remember.. try again
***2nd time wrong PIN!***
hmm... ah, I´m NOW sure I know what it is... the staff get´s nervous and tells me that if I punch in the pin one more time my card will be blocked..I say "no worries!!"...

***Your card has been blocked!!!***
bugger!!...

So here I am with next to no cash, can´t do any banking transactions to get on my chinese account because I don´t have a phone and can´t use my credit card any more...
Not my day...I RESERVE my shopping and move on to the next shop...
Find there also a whole bunch of nice clothes and reserve them at the counter for pick up tomorrow.

I pick up some frozen food for heating up at home for dinner. By the time I leave the shop it is 10pm - the second rushour of the evening. Beeingin Hua Hai lu at that time is just like beeing on the other side of the river: No bloody taxis anywhere!!

So I grab my frozen food and make my walk back to the subway and can see my pizzas baking themselfes amongst the heat of the crowd...

I had enough! I started to think about this day and tried to understand if there is some hidden message here for me today... No there wasn´t! I decided that it is all Hannah´s fault who is - with every feed- sucking more and more of my brain out leaving me feeling like I got mash potato in my head. Or maybe it is the sleep deficit which is finally overcoming me after 9 months..(no she is NOT sleeping through the night and If she takes after Paul she won´t until she is five years old)

So I´m standing there in the subway in the crowd - and decided there is no message there for me - I can´t think about it anyway. I get out my Ipod and turn the music to MAXIMUM VOLUME whilst closing my eyes and beaming myself 18 years back on the dance floor in my home club. Back in a time when I had no mobile phones to loose,  no baby to feed, got good nights sleep and was able to drive myself around with music that wasn´t "sing along for babies"...

When I opened my eyes again my view fell on a guy beeing sick out of a taxi and when I got home it was finally home it was way to late to heat up my shopping for dinner.
And when I told Paul about my shopping trip he said" But why did you punch in your pin number? It´s a "sign only" card???!!!"....That was it.. he is right. I could have paid after all but the Chinese didn´t know this and I had forgotten.

Whatever the reason for today..tomorrow can only be a better one...

I will go to bed now, not worry about correcting this probably very confusing written post, not correct it for spelling mistakes. I will post it right now as wrong as it might be...just to have the feeling I got SOMETHING done today and hopefully drift into sleep and go back on my dancefloor....