I woke up on our flight some two hours out of Shanghai - feeling like death. Was it the effects of our long and often arduous travels through Pakistan and northern India during the last month or was it just far too much grog with Businessman Bob in the Delhi China Eastern Airlines lounge the evening before?

Shamefully I have to admit it was the latter.... Alan is always much more composed even if he has had a lot to drink the night before. He is very pragmatic and unlike me, suffers no guilt at all. "Well, you did enjoy yourself, didn't you?" he said shaking his head sadly. This scene has been acted out on many occasions. Whenever I say that I will (may) have to cut down my drinking, Alan just says "Now how would you feel if you were close to death and realised that you still had most of your liver left intact? What a waste.". So I just sigh and agree - and keep enjoying my drinks. I have no will power.

We were about an hour out of landing in Shanghai when we realised that we were not going to be served breakfast - not even a cup of coffee or a glass of orange juice. We found this amazing for China Eastern Airlines, or indeed with any airline - as usually our only even slightly negative comment is that we are given too much food. We guessed something must have gone awfully wrong in the catering department. It was a long time since we had eaten which did not add to my more than fuzzy state.

On landing however, we were as usual delighted to be back "home" in Shanghai; the enchanting city we had come to love so dearly.

We arrived at our Sofitel Hyland hotel in downtown Shanghai in late morning. We had booked a Club Room and as usual were treated to a private check in to our gorgeously appointed, luxurious room. I should note however that while neither Alan nor I are keen on minimalist furnishings, we cannot fault the loveliness of this hotel. Ahh yes, the Sofitel Hyland Shanghai is a wonderful and relaxing place to hang out for some much needed R & R. A lovely room with wonderful views of Shanghai, a fabulously comfortable bed, crisp, clean linen, great food and no deadlines - just what we needed.

Well, in fact we did have three missions - to shop for two Australian friends - and more selfishly and importantly - for ourselves.

We have never met Anne Carter in the flesh - so to speak. Following an unbelievably determined effort to track us down, Anne contacted us some years ago after reading our travelogue on our journey along the China Silk Road routes of far western China (Travelogue publication "Painted Faces of the Old Silk Road"), and has maintained contact ever since. A keen and experienced traveller, our rather eccentric friend Anne was born in China in the late 1930's, living there with her Australian parents until the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.

Anne has had a fascinating life and she has maintained a life long passion for her birth country. She travels regularly to China and at the time of contact was interested in undertaking another Silk Road trip in the far western Province of Xinjiang. Now living in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia Anne buys and sells goods at her local markets which she sources directly from China to support her travels. One thing we would have to say about Anne - she is irrepressible!

Anne, in her quaintly impulsive-polite manner contacted us just before we left Australia to ask if we could locate a shop in Old Shanghai which she had visited on her last trip and from where she wanted to source some more woollen hats and gloves. She had lost the owner's business card and then couldn't remember the name of the shop. But she was absolutely certain of the directions.... All we had to do was to pick up a business card which was no trouble for us.

Karen Strickland, breeder of fine Siamese cats at Karuss Cattery, North Ryde is another of our more flamboyant and delightful friends. Like our relationship with Anne, we have forged a wonderful yet unlikely friendship with her and her family through my introduction at a local cat show some years ago - where to Alan's dismay I came home with the most gorgeous black Oriental kitten, Kim Chi Pickle (I was in a lot of trouble - we already had four cats). We now have a full house of four wonderful Karuss Siamese cats, including our Kim Chi.

Again like Anne, Karen has amazing determination. And she is absolutely selfless. After the death of their severely disabled daughter some years ago, Karen and her husband Russell recently fostered a two year old child suffering from Cerebral Palsy as well as an array of other complex medical disorders. Young Jake is also clinically blind. He is also gorgeous and being of Thai-Chinese descent we decided he would look fantastic in some Chinese sleepwear.


We love browsing through the shops in Shanghai and despite the rising prices of Chinese goods and clothing, we always find something different - and something we can't live without.

From having no missions or deadlines, we now had three.

Our first priority on arriving at our hotel however was to find some lunch. We were starving and much in need of something to sop up last night's drinks. The Sofitel Hyland hotel is wonderfully located right in the middle of the famous shopping area of Nanjing Dong Lu (Nanjing Road East) and surrounded by great shops, restaurants, cafes and parks. One of our favourite places for a cold beer and snack is Bar Tazza D'Oro, a shaded outside cafe and bar just opposite our hotel. The service is good and its a great place to hang out sipping a drink and enjoying the sights and sounds of Nanjing Dong Lu.

No sooner had we sat down, a street hawker approached us asking if we wanted to see some of his watches. It's a dangerous business for the outlawed hawkers and beggars of Shanghai. On a former trip, we were approached at a cafe by a hobbling elderly woman asking for money. We gave her a few small coins for which she was very grateful. The cafe staff however had called the police and within minutes a siren blasting, all lights flashing police van swerved around the corner, blocking all traffic. Two baton wielding police berated the woman and menacingly grabbed her by the arms. She stumped off muttering and cursing. The police continued to shout abuse and did not move their van until she finally disappeared down one of the dusty lanes.

Our hawker friend looked nervously around him as he showed the Impulsive Watch Buying Alan his wares. These fake watches are fantastic. Pierre Cardin, Rolex, Longines - every conceivable designer brand was available and if it was not, then it would only take minutes for the hawkers to find the one of your choice. It is a lot of fun buying from the hawkers but we always have to be as discreet as we can. The "Longines" watches we bought over the years are such wonderful imitations that to date, no-one has been able to tell the difference between an original and our fakes - not even the watchmakers.

Downtown Shanghai was extremely hot and sultry and some egg and ham sandwiches and a glass of ice cold beer was just what we wanted. To our dismay however, when the sandwiches arrived one was topped with two greasy fried eggs and the other topped with massive layers of hot grilled ham. On another (non-hungover) occasion and in a cooler setting, they would have been delicious...

Disgusted at my inability to cope with my hangover, Alan took off shopping to try to replace his glued up shoes. I went back to the hotel and went to bed. I agree, it was rather a pathetic performance.

The Sofitel holds a wonderful Happy Two Hours for Club Room guests each evening in the Club Lounge on the top floor. The room has glorious views over Shanghai and Pudong and the excellent finger food and drinks make for a very pleasant evening. Amazingly, I seemed to have a full recovery and as usual we thoroughly enjoyed our Happy Two Hours. Happily we toasted each other, laughing that our stay at the Sofitel Hyland certainly was an improvement on our tent at the icy, wind swept Sarchu Heights Luxury Camping Ground in the Himalayas of northern India! Throughout both Pakistan and India, just having electricity was a luxury.... We fully agreed however, at the near end of our journey, it had all been a lot of fun.

Feeling unbelievably better after a good night's sleep and a wonderful buffet breakfast in the Club Lounge, we set off in fine style on Mission 1 - to find Anne's hat and glove shop. Locating Fan Bang Dong Lu in Old Shanghai was not quite as easy as we thought. Poor Anne had given us the right instructions. They were just back to front so we ended up walking for some kilometers before we realised we were going in the exact opposite direction!

We love Chinese people. Even though we had language difficulties (shamefully we speak no Mandarin except for simple words of greetings and thanks), all the stall holders we approached for directions were friendly and helpful, and went out of their way to assist us. Not that it helped much. We always seemed to be on the wrong side of a major expressway. In the sweltering heat and humidity, it was infuriating to see where we wanted to go but were unable to get there. In the end, we had to climb through some pedestrian safety railings to cross the road which led us to Fan Bang Dong Lu. Fortunately there were no police in sight.

Old Shanghai was rather disappointing. We found it quite contrived and full of endless tacky souvenir shops. Despite walking up and down Fan Bang Dong Lu, we were disappointed to find that Anne's shop just did not exist. Perspiration dripped off us as we eventually realised that no shop owner in their right mind would be selling woollen hats and gloves in the middle of Shanghai's sweltering summer season. After all, it was 34 degrees Celsius and over 90% humidity.

Mission 2 sounded a lot easier. To our delight we found a Marks and Spencers store and even better, it was of course air-conditioned. And naturally we thought that we would find some beautiful children's clothes, just like the ones I found at the Delhi Airport store. The Marks and Sparks clothes however were simply awful and so dejected, we wearily set off on the long walk back to our hotel. Mission 2 was now looking grim.

To our relief on our walk back, we came across several road side shops that sold some very lovely children's clothing. In fact there was so much choice we ended up with more than we wanted. They were so reasonably priced that as usual, we found items we couldn't go home without.

We opted to catch a taxi back to our hotel which was the most sensible move we had made all day. For the equivalent of AUS $2, our air-conditioned taxi took us the two kilometers or so back to our hotel door within just minutes.

We mused about our first encounter with Shanghai taxis on our visit in 2007. We had arrived at Shanghai Airport quite late at night only to find there were no queues for taxis and trying to catch one in the huge crowds was impossible. In all the chaos, we were directed by an airport official to follow a woman driver who grabbed our bags and with us running behind her, hoofed it down to the bowels of an airport car park. We remember our apprehension as she skidded her car deftly through the endless streams of traffic at a breathtaking speed often over 140 kilometers per hour. The woman turned out to be an off duty taxi driver who was at the airport to pick up her husband. It was sheer "Shanghai-ian" opportunism that she saw us and made an extra AUS 50 for the trip - and picked up her husband. We didn't mind - especially when we realised we were on our way to our Peace Hotel in down town Shanghai. In fact we admired her tenacity and her amazing driving skills along unlit expressways laden with trucks with no headlights*.

We often talk about the changes since our first visit - not only in Shanghai, but all through China. We still find it mind boggling that a country can so successfully ride such an immense economic, cultural and social roller coaster.

After a rest in our hotel and a lunch of sandwiches and beer bought from Lawson, a small supermarket just around the corner from our hotel, we were ready to take on Mission 3 - our own shopping.

On our way through the hotel we were approached by an Australian couple from Yepoon in Queensland who were visiting Shanghai for the first time. Peter and Bernadette were not looking happy. They were concerned about safety in Shanghai and were unsure what sights they should visit. We chatted for some time, hopefully putting their minds at rest by telling them how much we loved Shanghai and advising them on what we thought would perhaps be both easy and interesting sites for them to visit.

I'm not sure we achieved that mission either. As we left them, Peter and Bernadette looked more anxious then ever. As it happened, Peter had decided to take his wife to Shanghai as a surprise present for her birthday. Bernadette had described in agonising detail how utterly dismayed she felt when she realised the flight from their departure lounge was headed for Shanghai. She had been hoping for a destination such as Hawaii or somewhere else in the US. Despite our love for China, we felt a certain sympathy for her. Surprises can be risky ventures...

Usually, we like shopping at the well known clothes store of Giordano. We live a very relaxed life on the coast in Australia, and in the past have found their casual styled clothes to be reasonably priced and of good quality. On this occasion however, the clothes to be more targeted to the very young and the quality of fabrics looked poor. Hmm, then we had REALITY CHECK! Yes, most probably it was US getting too old for Giordano!

BOSIDING men's and women's clothing store on Nanjing Dong Lu had lovely styles and good quality clothing - and although they certainly catered for young people, the clothes were much more appealing to us. Alan has a great eye for women's clothing and in no time had selected an array of tops and skirts he thought I should try on. Young women attendants soon flocked all over me, suggesting myriads of other matching styles. I have to admire the shop attendants in Chinese city stores. They too have a wonderful eye for finding what suits, especially for those feeling totally intimidated by such tiny, pretty women whose hair, unlike mine, remains dead straight defying all levels of humidity...

In no time I had amassed an armful of gorgeous and unusual purchases. Alan had bought several beautiful quality silk polo shirts. I grinned to myself. Only a few years ago, I would have given him heaps for choosing "old men" polo shirts over t-shirts**. REALITY CHECK again!

Mission 3 being successful, we made it back to our hotel and thoroughly enjoyed our Happy Hours in the Club Lounge. As usual, we met with some fun people and happily chatted to some Australian businessmen while enjoying the food and drinks. Bernadette and Peter were looking much more relaxed, having enjoyed their afternoon. We think that after our Happy Hours discussions about our adventures in Pakistan, Iran and Central Asia they may have thought that Shanghai was not that unsafe after all!

I could easily live at the Sofitel! I was sad that this was the last real evening of our holiday but then again, we still had the following morning as our flight did not depart for Sydney until the evening. We re-considered Mission 3 and decided that perhaps it had not been fully accomplished. Another shopping visit to BOSIDING was decided for the next morning.

We did accomplish Mission 3. After breakfast, we strolled through Najing Dong Lu buying more clothes for us and our family. We were amused that pink was certainly the "in colour" for Shanghai that season, especially with the young men. They looked fabulous. Even the men's polo shirts were displayed in varying tones of pink.

All our plans went smoothly for our taxi trip from the Sofitel to Shanghai's Pudong International Airport. Again, as we drove out to Pudong I felt a pang of sadness as we passed by the now very familiar sights of Shanghai's skyscrapers including the oddly designed Shanghai World Financial Centre or "Bottle Opener Building", the iconic Pearl Tower and the cappuccino waters of the Huang Pu River. I consoled myself with the knowledge that we would be returning again the following year.....

Our China Eastern Airlines flight was on time and as usual we had a comfortable night's sleep in the lie-back capsule seats. For a change, our flight did not meet up with any typhoons and no-one appeared to have to died on the trip.

Shirley, our reliable, Ever Patient House and Cat Minder was there to pick us up at our local airport of Taree and drive us back to our beloved home at Crowdy Head on the mid North Coast of New South Wales.

Our four cats were delighted to see us and we were as always very pleased to be home. Our trip home had been relaxed and fuss free. Until that is, Shirley lost her own car keys and could not find her spare ones in her house.***

At last we sat down in the comfort of our own house, euphoric about our trip and with plenty of time to reflect on the many highlights of our extraordinary travels.


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* We did not ever find out why the truck drivers did not have their headlights on. Nor have we ever seen this since during our following visits to Shanghai city.

** "Pst.. pst: don't tell anyone but I have been known to buy polo shirts too....."

** Some three days later, Alan found Shirley's keys in our peg bucket.