Shanghai for us these days is purely for rest and relaxation following some usually strenuous and sometimes onerous journeys often in remote and uncomfortable environs. We always stay at the Shanghai Sofitel Hyland Hotel in central Shanghai. It is a lovely comfortable hotel with which we are now very familiar - and at the end of our travels, all we need is some rest and pure indulgence. It may only be rated at a four star hotel but for us it provides all we need in terms of location, service and comfort. We love the Club Room facilities and always thoroughly enjoy its buffet breakfasts and wonderful Happy Hours.

We were even pleased it was raining. It provided a great excuse to avoid feeling guilty about not undertaking walking trips or even doing too much shopping. And after all, we had visited Shanghai many times and had seen almost all of what we wanted to explore - and did we really need any more watches, handbags or scarves? Well.... I guess a few more wouldn't hurt...

Tired from our two 2.00 am mornings and the hassles we endured flying out from Azerbaijan, we could have well spent the whole morning just having breakfast. And once again, the food was lovely and the views of Shanghai even in the heavy rain were glorious.

We have always been most impressed with the level of comfort of the beds and bed linen at the Sofitel. Following numerous stays, we had even purchased a King Koil bed for our home as well as some of the fine French winter weight bed linen from the on-line Sofitel "So Boutique" shop.

When we dragged ourselves up from our breakfast table our first mission was to visit the So Boutique shop within the hotel premises which we have found a lot cheaper than the French on-line shop. To our dismay however, we were informed that the So Boutique lines would no longer be sold through their in-hotel shop and that there were very few items left for sale. The shop assistant however went to no end of trouble rummaging through the hotel store to find us a summer weight King Size dooner and cover but alas there were only Queen sizes left. In Australia, it is usually necessary to buy a dooner one size up from your bed but the good news from our shop assistant was that the So Boutique sizes are very generous and hopefully a Queen size for our Queen bed would be fine. But postage was. Apparently, the hotel just does not provide this service but Alan refused to be put off.

"How are we going to cart this thing home?" I groaned at compulsive shopper Alan, imagining trying to carry it in our hand luggage. We do travel lightly but I still cannot imagine how we managed to stuff this thing - and a new dooner cover - into our luggage. But we did. And I was very impressive with Alan's suite case stuffing skills.

There was nothing like a bit of shopping to improve our energy levels and in no time we decided to catch a taxi to the Taobao markets to buy some gifts and for Alan, some more watches. He certainly has great eye for beautiful watches and to be able to buy good quality fake designer Philippe Patek, Rolex or Pierre Cardin watches from the markets is even more fun.

The four-storey Taobao Market is located at 580 Nanjing Xi Lu (West Nanjing road) in the Jingan District of Shanghai, and carries a broad selection of clothing, handbags, toys, electronics, luggage etc. It is open from 10.00 am to 10.00 pm each day and is about a ten minute taxi ride from the Sofitel Hotel. Usually a "spotter" will grab you immediately you disembark from your cab and lead you straight into the market entrance - which for some reason isn't all that easy to identify - and then their preferred shop. We have learnt that it is easier to go with the flow and accept the spotter's assistance. After all, they are either part of a shop family or paid by the shop to which they are taking you. And once you are there, we have found there is really no impossibly hard sell and it is easy to move on to the many other shops in the complex. More often than not, we have returned to our first spotter's shop where we have found the best goods and usually the best bargains.

The shops always remind me of the corny old television program "Get Smart" film set. Shelves laden with handbags and scarves suddenly turn into doors into the dungeons of the shops, often filled with anxious entrapped European shoppers sorting through literally tonnes of designer anything - watches, handbags, shoes, adult and children's clothing. Of course this is quite illegal in Shanghai, and this is where the spotters are invaluable to the shop owners. They are also professional "scouts" who provide warning of impending police raids and we assume pay the appropriate "fees" - who said bribes?

There are no fitting rooms in the shops but it is still well to try your clothes on before you buy. We are not overweight people but we still find the Chinese clothes at the markets are often far too small, even though they are labelled several sizes larger than those we normally wear. But once again, we both managed to buy t-shirts that were well undersized. It is generally no problem to exchange them but as the complex is so large and many of the shops look so similar, the main issue is remembering the shop from where you purchased your goods. It is always good practice to take a business card from your shop.

Needless to say, Alan bought some more beautiful watches and I bought several lovely scarves as gifts before we finally remembered how little space we had left in our luggage and some common sense began to prevail.

To our dismay, we realised that we had misplaced the complimentary umbrella supplied to us by the hotel. It took us seemingly forever to retread our steps and find at which shop we had left it. On finding the outlet, a smiling owner came running out to us with the umbrella. There is no doubt about the Chinese people. We have always found them extremely honest and friendly.

Our afternoon was almost over by the time we returned to our hotel but the good news was that it was time for Happy Hour in the Club Lounge! The Happy Hour was fabulous with plenty of good wine and any spirits we may have wanted. And the hot Yum Cha style finger food was terrific. We always mean to try out the hotel restaurant or one of the high end restaurants in The Bund - but so far we have never done so. We have occasionally shared a room service meal although two hours of enjoying ourselves at the Happy Hour is generally quite enough for us.

Another lovely restful stay at our favourite Shanghai Hotel.