Safety in Shopping Malls And Streets

The world has many fabulous shopping malls. Jewel at Changi Airport, Singapore, has a multi-storey waterfall in the centre.

With winter weather affecting many cities, and Christmas coming, many of us will be going into malls.  You are protected from the weather and traffic. I know many wonderful malls. In the centre of Singapore Orchard road underground railway links you to department stores and shopping malls containing shops, offices, cinemas an aquariums and a fountains. 

Ion Mall, Singapore. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

 Ion is impressive. A basement walkway leads you under Orchard Road, past an aquarium, under other shopping malls, ending by a fountain and the wonderful Takashimaya in impressive Ngee Ann City. But how safe is a shopping trip. London has Brent Cross and Watford and other areas have more magnificent malls. 

America has malls with theme parks attached. 

In Singapore and South Africa you can stay in hotels attached to shopping malls, sheltered from the weather.

What about safety? I always wonder how to get out of large malls in a fire.

1 Malls should be designed so that you can escape quickly in a fire,

2  And not fall or be thrown off a balcony, internal wall or escalator. 

In Singapore we had an accident from a boy who jumped onto what looked like a marble ledge but it was trompe l'oeuil. In the UK and the USA we have had children thrown over walls by strangers. Architects please take note. With millions of people in malls every day, somebody somewhere will be drunk, sit on a ledge or low wall, sit a child on a ledge, throw themselves off a ledge, or throw off somebody else. It is predictable and preventable. How can you rectify the problem? Install glass walls, barriers, stepped atriums, awnings or hammock style nets under all ledges and low walls. 

Andorra Mall, previous Xmas. Sharot family photo.

Jurong Point Shopping Mall, Singapore.

Safety Tips

Don't put your wallet in your back pocket.

Know the exits.

Be aware of people around you.

When possible stand with your back to a wall and not looking over a balcony.

Consolidate multiple bags into one or two.

Have your car key ready so you don't stop to look for it in a car park.

Useful Websites

Dangers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11505367/Mall-America-settles-lawsuit-family-boy-5-thrown-balcony.html#newcomment

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2046333/Grandmother-guilty-throwing-toddler-death-bridge-shopping-mall.html

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/06/teenager-jonty-bravery-who-threw-child-from-tate-modern-balcony-admits-attempted-murder

Safety Precautions

https://www.cornwallsecurity.com/safety-tips-parking-lots-shopping-malls/#:~:text=In%20the%20Mall,friends%20or%20family%20whenever%20possible.

https://stmartinsheriff.org/safety-tips-mall-shopping/

Child Escape From Stalker - Into Shop

https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/woman-boy-pennsylvania-escape-abduction-b2227144.html

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Kinokuniya Japanese Bookshop - Delights & Successes

Why Choose Kinokunia?

I wanted to buy a book in Singapore and thought the best selection would be in a large bookshop, easily located, near an underground railway station. (MRT for short - remember it as standing for mass railway transit.) 

I looked up bookshops and found three major bookshops, Kinokunia, Popular and Times. I remembered that Kinokunia is accessible via an underground walkway lined with shops, from the central railway station Orchard (on Orchard Road). That seemed a good idea on a rainy day. I did not want to get wet, nor risk my freshly bought books and stationery getting wet.

The Name, Kinokunia

Kinokunia is a Japanese bookshop. It is upstairs in the office tower housing the glamorous, oriental department store Takashimaya, which is also Japanese. 

The name Kinokunia is two words forming a compound word. Kino is Japanese for country. Kuniya means trees. 

How do you remember this if your first language is English? The first syllable or word Kino sounds like cinema or kinetic. The second word starts with another k. Then the third vowel follow the pattern AEIOU, the IOU part. Notice the I and Y. Finally a. Say it three times. Japanese words give each word or syllable equal emphasis. Key-no/know-cun-ya. (or ear or ee-ya - listen to how a Japanese or Chinese employee of the company pronounces it.

Getting There

The underground walkway (underpass, basements 1 and 2) is lined with enticing shops, a very pleasant walk.

When you reach Takashimaya department store in the basement of one of the two towers of Ngee Ann City (a 26 storey skyscraper complex), you see the semi circular fountain and Takashimaya Plaza. 

Kinokunia - How To See Inside Shrink-Wrapped Books

In Kinokunia the books are all sealed inside a transparent shrink-wrapping. Whilst this ensures they reach you undamaged and uncontaminated by other human hands, it does make it hard to browse and choose books.

By chance, I went to ask a question and the assistant was busy helping another customer. He removed the shrink-wrapping from two books for her. I was delighted to discover this was possible. Apparently all the assistants carry a small knife so they can help customers see inside books. 

Choosing A Baby Record book

Having narrowed down my choice to the two cheapest baby books, I asked for them to be opened up. 

One was a flashcard box. The cards were not what I wanted at all. They had patterns on the back and images on the front, no empty frames where you could add pictures. So that was a fast decision. 

The Baby Record Book Bought

I bought a baby book.

Then watercolour pencils and a small thick paper sketch book for doing little pictures of people and places when I travel.

The Learn Chinese Language Books I Could Have Bought 

Then a Chinese language book. The book Chinese For Dummies looked excellent but was beyond my budget, and rather large and heavy for reading in bed and lugging around. I found half a dozen books which all looked excellent and bought the two cheapest items.

The Laminated learn Chinese Card

The laminated card was not tow sections like a book but in three sections with two vertical folds like an old fashioned dressing table mirror or altar picture. It was large but very light to pack. 

Learn Chinese Book

The cheapest and thinnest book was Chinese Made Super Easy. My main reason for choosing it was the large print. I could read it in bed at night. Or in semi-darkness on a plane.

The outing was a delight. The whole of the Takashimaya building is decorated with the theme of orchids. Up the massive multi-storey pillars. The orchid is the national flower of Singapore.

(More photos of location and books later.)

Useful Websites

https://kinokuniya.com.sg/

https://www.takashimaya.com.sg/

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Free taste of mooncake and reduced price mooncakes - last chance

Singapore flag.

Problem
Where can you taste mooncakes - so expensive, la!

Answer
La is Singlish, just an exclamation.
Two Chinese Singaporeans advised me:

"Go to Takashimaya basement. Lots of stalls selling mooncakes offer a free taste. Try tomorrow, Sunday (September 23rd 2018). The last day is Monday (September 24th 2018). If you can still find them, the stalls will probably reduce their prices.

Uh-huh. A bit like Christmas cake and Christmas pudding in London, UK prices come down a day or two afterwards.

I wonder whether the same applies to Taiwan department stores and Chinese supermarkets in Chinatowns worldwide.

Useful Websites
takashimaya - gives redemption vouchers of S$5 (five Singapore dollars).

Mooncakes

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.  

Where To Practise Your Japanese, Eat Japanese And Buy Japanese Goodies

WORLDWIDE
Visit Japanese restaurants worldwide.  Chinese restaurants worldwide use the same symbols.

UK
London
In London using the same symbols one Japanese restaurant is at Japan house which also has a giftshop, library, workshop events, and free exhibitions in the galery.
Japanhouselondon.uk

https://www.japancentre.com/en/stores
They have a student discount.

SINGAPORE
Takashimaya department store
Kinokunya bookshop.
Daeso bargain goods.

Singapore's Japanese Stores:
Isetan, above Orchard MRT underground railway station, at the heart of Singapore, on the crossroads of Orchard Road, for Japanese notebooks, diaries - in stationery and children's section; and clothes.

If it's raining, or too hot for you outdoors, walk along the air-conditioned basement walkway along Orchard Road from Isetan to Takashimaya.

Takashimaya department store, occopying basement and ground floor and more of Ngee Ann City skscraper, on Orchard Road.
Upstairs is Konokunia bookshop with Japanese books.

Daiso bargain shopping in Singapore, has several branches. It is a giant supermarket. (Not to be confused with Daeso, a large indoor market in South Korea.)
According to Wikipedia, Daiso has outlets in 25 countries including Australia and Vietnam. Daiso has 2,800 stores in Japan, and 700 stores overseas in Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia (Jakarta), Kuwait, Macau, Malaysia, Mexico, Myanmar, New Zealand, Oman, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates (UAE, Dubai), United States of America, and Vietnam.^{[5][6] Several in the US are in California. Others in Washington state.}

Useful Websites
daisojapan.com

SINGAPORE
singaporeair.com
visitsingapore.com

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer, photographer, speaker and language teacher.

Covered Walkways Encourage Walking To Stations In Singapore - please copy worldwide

Problem
I am about to go about but it's pouring with rain. If I'm feeling flush, I phone for a taxi. They are all busy. Uber provided a cheaper alternative. Now the private car alternatives to taxis have started pricing according to demand. Should I stay at home?

Answers
The nice thing about a good government is that it thinks ahead to what the citizens need and want and how they act and supplies their needs for the benefit of all. Sir Stamford Raffles famously built the 'five foot way', covered areas over pavements alongside the shop houses, as you can still see in parts of little India and Duxton Hill.

In those days many people walked or worked in the five foot way. Even today the shopkeepers put their trays of goods between the pillars and an old man with a sewing machine sets up shop out of the sun under the covered way.

Along came cars and careless city planners. Up go high rise buildings with no shelter for pedestrians, just cliffs of concrete and brick. In England Sough has roads like tunnels which pedestrians have no shelter from rain or sun, no ground floor shops, no refuge from heavy vehicles exhausts or splashing from big buses ploughing through dirty puddles splashing the payments (Americans say sidewalks).

However, the good news is that the planners in Singapore have considered how to get people out of cars and back into the new railway stations being built all over the city.

Last Spring 2017 I saw the covered way being built from the new Cashew station up the hill. A local resident told me it was to protect children from the local school walking to the station. Now I can see that the programme is extending to help adults and with a different purpose, not just to protect pedestrians from rain, but to change habits and to make walking to the station an easier option.

Reports say that the good results are:
1 More use of trains
2 Less use of cars - less pollution from road traffic, fewer traffic jams, faster road journeys for cars, and buses (and delivery vehicles and tourist buses)
3 Less use of buses means the same effect - plus fewer delays as people board and alight so quicker journey times.

I hope that the planners in Harrow will change their minds about are allowing giant towers of concrete alongside narrow pavements.

Disadvantages of Narrow Pavements
Cuts down the chance of expanding the road width later.
Claustrophobic
Exposes pedestrians to pollution
Pavements so narrow you cannot use a pram or bicycle without forcing pedestrians out into the road and preventing parents from holding the hands of children or the elderly.

Advantages of cover
Pleasanter to walk, run, or jog.
Shelter from both sun (exhaustion and melanoma cancer).
Shelter from and rain inconvenience and damage (wet clothes, dye running onto clothes and white paperwork, and wet shoes, soaked newspapers, and spoiled school books).
Shelter for sellers of food and drinks and protection from spoilage of food on sale and your snack pack lunch. (Shop signs in Takashimaya department store's basement food court deli stalls warned as yet uncooked and to be eaten raw fish and cooked fish (such as sushi) must reach home within an hour.)

Summary
Well done Singapore for the new (2017-8) covered ways.
England and other countries please copy.

Author, Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Last Chance To Buy Mooncakes? Dash to Singaporean Centres

Mooncakes were displayed at a pop up counter in the grand lobby atrium of the Sheraton Towers Hotel in Singapore where I attended at meeting of the Toastmasters Club of Singapore. The speakers group was meeting, as usual on the first three Mondays of the month, above the hotel lobby, but I could not resist stopping to try a sample of mooncakes and pick up a leaflet.

The mooncakes were made by the chefs of the Cantonese Li Bai restaurant, which is in the basement level of the Sheraton Hotel. What does Li Bai mean? Li Bai was a famous Tang dynasty poet who lived in the 700s, to be exact 701-762, so he died having reached the grand age of 60. Did he eat well? Did he eat mooncakes? When were they invented? I don't know if he ate well but it seems he drank well, inspired to write more than 1000 poems which are still in the syllabus for Chinese schoolchildren today.

Li Bai, or Li Bo, the poet, was fond of wine, and the Li Bai restaurant leaflet shows vodka beside a mooncake. Li Bai, legend says, drowned after falling out of a boat trying to grab the reflection on the moon in the water.

The cover of the leaflet shows how the snow skin coloured mooncakes can be prettily presented. You can serve one (pink) mooncake in the saucer centre of a white lattice mini plate. Two contrasting colour mooncakes (they show yellow and green) can be served on a larger white plate.

A single white mooncake, or two or more can be presented on a silver edged larger plate, eaten with a modern slender silver pastry fork with a handle shaped like a slim pencil.

Mooncakes in Singapore are elaborate and you can buy them in pretty cardboard or metal boxes or wooden boxes which can be saved for keeping trinkets or costume jewellery, stationery, precious photos or paper, displayed in a glass cabinet, or whatever you like. The most expensive of this restaurants' boxes, a wooden box containing four pieces costs $168 (Singapore dollars - about £84!) are elegant gifts for esteemed clients.

According to the leaflet, mooncakes are available from 15 August until 15 September 2016 (the festival dates following the lunar calendar used by the Chinese as well as traditional Jewish and Muslim calendars).

The moon cakes have been sold at:
Li Bai Cantonese Restaurant
15 August - 15 September 2016
11.30 am to 10.30 pm

Sheraton Towers Singapore Hotel Lobby
15 August-15 September 2016
11 am - 9.30 pm
(Nearest MRT railway station Newton)
Pictures of the hotel in my previous posts

Takashima (city centre department store in Ngee Ann City on Orchard Road)
13 August - 15 September
10 am to 10 pm

Tampines Mall (Green East-West line, four stops from Changi airport, change at Tanah Merah)
31 August to 14 September

Jurong Point (in the west of the island)
29 August - 14 September 2016
9.30 am to- 10.30 pm

Change Alley
15 August to 15 September 2016
10 am - 7 pm (weekdays only)

Pick up a leaflet. After the event, you can read about the mooncake selection and plan your tastings and purchases for next year.

www.sheratonsingapore.com
More about mooncakes in my previous posts.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Planning a trip in Singapore using the train and bus?

My favourite way to get around Singapore is using the MRT. Around the city centre most of it is underground. You are away from the haze which you would have to endure whilst waiting up to 15 minutes at a bus stop. Therefore, first thing to do in Singapore is buy yourself a laminated MRT card at one of the central or larger stations and get an MRT map.

MRT Card
You have to invest about S$5 for the card itself, plus the amount you put on the card. Having the card means you can race through the barrier, just as you do in London and many other major cities.

In theory you can pay for a single trip paper ticket if you are short of cash. You can buy these from machines at railway stations.

Bus Fares
You can also tell a bus driver your destination and ask the fare. Then feed cash into the cash ticket machine on the bus. On a bus you tap the card against the reader as you get on, again tap it as you get off.

Card Top-up
When you tap your card onto the reader the machine tells you how much money is left on the card.
I try to top up the card when I'm not in a hurry, especially on my outward journey. Some of the ticket offices close early evening. I don't want to run short late at night. Also if I leave a meeting with friends who race for a train I don't have to delay myself or them.

Route Planning
I often compare the bus only route, the bus and train route, and the MRT only route. The websites give you lots of options. I photograph the bus timetable at the bus stop. Some buses have bus maps just for that route at the Interchange or in a box inside the bus.

If you need to arrive somewhere at a specific time, you can use a website. When I am travelling to a meeting at Toastmasters where meetings start on time and time is critical, I check the destination with the organisers as well as the building. The larger stations have several exits.

Seats
Off-peak you have more chance of getting a seat. End seats near the door have signs saying that you should give up the seat for passengers who are pregnant, have walking sticks etc.

Stopping
If you are unsure where to alight, use the website before leaving home to check the number of stops. The MRT train map shows you where lines connect. The map has all sorts of useful information, such as walking times between the city centre stops.

A sign overhead on both buses and trains tells you the next station. On buses you will see the sign Bus Stopping if somebody has pressed the stop buzzer. The stop buzzer is on one of the vertical poles.

On the train you can watch the lights on the map showing how far you are along the line. A pleasant lady's voice announces the next stop.

Sometimes you will be told which side of the train to exit. There's even a station (Jurong) with a platform with exits on both sides; so you need to work out what the name of the end of the line is.

You can see the name and number of the station on the sign top left. In the middle is the train with exit doors both sides. To the right are the lines showing you how to stand both sides of the doors so people can exit unimpeded from the middle to speed up your travel.

If you are wondering how to pronounce the station names, listen to the recorded announcement and repeat the station name to yourself.

Clark Quay station

Clarke Quay station is by Speakers' Corner

If you have lots of time, or little time, you can plan a route around the city taking in famous or everyday sites which are near each other or on the same line. Central points could include Orchard, for Orchard Road shopping and the bustling centre. If it's raining, walk underground from Orchard station along Orchard towards Ngee Ann City towers housing Takashima department store and other shops and cafes.

For more ethnic shopping, you can take the MRT to Chinatown and/or Little India.

If it's sunny, or at least not raining, Clarke Quay station exits onto a green square with Speakers' Corner, a heritage history plaque and a building alongside covered in greenery.

I make notes on my map. I outline a regular journey. I write home or hotel next to my starting point. Then I outline the route in pencil. I circle the end of line station name so when I'm travelling up or down an escalator and hear that a train is about to arrive in two minutes I know what to do. I know whether to start running, or keep to the left (as instructed, stand on the left) as others race past.

Take the train and bus to Gardens By The Bay. You can walk around the outside looking at the trees which have labels and the plaques. (See next post on free things to do.)

Travel Websites
gothere.sg - fill in your nearest road and your destination and choose train or bus or car/taxi. You will get directions of times and train stations or bus stop numbers or roads.

transitlink.com.sg - this site tells you the cost of your journey and time taken. Just fill in the starting stations and destination station.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author speaker.

(Photos will be added shortly. Come back.)