How to Ask the way in Chinese or Malay in Singapore, or the USA - find hotels, stations and clubs with the help of photos

Singapore has a Community Club in every area. Get the programme of your nearest one or find it on line. You can go there to learn Chinese.  Pick up leaflets in several languages. Read a local newspaper.

The club often has a coffee shop, a Starbucks, or Chinese and Western fast food at reasonable prices. You often see a small pond with goldfish.

Jurong Green Community Club sign. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

This sign can be shown to people speaking any of the four official languages of Singapore. If you were eating at the hawker centre (cheap outdoor eating area with kiosks) opposite this building, you could still find your way, or direct a friend, by taking a photo of the sign. Arrange to meet your friend outside the main entrance of the community centre, or at the nearby bus stop which has seats, then walk to the coffee shop or hawker centre nearby.

Problem
I often go to a Community Club in Singapore. I get off the bus and don't know which way to go.

In Singapore it is important to tell the bus or taxi driver or passenger or passer-by whether your Community Club is North or East or South or West, because often two Clubs are within walking distance of your destination bus stop.

If you are going to a community club more than once, photgrph the sign board outside with the name in English and Malay in Chinese. Print it out. Alternatively keep it handy on your phone. Then you can remember it. Also show it passers-by when you want to ask the way. 

If you photograph the building, and show them the photo, and they have just passed it, they may be able to point along the road, even if they don't know the name of the building.

Many people in Singapore are very helpful. They may bring out their phone and try to find directions for you. 

If you have printed off the map, or saved it in your phone, you don't have to wait while they key in their password, go to the website and so on.

Photograph of Buona Vista station name. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

MRT Station
You could also photograph the station, your hotel, or your favourite nearby restaurant. Make sure everybody in your family or group has a picture of the hotel in case they get lost.

Hotel Photos
An internet picture of your hotel is handy when checking in. In Wales we tried to check into the Castle Hotel when our booking was with the Castle View hotel. In Phoenix, Arizona, we stopped at the Holiday Inn, which had no record of the booking, and eventually, when we insisted we had a booking, the receptionist realised there was not only another Holiday Inn but several. Arriving from England, we had no idea that Phoenix was a huge city with several hotels from each chain.

If you can photograph the street name with your hotel, you can find the street on a city map and enlist the aid of the concierge in any nearby hotel.

New Bridge Road, Singapore. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Korea
I remember being terrified to leave my hotel in Korea. I could not speak or read Korean. I thought I would never find my way back, even though the station was only 'just around the corner'. If I had taken a photo of my hotel, a shop or building every few paces, and the station, I could have made my way there and back, either with a taxi or walking.

Now you know how to find your way around a foreign city, you can have the courage to consider booking some far away places.

USEFUL TRAVEL WEBSITES (in alphabetical order)
https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice
https://www.state.gov/travel/ (USA advice for US citizens travelling)
Both sites also have useful general advice about specific countries.

China
https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/china (Advice on China.)
Greece
http://www.visitgreece.gr/
Israel
https://new.goisrael.com
Korea
http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/index.kto
Russia
visitrussia.org.uk
Singapore
http://www.visitsingapore.com/en/
UK
visitbritain.org
USA
visit-usa.com

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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Castle Hotel, Castello di Monterone in Umbria

Castello di Monterone means castle of Monterone in Italian. Monte is mountain and I remember the end of the name is the same spelling as Toblerone, the mountain shape Swiss chocolate. Where is Monterone? About three kilometers from Perugia, the capital of Umbria. We flew from Stansted airport in England to Perugia airport. I have spent hours reading through the TripAdvisor reports on hotels in Perugia to see if I had missed out on staying anywhere better and other people's reviews confirmed my impression that this castle hotel is THE place to stay.

Why? I stayed there four nights and every time we drove into the driveway and saw the castle set on the hillside overlooking Perugia my heart lifted when I saw the battlements and said to myself, 'I'm staying in a castle hotel!'

Photos by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

The doorway and entrance hall match the outside perfectly - you are straight into rooms with painted ceilings, wood and heavy stone walls with inserted antiques. I met the owner whose family have restored it.

He speaks perfect English, as did the girls on reception. The building is listed and they have brought it up to date with modern conveniences such as power showers and lifts, plus the obligatory and reassuring fire extinguishers. You can go from the restaurant in the basement to a bedroom on the second floor or clomp up and down the wooden staircase via the little library.

I tried both and each time passed a suit of armour, standing waiting. Returning upstairs after two glasses of Prosecco by the fireplace before dinner the first evening, I nearly asked it what time was breakfast.

I contemplated doing a mock interview as a selfie video with the suit of armour. But I realised it was a waste of time talking to the suit of armour, which probably spoke Italian.

I had been learning Italian on Duolingo, which teaches me to say things like the cat is on the bed. I now needed useful things, such as, 'What time is breakfast?' which I should have learned from my Earworms disc (a budget version of Berlitz teaching tourists the 200 most needed words).

I shall tell you about learning English in Perugia in my next post. However, here I shall concentrate on the happy hotel.

We had a view across the green valley to hilltop Perugia from our bedroom window. If you don't get a room with a view, you can go out onto the rooftop (or down by the outdoor pool in summer). The pool is closed and covered in winter.

After I got home I discovered the hotel has a sauna. I was so busy out travelling, excited by wineries, frescoes and the place where St Francis of Assisi lived, that somehow I missed my hotel's sauna.



The castle's bedrooms vary in size. You can have a larger room if you pay more. Our room enjoyed a view but was quite small, so that two of us with laptops on an antique desk were covering the box which had a local chocolate or two hidden inside it on the first day.

I loved the servicing of the room. My night dress was folded on top of the pillow or underneath the pillow. The black hotel slippers were placed neatly together under the basin. The bathroom kit included toothbrushes and mini toothpastes. The shower was perfect. The giant marble or granite tiles were spotless. The towel rail was so hot my clothes dried out overnight.

You can't please everyone. My new friend in the next room would have liked a coffee maker in the bedroom. I would have liked a chocolate on my pillow every night, not hidden in a box. I somehow only got a chocolate the first night. I assumed that was the way things were. But according to the girl in the next room and the website I SHOULD HAVE HAD A CHOCOLATE EVERY NIGHT! Maybe mine was taken by my husband, the person who serviced the room, the ghost or the suit of armour. Minor details.

The downstairs dining room seemed more modern and not in keeping with the medieval theme. I enjoyed the selection of dinner time music which included my favourites such as Amy Winehouse, but something Italian, a snatch of opera, would have added to the atmosphere.

However I loved the Prosecco and orange juice for breakfast. I followed this with the perfect scrambled egg on a slice of the hot seed bread. Then a small croissant and a small Danish pastry. (What do the Italians call them? Paticceria danese). I still had room for a sensibly small size chocolate chip muffin and a sachet of Nutella. You could enjoy fatty salami and solid cheese, but I decided to feel fit and virtuous eating healthy fruit. Breakfast is included in the room price which, depending on season and room size, ranges from just under £100 up to £250.

What does the highest price get you? The honeymoon suite. I think if I'd had any room in this hotel on a honeymoon, birthday or wedding anniversary I would have been delighted.

The ceilings were decorated like a cathedral. As a bonus, on the last day an exhibition of colourful paintings including colourful local scenes with masses of tiny figures. When I looked closer at one of the paintings I saw that what I took to be tiny brown-robed Benedictine monks were cycling along tightropes! Were their trips business or pleasure? They were obviously enjoying a holiday!

See the castle hotel website:
www.castellomonterone.com
See the regional website:
www.umbriatourism.it

Photos by Angela Lansbury. Copyright 2016.

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

Sleep like a king and queen in a castle hotel in Umbria in Italy

I am sorting my pictures of Umbria in Italy, the heart of Italy. We visited cities such as Perugia. Hilltop villages. We saw the hovel where St Francis of Assisi slept. At the castle hotel you can sleep like a king or a queen. More tomorrow.

Castello di Monterone
Strada Montevile 3
06126 Perugia
Italia
tel:+39 075 57 24 214
email:info@castellomonterone.it
Skype: castellodimonterone

See the castle hotel website:
www.castellomonterone.com
See the regional website:
www.umbriatourism.it

Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright 2016.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.