Yummy-looking, yummy-tasting mini-cheesecake with gold decoration - could you copy?

Eye-catching mini cakes on the buffet at Toastmasters International meeting at the Sheraton Towers Hotel. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

For only twenty dollars you get two main dishes, a couple of side items, fruit and cake and coffee. Admittedly there's only a teeny piece of cake per person but what a delight for the eyes. Creamy cake, pastry base, red glaze, a piece of fruit, a blueberry or two or three, to offset the sweetness and add contrasting colour, and the final crowning touch, a teeny piece of gold.

Years ago I looked into this, at the time when gold on savoury dishes was the fashion in 'Indian' restaurants in London, England. I found you could buy edible gold.

As with any food, you could always make it cheaper yourself, but you would have to buy the ingredients, make the food, wait, spend on cooking, wash the plates.

The Sheraton is such a joy. Orchids in the ladies toilet. I like to think I have a comfortable home, but I don't have piped music and orchids in the toilets.

I dream that I can have a pastry with gold decoration, and orchids in the toilets. Can I achieve my dream? Yes, I can, for twenty Singapore dollars, if I go to the Sheraton Towers Hotel in Singapore.

Useful Websites

Toastmasters international find a club

Sheraton Towers Hotel

Singapore Airlines

Singapore tourism

Author, Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. See my other posts on the Sheraton Towers hotel and Toastmasters International speakers' meetings.

Saying, seeing, spotting vital Chinese words - how ladies avoid entering the Gents Toilet

The Chinese signs for some words are easy.

Problem
In my previous post I talked about the Sunday Times article which introduced me to Chineasy which helps you to remember Chinese signs. In case anybody doesn't know, Chinese is not written phonetically, but in signs and symbols, rather like our no smoking signs and traffic signs showing a picture of a cigarette or a car and sometimes a line or cross on top.

The article warns that recognising the signs does not teach you how say them. What's the answer?

Answers
The simple answer is to use Google Translate.

Story
My first trip to China was a side trip from Hong Kong to Guilin mountains, which you see in a 360 degree video in Disney in Florida, USA. Coming down the mountain I wanted to visit the toilet. I asked somebody for the sign for 'toilet'. I quickly said, 'no, ladies toilet'.

TOILET
I looked for the sign, checked the last character matched what was on my notebook, thinking like in England it would be LADIES and went in. I immediately realised I was in the men's!

I went back to the girl who had showed me, told her I had walked into the Gents. I don't think she understood. So I pointed to the sign she had written. I asked her, "What is this word!"

 She said, "I've written LADIES (toilet).


LADIES AND GENTS

For years I though she had just written the sign for toilet.

LADIES TOILET
Now that I have photographed the signs for Ladies toilet, I see the symbols clearly. It is not one word, Ladies, but two words, ladies toilet.

Tips
1 If you are in China, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong or a Chinese restaurant in England, America, Europe or anywhere in the world, show the sign to a Chinese speaking friend. Learn how to say it.

2 Or take a video of them saying it. If you were really nifty, you could take a video of them asking,
Where is the restaurant?

Where is the toilet?
A separate video of: My hotel is (...); and
Please call me a taxi.
How much?
Too much?

3 If you have a friend whose name translates into something you would want to remember such as 'Beautiful', video them saying their name and translating it.

4 Use Photos From Google translate.
You can click on the Chinese to hear the sound. Learn to say it if you can.
I photograph the google translate of my favourite words and make them into little flashcards, or have a page of them, or shrink them small to go inside my notebook or diary.

Looking at the symbols, you can see why the Chinese language and the Malay language don't have plurals but use a double word like child-child to mean children.

You can also see why they don't understand the concepts of the or a or an. A or an would translate into one.

The or this might translate into a pointing finger symbol. Easier just to leave it out.

That does not explain to me why the Russian language, using the alphabet does not use the or a or an.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Language teacher. Teaching English and other languages. I have many posts on languages here and on my language blog. Please share posts.

Watch Your Bag and Why

Your bag could disappear anywhere, in London, Singapore or Russia, whether you are a tourist or a business visitor or a resident. If you see a warning sign, take extra care.

At The Volunteer pub near The Sherlock Holmes museum (see other posts) the ladies toilet is upstairs. My companion said to me, "Leave your bag here. It'll be all right with me." He was eating breakfast. We'd just finished.

I said, "Will you stay here?"

"Yes," he said. "Where would I go? I'm not leaving until you get back."

Upstairs in the Ladies a sign warns you to watch your handbag. A bit late for me. I had just left mine downstairs with my companion.

When I go back he said, "I'm glad your back. I want to go outside to smoke a cigarette."

Fortunately I was not away long and he waited for me to come back.

He was a friend I already knew. I've known him years. I know his home address.

But he wanted to go outside and smoke a cigarette.

What if he had been a new friend? A new group of friends? And one of them had assured me my bag would be all right with them?

I would not trust strangers. I don't know them. I do not know their honesty. I do not know their home address.

They might leave without my bag if there was a fire alarm, a fire, or a bomb alert.

What if my acquaintance is OK but goes to the bar to get food and one of the others is not to be trusted? Or they are busy talking to each other and a stranger takes my bag and they don't notice?

Unlikely?

It has already happened to me.

1 I was a teenager in a disco in the South of France. I met a boy and we danced not he dance floor. He said leave your bag. My bag went. The following week I went back to the disco. He was still there. He admitted that his acquaintances included a bag thief who was always on the lookout every night for somebody who left a bag. I never found out whether the boy I fancied was part of the group and it was a set-up. I suspect it was. His desire to dance with me never turned into a long-term relationship.

2 On a train across Russia with a group of students on a holiday, at a station a girl got out to buy a sandwich, leaving behind her bag to be watched over by Boy 1 who was with Boy 2. Boy 1 was supposed to watch the bag. Boy 2 had not been asked. Boy 1 decided to get out and get a sandwich. He claims he assumed boy 2 would watch the bag. Boy 2 decided to follow the others and get a sandwich. The bag disappeared. Including her passport.

She and the organiser were delayed, missed their flight, and both had to wait for than 48 hours for her to get a new passport. (We travelled on without the escort who was supposed to be looking after the whole group. So now Boy 1 was in charge of group tickets, etc etc. I didn't know the others, because my return had been swapped with somebody from a group on a longer holiday, because I wanted to stay longer, whilst he decided to take a shorter trip. That was another hoo-ha.)

She had no money to get her train ticket in the UK and hotel overnight in London and bus or taxi to hotel or home. So my last souvenir money had to be loaned to her. Everybody in the student group loaned what little they had left to her and she took our names and addresses and promised to write and tell us what happened and return the money. By now I had lost faith in everybody and had no expectation that she would. But she did return my money and tell me the end of the story. She never got her bag back.

I have other friends who have lost bags. Even when the bag is next to you. Another group of people sitting close by.

I lost my bag earlier this year in Singapore. It was gone moments after I got off a bus. I thought I'd left it behind on the bus. However, I was jostled by people behind as I walked from the bus stop towards a hawker centre. Afterwards I read that it's a common ploy. You are jostled from the right and somebody take your bag from the left. Or somebody knocks you from behind and another takes your bag from in front. Three of them and one of you. You might decide it's not worth fighting. You can't take a photo of them if they've just stolen your camera or camera phone.

Keep your passport and credit cards separate from your visible bag.

The moral is. Watch your bag. Keep it attached to you.