Thanks for that advice. I think it's just nervousness on my father's part as it will be his first trip alone. He has already learned the benefit of checking train numbers, he and my late stepmother missed the train to Munich from Venezia Santa Lucia station because they were looking for "Munich" or "München" and didn't realise that it was "Monaco di Bavaria" in Italian. I told them that they should have looked for the "EC86" number on the board to get the right platform.

He has been studying his Mandarin phrasebook, so he should be able to use that if need be.