Flag

Yesterday, Calder returned home late by 2 hours. He was dismissed from work around 5pm. At 6pm, location showed he was still at the bus stop. I called him on his tracker watch, reminding him to flag for the bus. Also asked his job coach whether there was any staff around to check on him. Turned out most teachers were on leave due to the school holidays. At 7pm, I decided to take a cab to the bus stop to fetch him home. I packed his dinner, intending to let him eat and go toilet before bringing him home by train. I saw the sky turn dark as I travelled in the cab and wondered if Calder felt afraid sitting at the dark bus stop. But when I arrived, he was not at the bus stop. Location informed me that he had just gotten up a bus. I took the train, hoping to reach home before him to give him his dinner. The Dad collected him at the home bus stop. Fortunately I was home earlier, by a few minutes. It was nearly 9pm. Calder seemed subdued. He ate dinner with a small piece of pandan cake as supper. Showered. Typed his journal (I asked him to insert the line: I must flag for the bus) before going to bed. The job coach said she would train him again to flag for the bus. Meanwhile, maybe I can write in to ask bus drivers to slow down at that bus stop? 

Wait

Calder had no work this afternoon so I brought him for lunch with a retiree friend. We went to Serangoon Garden Way. After lunch, as usual, Calder was walking way ahead of us. The retiree friend wanted to show me the new church he's attending. But when we turned back towards the bus stop, Calder had disappeared. My instinct was to check the back row of departing buses. (Calder likes to sit at the last row of buses.) Sure enough, he was on one of them! We had come to Serangoon Garden on Bus 73 and Calder probably assumed we would board the same bus number home. But the one he got on was heading the wrong direction, towards Toa Payoh interchange. I ran after the bus as it slowly made a turn. Should I tap to make it stop? Calder was looking at Mommy who should be on the bus with him but wasn't. But then I thought I needed to tell my friend to stop searching. By then, the bus had sped off. I quickly looked for a taxi. No available ones around. Booked Grab and was informed the driver would arrive in 8 min. Meanwhile, Family Link location showed Calder to be on the expressway. I was hoping a cab could bring me to the interchange before Calder (so I could catch him easily when he arrived at the berth) but the retiree friend told me Bus 73 would reach Toa Payoh interchange soon after the expressway. I called Calder on his tracker watch (which functions like walkie talkie) and relayed that I would meet him at Toa Payoh interchange. Cab arrived. My retiree friend apologized for the trouble. I waved it off but asked him to pray. Got in the cab and started my chase. In the cab, I called Calder's watch again and asked him to meet me at Bus 88 stop in the interchange. As usual, there's no reply from him. It's indeed only a short way to the interchange. Went to Bus 88 stop. No sign of him. Went to Bus 73 stop. No Calder either. Toa Payoh interchange is very big. Should I call out his name? Location showed him to be around HDB hub but the security guard stopped me from venturing into HDB office area. I asked if he'd seen a tall boy. He said no. But then I turned my head and tall boy was walking toward me. Thank you, God, for bringing Calder to Mommy! I updated my retiree friend and also the family that Calder had been found. Brought him to the toilet before we took Bus 88 home. I reminded Calder to wait and not to board buses first. After all, he couldn't ask bus drivers to wait for Mommy. Then I asked him: "Calder, just now were you scared or calm?" He said, "Scared." (He sure looked tensed when I found him.) Thank you, God, for taking care of Calder! Let's hope Calder has learned his lesson - wait before boarding. 

12 Days in Korea

We had our first family trip to Korea from 16 to 28 April 2026 (Seoul, Jeju, Busan) and the following are some personal notes on the experience...

Escalator 

The first thing I noticed when we arrived at Seoul airport was that the escalators in Korea require standing on the right and moving on the left (opposite from Singapore). I had to remind Calder a few times not to block the left side. Not easy especially since he had a luggage to take care of. We were on a 12-day trip with hotel offering laundry facility (coin-operated) only on Day 9, so we brought two medium and two small luggages - each person towing one. It's the first time Calder had a luggage to mind and he kept abandoning it (when he went toilet/bee-lined for a seat on subway). 

Bakeries 

It's not common for hotels in Korea to offer breakfast. Initially, I was concerned about Calder getting hungry while we scouted for breakfast. Turned out there're many bakeries with a great variety of tasty bread and pastries displayed attractively on trays. Calder was happy with the familiar food. While exploring Gwangjang market in Seoul, we saw a long queue at Garlic Boy and decided to join the line. This stall sold variations of garlic bread and we tried four. All were good! I noticed the stall had slogans like "Lucas is back", "Emma is back". At first, I thought they were names of popular staff. But the same signage appeared at another branch. Turned out they were names of their bread varieties. I was soon to discover that almost all garlic bread sold in Korea were tasty - deeply flavoured and sweeter than the ones in Singapore. It made me want to choose garlic bread flavor for the HBAF almonds that we later bought back home.

Seafood 

Besides garlic bread, my other favorite food in Korea was seafood. In Busan, after taking the cable car, we stumbled upon a row of stalls that sold seafood. One vendor earnestly invited us to her stall, assuring us that a large set (90000 won) would be sufficient for our family of four. Since it was lunch time and we wanted to eat seafood in Busan, we sat down to a meal prepared for us. Calder was wary of the spiralling smoke as the seafood was grilled over charcoal briquette. He ate prawns and some squid, but didn't take to abalone and scallop or other shellfish. The staff placed before us a plate of squirming octopus tentacles that we thought were meant for grilling but turned out to be sashimi. I was going eeeks! when one of the still-moving tentacles dropped from the table onto my hand. The plate had raw orange sea squirts too. Ethel tried the raw octopus and pronounced it good. But the rest we asked the staff to kindly cook it. So she grilled them on scallop shells. Scallop she grilled with lots of shredded cheese. I realized it's nice to not to have to decide every dish but be surprised by what the set meal offers. I suppose the surprise was partly because we couldn't understand Korean words on menus. Thank God for Google lens (that translated well for print but not handwritten words) and Google Translate (which we used often to convey that we didn't want our food spicy). We decided to try barbeque seafood again and found out that the items offered were similar across different stalls. Since Calder wouldn't take shellfish, we ordered for him fried rice. During trips, he always looked happy to meet familiar food like bread, pizza and fried rice. He ate non-spicy fried chicken too.

Alternative food

Many restaurants in Korea require each customer to order a main meal. After a number of over-sixty dollar meals, we looked for cheaper alternatives in the supermarket. Cup noodles! Supplemented with gimbap or roasted chicken or sliced pork trotter (which turned out to be rather tough). Did this twice during the trip. Ethel had certain food in mind that she wanted to eat in Korea: Grilled meat, Korean fried chicken, jajang noodles, cold noodles etc, so we left meal slots to try these. Calder was fine with cup noodles and meat dumplings and gimbap. Good thing we packed a fork because the eateries usually supply just spoons and chopsticks. A few times, I nearly forgot to keep our personal fork after the meal. Later, I taught Calder to use another spoon to push food, like what he does with a fork. In this way, he dined with two metal spoons, unless he was eating noodles that required a fork.

Drinks

The eateries usually supply drinking water from a dispenser or jug. We took the opportunity to fill up our water bottles. To reduce plastic waste, tour agencies in Korea do not supply bottled water. Many hotels do not supply toothbrush either. While Ethel and her Dad drank coffee, I bought yogurt drinks and flavoured milk from convenient stores for Calder and me. Hubby discovered that makgeolli was cheap (around 2000 won a bottle in convenient stores) and refreshing. In cafes, strawberry latte (no caffeine) was something Calder appreciated. We saw a hot drinks vending machine on a subway platform and elderly uncles sitting beside train doors, sipping from paper cups. Actually, on our first train ride in Korea, air hostesses were snacking on chocolate stick wafers on the train. It's probably permissible to eat and drink on Korean mrt. Like Singapore, the trains have special seats for disabled/elderly (I had to stop Calder from choosing these seats). There were even designated seats for pregnant women and cabins for those who prefer weaker air-conditioning.

Activities 

In this trip, we figured out a way to do shopping without the guys impatiently waiting - Ethel to venture out on her own during our afternoon siestas. She was able to find jackets that she liked in Hongdae. Of course, there was also Olive Young for the facial products. We enjoyed exploring the markets and travelling on buses, besides trying out Korean food (especially the wide selection of bread). 

Fruit was strangely scarce in the Seoul city area, sold expensively in cups in convenient stalls. We decided to head to Cheongnyangni wholesale fruit and vegetable market. That was one of the best decisions made. There were big baskets of strawberries selling as cheaply as 4000 won. Ethel chose a 5000 won basket which had bigger strawberries (though I don't suppose bigger means sweeter). We also bought a big basket of loose grapes for 1000 won and they were so sweet! 

Ethel likes to do costume photography so we let her rent a hanbok when we were visiting Gyeongbokgung Palace. The rental (Dorothy Hanbok Travel) was only 12000 won for 2 hours. Since those wearing traditional costumes enjoyed free entry into the palace (otherwise 6000 won), hubby suggested I rent a costume too. Calder was patient waiting as Daddy took pictures of Ethel and Mommy. Occasionally we beckoned him to take a family shot together. There were hardly any seats at the palace, so Calder spent some time sitting on steps. The steps were so low that he unbuttoned his pants and after a while, proceeded to pull out the button. Two pants became button-less in this trip but I think Calder was outgrowing them anyway, so no big loss. 

In Jeju, we tried cycling but it was a bad idea because the slopes were so steep (no wonder the vendor kept recommending electric bikes). Calder was not used to mountain bikes (at home, his was the foldable type) and what with having to get off so often to push the bike (the leg had to swing back high to dismount), he got upset and tried to ram our bikes. Thank God it didn't escalate into a meltdown. But we gave up the activity soon after and returned the bikes in less than 2 hours (although at 25000 won, we could have them for the whole day). 

On the other days, we followed local tour guides to explore Eastern and Southwest Jeju. Through these tours, we briefly visited parks, waterfalls, cave, beach etc. The first Jeju tour was awful because of the rainy weather. The wind was so strong it kept flipping our umbrellas backward. Calder fairly gave up on his umbrella. To keep him warm, we gave him a woollen neck warmer. It was so cold and wet that I much preferred to hide in the tour bus. Fortunately, the other days in Korea were sunny. We were told that because of the strong wind, Koreans use raincoats instead of umbrella. But our first tour guide (in Seoul) carried a black umbrella in the sun - probably to protect his fair complexion. 

Towards the end of the trip, we spotted an empty photo booth and had fun taking 10-sec shots of the family. It cost only 4000 won and made a lasting good memory of our first trip to Korea.

Bus Angels

Received a call from an unknown number. 

"Hello Mdm, this is the bus captain of 43. My bus broke down but your son doesn't want to get down." 

Me: "Can you put him on the next Bus 43 and ask the driver to alert him at Siglap mrt?" 

"Ok, but he just sits there." 

Me: "Can he stay on your bus until the next bus comes?" 

"Can, until the tow truck comes. He is just sitting there, no response." 

Me: "Oh, he doesn't talk." 

"Maybe you can talk to him?" 

Me: "Calder, your bus is spoilt. Bus uncle will help you change to another bus, and you alight at Siglap mrt, ok?" 

(No response)

"Mdm, the next bus is here." 

Me: "Can you bring him over?" 

"I go and talk to the bus captain first... Ok Mdm, the bus captain has ferried him before. He knows what to do. Your son is now on the other bus. "

Me: "Thank you! Thank you so much. "

Beeps

Yesterday, Calder and I arrived at the bus stop a bit late. We were still a distance away when Bus 43 arrived. Oops, looks like he's going to miss the bus, I thought. Strangely, the bus didn't move off. Then we heard beeps from the bus horn. When I gazed into the tinted glass, I recognized our favorite bus driver. (He was the one who exclaimed "no problem!" the first time I asked him to alert Calder at Siglap mrt.) He was waiting for Calder to board his bus. He waved and I didn't even need to convey my request before he announced: I will watch over him (我会看他)! Today we arrived at the bus stop earlier than usual. As the bus approached, we heard beeps again. It's the same driver waving at us. I do not know his name but I'm so thankful for people like him who obviously enjoy their work and who go the extra mile to be a blessing to others.