December, 3rd 2012, FINAL DESTINATION

It was December, 3^rd 2012. And it’s about 6:00 Japan. We arrived in Narita-AP Tokyo, Japan. Time before arriving I felt so blessed. I really flied in the sky, like burok (such kind of light) that brought Muhammad SAW isra’ mi’raj to meet Allah SWT in the 7^th layer of sky.

From the sky, I could see Japan exactly Tokyo. After needing time about 6 hours from Soekarno-Hatta AP. Finally my friends and I put our foot in Japan. Very cold temperature welcomed us. It was about 9^oC. That’s too cold if compared with Indonesia. In Indonesia was 25-30 degree.

That picture described situation in Narita-AP. It’s so crowded there, but it’s not messy. Narita-AP was so tidy and also clean. New scene was in front of my eyes. The beautiful place, tidy place and also clean place, here I’m. I compared with Jakarta, Surabaya and other towns. Probably, Indonesia had to learn many things from Japan.

I believe Indonesia could be better more than developing country. I was so amazed to see Narita-AP and also Tokyo. Tokyo was center of Japan. The government of Japan was in Tokyo. It seemed Japan was impossible to be great country because of natural source. But, actually Japanese showed that they could do it. And Japan became great country of this world.

The next was time of checking passport and visa. We also had to fill blank from Japanese government. It’s like questioner. Among the cold situation that pricked my bone, I had to queue to be checked my ID. I got problem at this time. The official asked my place address in Japan.

“Oh my God… I didn’t print it yet” (I shouted)

Then I canceled my turn. Lucky, after this the official was changed. Then I gave my ID directly. Hahah… I passed it.

I entered the waiting room. Someone welcomed by saying Ohaiyo gozaimasu (Japanese Language) the meaning was “good morning”.

Actually she was the official of JICE (Japan International Cooperation Center). She brought a board, and it’s written “Kizuna Bond Project”. The official was about 30 years old. She was wearing short skirt it’s about a knee. And she was wearing black long shock. Everybody knew that she was really Japanese. Because, her face was so oriental.

She looked like so amazed by arriving us. Then directly, she gave instruction to take our belongings. Then we went there. Based on our passion, we took picture over the airport. We took picture about situation and condition there. Suddenly, the official of airport shouted “Sashin-Sashin, your camera” (he crossed his both hand). It’s sign that we’re not allowed to take picture in the airport.

Then we went to the other place to fill presence. The guider said “you still had time about 20 minutes to have a rest”.

We went around directly seeing situation there. And also we took picture. One of us bought beverage and the cost was fantastic. It’s about ¥120-¥150. Wow… if we converted into rupiah it might be Rp12.000-15.000.

I tried to walk away to find other place. My eyes staged in an internet shop. But it’s not like other internet shop. The cost is ¥100/10 minutes or Rp10.000/10 minutes. I thought “there’s free hot spot here, who wants to use this internet?”

Then Kevin. He was my friend from Jakarta chapter. He was 180 cm, he had oriental face. He bought international adaptor there do you know how much is this? It’s ¥2500 or about Rp250.000,00. Wow… in Indonesia it’s about Rp30.000 only. But this’s so expensive here.

He said “this was just for experience.”

I only smiled.

Then 20 minutes had left. It’s to back, remember Japanese used time as well as they could. They would never be late.

(We decided to come back)

After gathering, we entered the bus that would bring us. It’s about 9:20 Japan. We would go to Chiba. Chiba was near Narita-AP I thought. On the way, I was so surprised with Japan. No traffic jump, no trash everywhere I thought that this’s perfect place.

It’s time to have lunch. We had lunch in a place that I didn’t know the exactly about this place. We met other participant, they were from India. I felt so hungry but the food was still foreign for me. I felt queasy there. I had to adapt with the food.

This’s it!!! I didn’t know about the name. Actually the taste was so delicious but, when I ate something I felt bad. Hah, probably I was too katrok.

There were a little rice, sea food like fish etc. there were also shrimp nugget, and unidentified fruit. Do you know the taste?

The taste wanted to explode in my mouth. Wow….

I wanted to throw out all of these from my stomach. But the situation was changed when I saw many children there. I thought that they were  students of kindergarten. They looked so cute.

I heard they were talking about us. They were so curious about us especially about our eyes. Our guider from Indonesia said “they liked our eyes”.

The children said in Japan but I didn’t know what it means. But if it was translated into English “look at their eyes, they had large eyes. They looked so weird, where are they from??? ”.

That’s about their question about us. They looked so funny with us. Let’s see the picture: this’s it!!!. They were so cute, weren’t it? The unique one from them is they were so crowded. But, it’s different what in your mind is. They staged in their place during eating. They didn’t move on. It’s so different in Indonesia; children in Indonesia couldn’t be quite. Indonesian children would run and run.

One of us said “if I could I’d like to bring one of them back”

Then it’s time to say goodbye with them. In this session they were singing a song. I felt that song was dedicated for us: D

It’s hard to do. We had to leave them we had to continue our journey. Then we went to crisis management center. It was a center place of ward off and education about disaster.

There I got many experiences and new information. That’s about what should I do if there’s fire, earthquake, how earthquake and tsunami happen, etc.

First I got information about how to use tube of put out fire. And I got new word of Japan. The word was kajida in English was fire. How to operate the tube? Check this out:

1.      Pull up the handle

2.      Take the pipe of water and focus on the target

3.      Push it

It was like reality, they use digital tools to make its the fire like fact. There’s place that contained fire and we had to put out the fire.

This’s the simulator:

It looked like reality. It’s like in the kitchen and someone forgot to turn off the stove. As a result buuummmm…

Kajida……!!!

The next, we learnt about what we should do if earthquake happen. There’s simulator there we did feel earthquake by this simulator. We could set the power of earthquake. I got 7.3 SR.

That picture described what should we do. The simulator, we had to sit down on the chair first. And in front of us, there’s a table. Suddenly the earthquake happened. Things that we had to do were:

1.      we had to hide under the table to protect our body

2.      the main that we had to protect was our head

3.      don’t run away when there’s earthquake

4.      when the power of earthquake had been down we had to run away as soon as we could

Then, we tried the next simulator. It’s about fume or smoke of fire. It’s like a game but there’re so many information there. Then what should you do if there’s fume of smoke of fire? Check this out:

1.      You were forbidden to stand up until 120 cm. You had to kneel and walk

2.      don’t be panic

3.      keep your nose and your mouth

We try the simulator and then we went out to continue our journey. Walk around Chiba, and once again I was amazed seeing this:

Wow, look at this picture. The city was so clean. And it’s so cold to be here. Bbbrrr….

We walked through this way and we found our bus. We entered it and we went to Nikko hotel.

We didn’t have to check in there. We got our room key directly. I got 462 room with my friend Erda from Solo.

Don’t ask me to describe the hotel! I have no enough vocabulary to describe it.

Then after putting all of my belongings, I went to dinner room. I’ll have dinner together there.

Because I was so hungry, I took spaghetti and other foods without thinking anymore. Of course the spaghetti was poured by sauce, and I took the sauce. I ate the spaghetti, the taste was so delicious. Suddenly Susanto-sensei said “there’s pork on that sauce don’t you see the pig picture?”

I didn’t believe it yet, I tried to see and “Masyaallah, that’s right there’s pork over there”. Arrrggghgh….

“Oh God please forgive me, I didn’t know about it” (I regretted).

Because as a Muslim we were not allowed to eat pork and drink alcohol.

I took another food immediately, and also fresh milk to wash pork. And I ate that food. Then I took some pictures as documentation.

We had discussion for a while, it’s about tomorrow. Because tomorrow morning after having breakfast, we’ll be separated based on our own affected area.

After finishing, I came back to my room to prepare. I took a bath first, washed my body and I felt fresher.

Don’t forget to shalat! This’s very important. The funny thing, I mixed all 5 times of shalat in a time. Because, I had no chance to pray there. (masyaallah)

Then I prepared all my belongings, because one of my bags would be delivered to Kuji city, Iwate prefecture first. Then I went sleep.



Regards,
Ikbar Sallim Al Asyari

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DECEMBER, 2nd 2012 (THE DREAM COMES TRUE)

December, 2^nd 2012. Today was orientation program of Kizuna in Jalan Limau no.22, Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta Selatan. I woke up early in this morning and run to go out, because I had deal to out early to avoid bad situation.

I lodged in Bina Antarbudaya office last night because I did not have place to stay. Then on 6.00 WIB I went out because Mr. Anam said “there’s a girl in the outside she was participant also probably”.

(I leave my friend Oky for first because he took long time to take a bath.)

Then I met 2 people one of them was still student. She was Elma from Surabaya Chapter. She came with her mother. So soon I helped them to carry her luggage. And let them to rest for a moment.

Elma said “there’s a girl from Jogja chapter, she was looking for this address”.

I said “really? Where’s she?”

She answered “I didn’t know, she looked for breakfast probably”.

After that a car came along. And I met them, that’s right they were from Joga. But they lived in Indramayu. I asked Oky (my partner from Tulungagung) “wihhh… all students were accompanied by their family how about us Ok?”

Oky said “didn’t you understand? From 1^st test until now we were always alone. But there’s always someone help us Alhamdulillah.”

Oh she was from pesantren (Islamic cottage). That’s good she understood well about Islam. Then Oky and I helped them to enter the office and showed them the place to put their luggage.

Time by time, one by one student came in. And we talk each other and we were getting closer. We knew each other. We talked so much, and then we filled presence.

Suddenly someone asked “what we were waiting for???”

I asked “had the participant been completed?”

Aha… the participant was not completed yet.

We were waiting the last person. Then the orientation was started.

Did you know who prepared this orientation? Who lifted the chair into the 2^nd floor??

Yeah you were right, Oky and I helped preparing this orientation. Before the orientation is started we had been tired. We felt so hungry because we didn’t have breakfast yet. I felt I didn’t have power anymore.

Okey no problem, though I was so angry I join this orientation. My stomach I felt there’s weird thing. I heard “kruyuk-kruyuk-kruyuk”.

The orientation was started. I got lesson from this and I saw 2 teachers for being our guider in Japan. The main idea, what would we do in Japan. We had 10 days only. This is too short.

Then my senior in Bina Antarbudaya asked me and my friends to write down all of targets that we wanted to get there. I wrote down at my books there were about12 targets I wanted to achieve. All of my friends also, they wrote many kinds of targets. After that we had to share or told what we had written to our friends.

By doing this, it was hoped for us. We had to remind each other, whether the targets were achieved or not.

The next session was we had to write down something that made us afraid, and something that made us happy to join this program. Mostly, we wrote about weather, food and language.

Weather, the weather of Japan was cold right now. It was called samui. And we lived in tropical area. Then food, of course as Muslim we had to eat halal food only. And the last is language, most of us didn’t understand well about Japanese language. We understood English only; we knew that most of Japanese didn’t use English as language. The loved their language so much.

After that, we got the way how to solve the problems one by one. Time run fast and we enjoyed the orientation. This orientation was held until 18.00 WIB. And it’s time to pack and prepared all things that we needed.

Before preparing, we had such kind of ceremony in Bina Antarbudaya before departure. We had to join because this’s so important. This session was we were given pin. This pin is our national flag red and white. This’s sign that we were deputy of Indonesia in this program. After that we sang “Indonesia Raya” together.

I thought in my mind “Oh my God, how can I achieve this. I believe this was your destiny.”

I still didn’t believe that I would go abroad for Kizuna. I felt so blessed. It was like dream, I was from primitive village in Kalidawir and now I was going to abroad to Japan. And I said “all praises be to Allah”.

It was time to pack. We prepared, we counted the weight of our goods. We were limited in 20 kilograms. Of course I passed this, because I didn’t bring suitcase or luggage. I only brought backpack. It was so simple, I wasn’t alone. There was Jonathan, he didn’t bring also.

Some of us brought too much goods. And they had to leave it in Indonesia. Then there was jacket rental. Bina Antarbudaya lent us jacket if we didn’t bring thick jacket. Then I asked senior opinion “was it enough for winter?” (I pointed my warm coat).

Kak Sari answered “I didn’t think so, because there temperature was under 0 there probably.”

(Then she lent me thick jacket)

Okey, I borrowed that jacket and leaved my warm coat in that office.

(The bus had arrived) “nguuunnngggg”

“It’s time to go guys” (someone said that)

When we wanted to enter the bus, the sky was rainy it’s about 18.00 WIB. Ohhh….

I felt this journey would be great. Because it was a sign that Indonesian’s sky didn’t be sincere to be leaved by us. It seems that the sky was crying loudly, but this was our destiny. We had to go for Kizuna.

My friends and I entered the bus, so did kak Noviawati. We would go to Soekarno-Hatta International airport. “That would be my first experience in plane” (I thought). On the way, I got Indonesian Bento. Kak Noviawati said “this’s Japanese food you had to adapt with this food. And Japanese used chopsticks.”

“That would be difficult I thought. Because, we never used chopsticks in Indonesia. We only used spoon and our hand.

Without thinking too much, I ate this bento. When I was eating, the taste was so delicious Japanese called Oishi. The taste is like boom that wanna explode in my mouth. It was my 1^st time trying Japanese food.

After finishing, I asked kak Novi “it needed long time ya kak?”

Kak Novi answered “yes, it would need about 1-2 hours. It depended on situation. In Jakarta, there’s always traffic jump.”

Then I preferred to sleep for a while. Though actually I couldn’t sleep. Because, I didn’t get sit down place. My sit down place was given to kak Novi.

After that, we arrived in Soekarno-Hatta airport. There were so many people there. They were my friends’ parent. They wanted to see their child go. They wanted to say goodbye to their own child.

Oky asked me “Ik, how about us? Where’s our family?”

I answered “they’re our family. We’re not alone again, though our own parent was at home, now we could feel we had family here.”

For the last moment, we took picture each other. There’re so many pictures we took. And I almost forget, I didn’t change my money into yen yet. So soon, I looked for money changer. I wanted to change my all money there’re Rp1.000.000,00. But this’s not enough to get ¥10.000. At the time ¥1=Rp126. I needed Rp260.000,00 more.

Then I borrowed my friend’s money, it’s about Rp200.000,00 from Arifa. Then I changed it. The conclusion, Rp1.260.000,00=¥10.000. My God, this’s crazy I thought.

Suddenly Susanto-sensei said “hurry up guys, we had no time anymore.”

It’s sign that we had to go. We had to check our goods by passing the x-ray. We were not allowed to bring bottle of water. All kinds of metal should be put and it would be checked. When I saw Susanto-sensei, he had to take off his shoes and belt. Because it contained metal.

Then we entered the waiting room. After checking all including ticket of plane and boarding pass. The nominal of boarding pass was Rp150.000,00.

Our ticket of plane was for PP or (went and back). Our visa was for 15 days there.

Then during waiting time, I went to rest room and then prayed Maghreb and Isya.

Time run very fast. Suddenly, there’s sign that we had to enter the plane. Yeah…. I obeyed that rule and I entered the plane. Before entering the plane, I called my parent first.

“Bah, nyuwun tambahe pangestu kulo sak puniko bade bidal” (in Javanese language exactly kromo inggil). The meaning was I asked my parent to bless my journey in Japan.

My parent said “yes, I blessed you to go”. It made my spirit be stronger. I had commitment; one day if I would be back to Indonesia I would bring many knowledge and experiences. I would use time by time as well as I could.

Then I entered plane. I looked for my seat. I found it, and my seat was on the middle. There were several lines in the plane. A line was divided into 4 groups, I got edge group beside the window. My seat was on the middle. Beside me, there were 2 students. They’re my friends from Indonesia. On my right side was Mawlidina or Moody. That's her nickname. On my left side was Icha, she was from Makasar.

Here, I could see outside. When I was in the sky I imagined that I had dream. When I was a child I had a dream to fly in the sky (that’s crazy dream I thought).

But, now the dream came true.  I could fly, though it was by plane, hehe

In the plane, I said in my heart “Indonesia, my country. Now I was here for you. I would bring your name in Japan, I’ll never forget you. I loved you Indonesia and see you 2 weeks later.”

Then my friends and I leaved Indonesia slowly. I always saw the outside, just only said goodbye to my beloved country.

The outside I saw blue sky that I always saw in Indonesia. I flied this was the outside situation when I was in the plane.

This plane was JAL (Japan Airlines). Exactly JL 726 and I got the seat 54B. That’s amazing experience and unforgotten experience. I’d like to say thanks God for all of your graces that has been given to me.

The departure needed about 6 hours to get in Japan. We would arrive in Narita Airport Tokyo, Japan. During in the plane I didn’t want to sleep because it was rare experience on me to be in the plane so I would not miss everything.

Suddenly Moody woke me up from my imagination. “Ikbar, see the female attendant on long distance transport. She was so beautiful.”

I said “so, what did you want to do now?”

Moody answered “I’d like to bring him home after this.”

I said “crazy you were!!!”

Then the female attendant on long distance transport came along and offered food and snack. This was mixing food between Japanese food and Indonesian food. And the taste was so delicious.

And I asked “what for this is?”

She answered “it’s time to breakfast.”

I said “haaa???”

This was 5:00 am Japan or about 3:00 am in Indonesia. And I thought in Japan, people had breakfast in 5:00 am probably.

No problem, just eat and enjoy the food. It’s so fun.

Regards,

Ikbar Sallim Al Asyari

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