Stranger Talk

Cerita ini murni merupakan pengalaman pribadi penulis dan tidak ditujukan untuk menyerang golongan manapun. Saya hanya memiliki burden untuk menulis PoV seseorang dan mengabadikan sebuah momen berharga dalam hidup.

This story began about a month after my recidency in Korea as an exchange student. Sedikit banyak saya sudah memahami rute dan sistem transportasi umum di Korea, baik bus maupun metro. Rute paling krusial yang harus saya ingat adalah Suwon-Seoul; mengingat saya yang tinggal di Suwon dan kegiatan-kegiatan volunteer yang saya ikuti mayoritas took place in Seoul. Selain itu, objek wisata di Korea juga terkonsentrasi di Seoul, so if you want to get the Korean hype, you have to go there.

Suatu hari, saya ada janji meeting jam 11 pagi di daerah Jongno. Dari rute yang diberikan oleh panitia, saya bisa berjalan kaki ke venue dari stasiun Jonggak atau Anguk. Kesimpulannya, saya harus naik metro dari Suwon ke Jonggak/Anguk. Rute ini memakan waktu agak lama karena memutar jauh, yah ibaratnya mau ke Bogor dari Jatinegara tapi muter lewat Duri mungkin. Dari kampus, saya masih harus naik bus dulu ke stasiun Suwon yang memakan waktu sekitar 30 menit. Jadi, setelah dihitung-hitung risikonya, paling aman kalau saya berangkat jam 9 dari asrama. Fyi, di Korea, keterlambatan itu kurang bisa ditoleransi. Lebih baik jadi pihak yang nungguin daripada ditungguin orang. Malu.

Kebetulan meetingnya diadakan di hari Sabtu, jadi ketika saya keluar dari asrama untuk memulai perjalanan, suasana kampus sangat amat sepi. Pas setelah melewati kompleks asrama, ada seorang laki-laki (prediksi: umur 25) berparas timur tengah yang sepertinya juga mau pergi halte bus. Mungkin karena saya berhijab, laki-laki itu tersenyum dan mengucapkan salam sembari menjajari saya untuk berjalan.

Ya sebenernya takut juga sih disapa stranger. Tapi, mengingat dia ini keluar dari asrama, berarti dia juga mahasiswa.

Saya hanya menjawab ala kadarnya saja, not sound too excited but respecting. Pembicaraan secara umum berkisar di status mahasiswa, negara asal, dan major di kampus. Dari percakapan singkat, ternyata orang ini adalah mahasiswa master degree yang berasal dari Pakistan.

I was like, oh wow Pakistan. Sebenernya jujur pas itu saya kebayangnya Palestina, tapi ternyata Pakistan beda dengan Palestina hehe.

Pada saat itu dia juga bertanya; "where are you going?" Saya cuma bilang saya mau ke Jonggak, ketemu sama temen. Saya mau naik bus ke Suwon Station kemudian naik metro ke Jonggak. Pada saat itu dia langsung tergelak, "really? You're going to Seoul but you're taking metro from Suwon? It just a waste of time." Singkatnya, karena dia sama-sama mau ke Seoul juga buat kerja part-time, akhirnya dia menunjukkan jalan yang lebih cepat, which is naik bus ke Sadang, kemudian baru naik metro dari stasiun itu. "I'm going to Seoul too, but from Sadang, I have to take a different route so you have to survive by yourself then," tambahnya. Setelah saya setuju, kamipun naik bus ke Sadang bersama-sama.

Bus di Korea pasti memiliki dua layar LCD yang menampilkan iklan-iklan, satu di depan dan satu di belakang. Kebetulan waktu itu, ada sebuah video tentang Malala yang diputar oleh perusahaan bus. Begitu melihat muka Malala, orang ini langsung bertanya, "do you know her? What do you know about her?" Jujur, saya langsung merasa bego. Saya cuma tahu kalau Malala itu aktivis dari Pakistan yang bertahan hidup walaupun ditodong oleh penjajah. Malala juga dapet nobel dan recently dia meresmikan sebuah sekolah. Only that.

Reaksi yang saya ekspektasi dari dia selanjutnya adalah: kebanggaan terhadap Malala. Ya, wajarlah sama-sama orang Pakistan dan ada pioneer negaranya yang concern terhadap human rights sampe dapet nobel, masa iya responnya negatif?

Dan faktanya, dia malah mendengus dan bilang, "dia itu cuma alat yang dipake sama penjajah buat propaganda." Saya kaget, and demands him to tell more about his view. Diapun bercerita tentang status quo di Pakistan sekarang ini, dimana ternyata mayoritas orang malah nggak respect ke Malala. Dulu, ketika kasus pembajakan bus terjadi, dunia hanya tahu bahwa Malala adalah sosok yang membangkang terhadap penjajah. Padahal, menurut ceritanya, Malala survive karena dia satu-satunya orang di bus yang tidak memakai hijab. I was like, @{_$※◇{\. Dia kemudian melanjutkan bahwa ayah Malala itu punya koneksi ke petinggi-petinggi negara barat.

"Coba kamu lihat aja dia sekarang, ya berhijab sih berhijab. Tapi apa iya dia menutup sesuai ketentuan muslim? Pas pembajakan bus, orang-orang yang berhijab kaya kamu ini dibunuh semua. Ditembak di tempat. Cuma Malala yang nggak diapa2in karena dia punya power dan dia memang aslinya tidak menggunakan tudung kepala," jelasnya.

Setelah itu, dia kemudian diberi semacam perlindungan untuk mendapat entah paspor atau kewarganegaraan (saya lupa) di negara barat.

"Ya dia emang bikin sekolah itu baru-baru ini. Tapi emang apa lagi kontribusi dia? Perang juga masih berlangsung tuh sekarang? Penembakan anak-anak juga masih ada. Dan seharusnya, kalau dia memang punya spirit menjadi aktivis, dia nggak akan pindah dan hidup enak dapet imunitas di negara orang. Kudunya dia tinggal di Pakistan dan berjuang buat mengusir mereka dari tanah kita."

Sepanjang perjalanan, saya sampai pada sebuah kesimpulan bahwa ternyata dunia ini sudah dikuasai oleh kepentingan-kepentingan politik yang kekuatannya sudah beyond dari apa yang bisa saya bayangkan. Pada akhirnya, kondisi ekonomi akan berdampak pada sosio-politik juga dimana 1% populasi dunia inilah yang benar-benar akan mendominasi 99% lainnya melalui power yang mereka miliki.

Semenjak itu, saya semakin merasa bahwa media memang punya peran yang sangat penting dalam men-drive pemikiran orang. Saya juga tidak sepenuhnya percaya dengan orang Pakistan tadi karena bisa jadi dia juga dipengaruhi oleh interest tertentu. Namun, penuturannya yang benar-benar membalikkan apa yang selama ini diagung-agungkan media itulah yang saya kagumi.

Pada akhirnya, jangan melihat masalah dari satu sisi saja. Analisis anda mungkin benar, tapi pasti ada analisis lain yang beyond dari kebenaran yang selama ini anda yakini.

Have a nice day!

Sholat & Adzan: Tolerance between Roommates

Selama 20 tahun, gue belum pernah bener-bener hidup sekamar bareng sama orang lain. Temen-temen emang suka nginep atau sekedar numpang tidur di kamar, tapi ya hanya sebatas itu. Mereka nggak akan jadi orang yang bebas keluar-masuk kamar karena ya cuma jadi tamu, sedangkan kepemilikan utama tetep ada di gue, seorang diri. Sayangnya, semua kamar di Ajou international dorm mewajibkan penghuninya untuk berbagi lapak dengan orang lain dengan komposisi dua orang sekamar, satu mahasiswa asli Korea dan satu mahasiswa foreigner.

Awalnya, gue lumayan deg-degan. Takut kalau-kalau si roommate nggak bisa menerima gue karena faktor budaya atau agama. Selain itu, isu-isu tentang privasi juga menghantui pikiran gue. Khawatir dia ngapa-ngapain barang gue kalo gue lagi nggak di kamar. Belum lagi bayangan mahasiswa-mahasiswa Korea yang emang terbiasa minum soju sampe mabuk tengah malam. Yha serem aja kalo tiba-tiba roommate gue masuk kamar sambil ga sadar dan bau alkohol gitu. 

Lanjut. Hari pertama kami bertemu, dia dateng ke kamar sekitar jam 12 siang. Kebetulan pada saat itu lagi ada temen gue dari Maroko yang main ke kamar, jadi dia bisa gue manfaatkan buat bantu-bantu mencairkan suasana. Si roommate ini bawa empat kardus besar yang isinya barang-barang macem sprei, baju, sepatu, dan daily needs lainnya. Ini cuma intermezo aja, jadi dia paketin itu semua barangnya dari rumah. Terus dia naik bus dari rumah ke asrama, tapi cuma bawa tas tangan biasa aja jadi ga ribet. Keren sih. 

Waktu dia dateng, gue belum sholat Dzuhur. Setelah basa-basi kenalan, gue pun ngomong ke temen Maroko gue, "eh ajakin roommate ngobrol dulu ya. Gue mau wudhu dulu, belom sholat." Fyi mahasiswa Maroko ini muslim juga jadi kita enggak sungkan satu sama lain. Setelah wudhu di toilet, guepun sholat di kamar. Space tempat sholat gue ini kehalang sama dinding meja belajar roommate, makanya dia tetep ngobrol sama temen Maroko tanpa memperhatikan gue. Tapi kemudian, pas gue sholat rakaat kedua, dia sadar kalo gue lagi melakukan gerakan-gerakan yang aneh. Gue denger dia sempet manggil-manggil: "Risti? Are you okay?" atau semacem itulah. Temen Maroko cuma balas: "selo dia lagi sholat," kemudian mereka melanjutkan pembicaraan lagi. 

Lama kemudian, temen Maroko ini balik ke kamarnya di lantai atas. Tinggallah kita berdua di kamar. Pas itu, barrier di antara kita udah nggak setebel pas baru ketemu. Gue juga udah jelasin kalo gue muslim dan berhijab. Si roommate pun (kayanya) memberanikan diri bertanya: "Risti what are you doing earlier? Is it bowing?" Gue rada bingung juga kenapa dia ngomongnya bowing, bukan praying. Istilah yang umum digunakan kan pray. Iya, kan? Mungkin karena banyak orang Buddha di sana jadi mereka mengasosiasikan sholat sebagai bowing. Gue jelasinlah ke dia kalau gue tadi sholat, kewajiban agama, and I have to do that five times a day. Dia kaget gitu kaya, "eii?? Really? Aren't you tired?" Gue cuma senyum-senyum dan haha hihi aja.

Akhirnya, tibalah malam pertama kita tidur bersama. Selama di Korea, gue pake sebuah aplikasi yang adzannya bunyi agak kenceng. Ya maklum, lagi winter subuhnya aja setengah enem. Kan wajib harus menyesuaikan rotasi matahari di sana. Apalagi ga ada adzan kenceng dari masjid layaknya di Indonesia, jadi emang kudu punya reminder sendiri. 

Paginya, bunyilah ini adzan pas masuk waktu Subuh. Kebetulan juga, gadget gue taruh di meja belajar dengan kondisi speaker di atas, bukan di samping kasur. Pas mulai kedengeran: "Allaahu akbar Allaahu akbar," rommate gue tiba-tiba bangun sambil teriak-teriak pake bahasa Korea campur Inggris. "MWOYA?? IGE MWOYA?? RISTII!! WHAT HAPPENED?? SOMEONE IS SCREAMING NEAR US!!"

Gue...... 

Panik dan bingung......

Dia literally yang menyibakkan selimut sambil noleh kanan kiri panik seolah-olah ada hantu lagi nereakin dia.

Gue otomatis bangun juga dan menenangkan dia sambil ngomong: "No, no, it's okay. It's my reminder to sholat. Nothing bad. You can go back to sleep, Roommate," sambil nepuk2 punggung doi. Sampai sini gue mikir, aduh susah nih kalo dia sensitif sama bunyi alarm. Masa iya gue subuh ga pake reminder kan pasti kelewatan (hehe). 

Kocaknya lagi, dia cuma: "Really?" kemudian balik bobok lagi. Terus habis balik ambil wudhu, dia udah ngorok. Serah lah mbak. Habis kejadian itu, gue ganti alarm gue jadi alarm dengan common ringtone di HP, yang itu berarti gue harus adjust waktunya setiap hari. Kebetulan waktu itu lagi masa transisi dari winter ke spring, jadi bener-bener kerasa banget yang sebelumnya jam tujuh pagi aja matahari baru terbit, sampai pada akhirnya matahari terbit jam setengah enaman. 

Siangnya, roommate inget kejadian pagi tadi dan nanya: "Ris, tadi itu kenapa ya? Kok kaya ada bapak-bapak masuk ke kamar kita terus teriak-teriak. Padahal gue yakin pintu kamarnya udah gue tutup." 

Q lelah. Ya, reaksi gue otomatis ketawa sih. Sebegitunya ya orang awam memandang kebiasaan-kebiasaan beragama yang emang nggak common di kehidupan mereka. Pada akhirnya, gue menjelaskan dari A sampai Z kalo suara itu tadi namanya adzan. Adzan itu panggilan buat sholat, buat praying. Kalo lo tinggal di Indonesia, lo bakal denger adzan ini five times a day, sesuai dengan waktu masuknya shalat. Terus, suara ini juga bakal di speaker dari masjid jadi kedengeran buat semua orang meskipun lo non-muslim dan tidak berkewajiban untuk sholat. Then, her response be like: "Jadi, Ris, kalo aku ke Indonesia, tiap pagi aku bakal denger suara bapak-bapak teriak-teriak itu?" And I was like: "Um.... yeah?"

Seiring berjalannya waktu, roommate gue pun jadi ngerti tentang praktek-praktek agama Islam dan dia juga menghormati itu. Pernah juga ketika weekend dia menghabiskan seharian di kamar dan menyaksikan gue sholat lima kali. Pas mau sholat ashar, dia sempet nyeletuk: "Again? You do this again?" sambil geleng-geleng kepala dengan muka takjub. Meskipun pada akhirnya dia masih stay dengan ke-atheis-annya (gue gagal meng-Islamkan dia LOL), gue menghormati apa yang menjadi pilihannya dan dia juga menghormati apa yang menjadi pilihan gue. Setiap kita mau makan, dia pasti juga berusaha nyariin makanan vegetarian. Apalagi ketika puasa ramadhan, dia juga berusaha untuk makan di dapur, padahal biasanya kita selalu makan bareng di kamar. Niceee.

At last, I took my faith seriously but I don't want to make it scary.
Semoga kalian yang mau hidup di muslim-minority country bisa mengaplikasikan ajaran-ajaran agama kalian dengan baik dan beradab. Semoga cerita ini juga tidak dianggap sebagai hal yang negatif; because I just merely love in the idea of diversity :D

Exchange Student (part 2 - Global Korea Scholarship)

Well I'm not going to explain GKS in detail, so if you need a further official information, please kindly check NIIED webpage. As far as I know, this scholarship also provides some sort of funding for master and doctoral degree.

This scholarship is famous (at least among us, UI student) as it is issued by Korea's Ministry of Education. They kindly offers you a monthly stipends (₩500,000/month), settlement fee (₩200,000), insurance coverage (₩80,000), and two-round flight ticket from your home country to Korea. Pretty attractive, right?

Before getting too much hype, make sure that your Korean university (destination school) listed in GKS/KGSP grantee. I think I got this information from NIIED's official webpage so maybe you can re-check it. Only top-20 universities in Korea got the chance to be selected.

After that, in my case, you need to pass two different selection process. The first process conducted in your home university, the later will took place in Korea.

My home university only recommend one student per destination. For instance, UI delegating two exchange students in SNU and two exchange students in Ajou, but only one student in SNU and one student in Ajou had the chance to apply. Well, UI also gave some sort of scholarship if you happened to fail this GKS, but we have to deal with their bureaucracy- so I still believe that GKS is the best option. This university recommendation is important since students can not apply for GKS by themselves.

Then, you have to submit the required documents within the deadline. This one is pretty harsh since they only gave you 1-2 days until the due. This documents consist of student transcript, self-introduction essay and study-plan essay. In Korea, they have a 4.5 maximum GPA index, so if your country adopt a different regime, you have to convert your grade. As for study plan, you only need to explain which subject are you going to take in Korea, and why. Make sure to check the university's syllabi before writing this essay. GKS awardee also required to take at least one subject focused in Korean development, so make sure that you put this course in your study arrangement. I'll suggest you to, at least, prepare your essay's outline directly after you are choosen as an exchange delegate because you don't have much time between GKS notification and submission deadline.

After that, Korean government & university will proceed your application. I'm not sure about the government's criteria of selection. As far as I know, they only choose 5 awardee per university. In Ajou University Spring 2016, along with me, there also a student from Finland, Germany, USA, and France.

The selection process will take more than a month; definitely leaving me hanging. I just got the acceptance news about two weeks before my flight. Some students got the announcement right before their departure to Korea.

If you need references for GKS essays don't hesitate to e-mail me through risti.hayu@gmail.com.  I hope it helped. Good luck!

Student Exchange (Part 1 - Preparation)

Not really exciting, but tiring. This is how I'm going to tell ya the whole process of bureaucracy, administration, and everything that come before I officially selected as an exchange student.

First, if you want to now something: just ask. If you have no courage (sometimes it happened to me- well, INFJ): google. That's the right place of finding what you really need. For me, I want to study abroad, but I don't want to crash my savings. Thus, among all the exchange programs available, I sort of picking the one that matched with my need.

Second, why would I choose Korea? I simply decide because they offer you a fully funded program called GKS (Global Korea Scholarship). I trace the former awardees of this scholarship and ask them for advice; how to apply and calculate the possibility of passing the selection. After a mini-research, thanks to our campus' good reputation, this GKS acceptance in UI is nearly 100%. So, why bother to choose others? ㅋㅋ
Besides, I studied in Economics & Business faculty which are proven to be the key sector upon Korea development up to this day.

Third, make sure you prepare the documents FAR before the deadline. Well, sometimes they're going to be harsh; the international office only spare a week between their open recruitment announcement and submission deadline. Meanwhile, they ask you to submit TOEFL score, recommendation letter, motivation letter, and such documents that is impossible to settle in a week (for further information about documents' requirement in my campus please access international.ui.ac.id). For me, I proceed the recommendation letter from my faculty's dean in a month. TOEFL test will take you about two weeks, and motivation letter only cost me around two days.

Fourth, international office staff will inform you about the interview date soon after the open registration due. The head of international office will face you herself; so please be prepared. As in my experience, you have to convince them why you are the most suitable candidate, what is your future plans, and how this program will benefit you.

Last, make sure that you are available for calls because they did not state a clear time upon when will you receive the announcement. Also frequently check your e-mails because in some case, they wrote to you.

Hope this article help you! Have a faith! :D

Ajou University - New International Dorm (part 1)

Well, since I write this in 2016, the official name of our dorm is "New International Dorm'. Maybe when you read this in 2020 or more, they won't put the "new" phase anymore. Actually before I came here, not that much people post something about this building, so, I hope that this writing will benefit the future Ajou International student.

Anyway, our dorm has 9 floors in total. First floor is office, living room, gym, toilet, praying room, and laundry room. Second until fifth floor are male's; while sixth until eight are female's. The 9th floor belongs to the professor and their relatives/colleague. Each floor has a kitchen or a study room. On female dorm's case, 6th and 8th floor have their own kitchen; while 7th floor only has a study room. So, if they want to cook something, they need to either go up or go down.

Before entering the building, you need to tap your Ajou ID Card into the main gate.

If you walk straight from this gate, you will find a room that has locker (the green square), a vending machine, a photocopy machine, and mailboxes which has a room number pledge on each box.

If you have a delivery package, you can pick it up here too.
***

Next, if you turn left from the gate, you can find a laundry room and gym. I've never been inside the gym, so I don't have any picture of it. Mianhae :(

The divide the laundry room into male and female area. If you want to use a washer or dryer, you need to put 1000 won bill. No coins accepted. Oh, and we can also find an iron table with the iron, of course, in this room.
***

Then, I'm going to show you the dorm floor.

It's very clean, compared to my campus dorm in Indonesia. One thing that I really love in Korea is the fact that you don't need to bring the room key everywhere. You only need to remember your password and voila! welcome to the house.

This is my room before my roommate come. I spent a lonely night for 3 or 4 days before finally she moved in. The office will give you a sheet, blanket, and a square korean pillow. But as you can see, the sheet has no color, only plain white with Ajou symbol in the middle, and the most horrible thing is: the brick pillow. You can buy a new pillow in Homeplus for 7.000-15.000 won. If you think it's expensive, go to Daiso, they sell a 5.000 won pillow.

I love this table. So many shelves and drawers.

We also have cupboard(?) (I dunno what's the right word) coat rack, shoe rack, trashbin, broom, and a fire extinguisher.

Luckily, I have a super kind, probably the most friendly roommate in the world kekeke. We don't have selfie together so just let me publish our room's door hahahah.

Nice, right?

We likes EGSIM! =D

At first, I thought I'm not going to get any problem living without a local SIM Card in Korea. But that was horrible. So anyway, I'll tell you about my experience on getting & activating a Korean SIM Card.

I strongly suggest you to use the Evergreen SIM (EG SIM) because it's kind of special SIM Card for foreigners so you don't need to buy a new phone in Korea. It's good especially if you don't want to stay long in here.

Anyway, you can buy this like, anywhere around Korea. Incheon Airport, Seoul Station, Myeongdong, Dongdaemun, or if you don't live in Seoul, you can just go to the nearest GS 25.

Once you got the SIM Card, you need to register it by following this steps:

The prices will varied, depend on which package that you choose.

If you have any more inquiries, you can contact them through jangsh@egmobile.co.kr.

It was simple and only takes you around 15-20 minutes to do the registration & activation.

Well, enjoy your stay in Korea :)

Finally It's Korea, Yorobun

Seven hours of flight and two hours difference. Welcome to Korea.

Pada saat ini, terminal 3 bandara Soekarno-Hatta belum selesai dibangun. Alhasil kami harus takeoff dari terminal 2. Beda sekali rasanya dari Bandara Soekarno-Hatta dengan konsep bata-bata kemudian merasakan bandara super canggih di Incheon.

Ketika sampai di Korea, sekitar awal Maret, musim dingin seharusnya sudah hampir selesai. Tapi hawa dinginnya masih luar biasa bagi saya yang hanya pernah merasakan hidup di iklim tropis. Orang-orang hanya pakai jaket biasa tapi sungguh saya sangat tidak kuat sampe harus pake sarung tangan. Pardon me yah.

Transit: Singapore

It is a very well-planned trip. We spent the same price for the flight back to Indonesia, but this time we took a transit. So, here we are: Singapore :3

We landed at 5 pm, so we don't have that much time to travel around. We only able to visit the famous Merlion Park and Orchad Road. But I think those two places represent Singapore well so I'm satisfied.

First of all, we need to bring our super heavy luggage into some storage rent place. I forgot how much it took me for a 24 hours rent but I think it costs about SGD 3 or around Rp 30.000.

Before officially enter Singapore, we need to fill an immigration form and of course,  doing the mandatory immigration checking on fingerprints, pupils, face, etc. The flight attendance distributed this immigration form like, an hour before our landing so actually we have enough time to fill it inside the plane. Unfortunately, three of us slept all the way from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore so we have no idea about that immigration form thingy. We just line up in the immigration booth and immediately scold by the officer there. We have to retake the queue after finding the right form and submit it to the immigration officer. Fiuh.

We got back to the airport at 10 pm, and directly look for a comfortable place to sleep. We want to eat but the price is so expensive so we decided to wait until we got back in Indonesia. At around 2 am, a soldier (?), I dunno if he's the real one or not, asked to check our passport and ticket. And he literally woke me up. So rude. 

We finally going back to Indonesia at 8 am, after a very cold sleep in Changi.

First Flight in My Life: Malaysia!

So actually this trip already ended like, two months ago but the memories remain.

The story began in the middle of 2015 when my friends ask me to join their team in a paper competition. Actually, the whole idea inside this paper are not originally mine, I'm just acting like a wicked commentator inside the team. But that's cool because sometimes you need the devil to called someone an angel. Ha.

And finally after a very hard day completing the research: Hooray! We make it to Malaysia! We submitted our paper into an event namely International Youth Scholar Conference; held in a campus called International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM). But trust me, in Malaysia, nobody knows the name. It happens that IIUM has its own name in their own language: UIA or Universitas Islam Antarbangsa. I almost thought that we went to the wrong country and the campus never existed.

We left Indonesia from Juanda International Airport, Surabaya. It is a big and well-built airport but since we take Terminal 2, which just recently opened, it feels empty there. My dad himself brought me here from Ponorogo and I met my teammates in front of the terminal gate. They just finished their agenda from somewhere near Kediri. So, it is more reasonable to take the flight from Surabaya instead of Jakarta.

For your information we don't have that much budget so we decide to fly with AirAsia. I kinda have a mixed feeling since it's my first time flight ever. I was happy of course but feeling scared at the same time. This airline definitely not have a good impression since their plane crash accident two years ago or sometime around that. But we don't have other option so here we go.

As you know, this low budget airline is famous for not giving their passengers free baggage facility. You only allowed to carry a handbag or luggage with maximum weight around 7 kgs in cabin. Again, as we don't have budget to buy extra baggage slot, we decide to put our poker face and act like "we did not bring more than 7kgs luggage." It was a stupid idea since we brought one backpack and one luggage each. It is obvious that our belongings will weight more than the limit. After we pass the immigration desk, the gate officer (an airline representative) call us and put our luggage on their scale. I never experience this kind of thing before so I just exchanging glance with my other teammate. Well, if we have to put our luggage in airplane baggage (the non-cabin one) after we complete the check-in procedure, the charge will be way too expensive. Mine is weight around 10kgs, it means additional charge for the excess 3kgs (approx. Rp 150.000 charge/kg). The rest of my friends also facing the same number in their luggage scale so we are officially panic. 9kgs of charge will cost us more than Rp 1 mio. Such a big amount right? Thus, we literally beg the officer, told them that we are just students who try to present our work and we don't have that much sponsorship so if you take our money now, we don't know how to survive in Malaysia later. Thankfully the officer gave us a small negotiation. They permit us to only put one luggage in plane baggage and discounted rate. I forgot the detail but it only cost us around Rp 350.000 for three people. Phew.

We finally seated ourselves in waiting room near our plane gate. You know it is a big room with a glassed-wall (?) so you could see lot of planes taking off and landing. I happened to watch a plane when they cruising in a maximum speed just before the take-off and it was a horrible sight for me. I can't stop thinking about the bad things which might happened to them, or to me. It was like, I pray in every du'a that I know.

And it happened.

The takeoff went smoothly right, the flight was safe and sound, but not the landing moment.

It is a bit rainy in Kuala Lumpur at that time, so the pilot experienced difficulty in finding a good landing path. I feel like we have dropped quite sometime, but the pilot decided to fly us again. So, we went up and down couple of times before finally hit Malaysian ground.

After our arrival in Kuala Lumpur International Airport, we directly went to a family member's house (again, to save the money so we don't need to rent a room) and just preparing for tomorrow's presentation. The house is so nice. Everything is perfect, clean, and luxurious. I really thank my friend and his Malaysian family for taking us in.

D-Day!
Last night, all of us bid goodbye at 1 am, thus, practically, I woke up at 6 and we need to be ready at 7. It was such a rush because me and Nadiyah share a room and we are.... women. Each of us like taking 10 minutes to shower so I can't remember everything well. Thanks God breakfast is ready downstairs. After that, one of the daughter in this house drove us to IIUM campus in Gombak; I think it only takes 20 minutes.

I don't really want to tell about how the presentation goes because yeah, kind of nervous and excited at the same time so I don't want to remember that feeling again. In addition, I don't have any picture of me presenting the paper so... I'll just post some of my photos around the campus wkwk.

We agreed to use batik, Indonesian traditional clothes, as our team's attire. I really preparing this outfit and my hijab since like three weeks ago LOL. 

Kind of embarrassed to upload this picture, but I think this is the most appropriate formal team photo that we have. Thanks for everybody who sponsored us; we used the money well :)

Day 3!

Of course it is the perfect time to explore Malaysia. More excitingly, we all decided to take a public transportation, so it's a bit of challenge. Not that much problem actually since we speak the same language, just the different tone and words arrangement. 

This place called Dataran Merdeka and it's freaking hot in here. A very big field with a few tree, well, it's a palm so they can't help us to produce a bigger amount of oxygen. I already wear my hijab, but it's not even enough to cover the heat on my head.

Welcome

Hi!
This is Risti speaking. This time I'll try use blogger again after my long date with tumblr; and probably going to end soon because rumour said Indonesian govt is going to block the site. Anyway, enjoy the dishes