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.
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.
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