2011

Assalamualaikum…

Hey!It’s been a long2 time since I wrote here. Slightly more than a year. I didn`t really have specific reasons why I stopped writing, but I just didn`t have the mood or feeling to write or share anything. Most probably because I had quite a busy year last year. Lots of things happened during that time, and I am very grateful to Allah because almost all of them are good ones. Yup, you can say that it was a happy one year+ for me.:))) It will be a very very long post if I am too mentioned them all here, so I decided to give just quick updates of some important events during this past one year.

1. I finally stepped my foot in university in spring last year, at last after 3years of diploma in college. My university is somewhere in the northern part of Japan, a place where they have lots of snow, and longer winter, so it is a new environment for me. During college, I was in Fukuoka, in south Japan where we get more sunlight, and longer summer. Even during the winter, it hardly ever gone below 0 degree, the coldest was maybe 5 degrees, and we hardly ever got snow there. But in my current place, minus degrees is common, and sunlights are quite rare during winter. Snow fall heavily, and that makes life quite hard during that time as we have to walk to the campus every single day, and if you try to walk in snow, you would know how tiring it is. I took quite a  number of classes in in both semesters, with 2 or 3 classes everyday, 4 on friday, as I planned to get enough credit so that I can have a ‘relaxing’ 4th year. Now, I am in 4th year, my final year, and I have only 3 classes this semester, and no class next sem. Yeay! Of course I still have my final year research to be done but I am glad that I wont be burdened too much by my classes and so on. Gambarimasu!

Early winter @ campus

2. I went back to Malaysia last summer, after 2 years, and it was a super great holiday! Not only I get to meet my family after such a long time, I got to celebrate Hari Raya at home with my loved ones. I celebrated 3years of Raya(1+2belated Raya) and the feeling was awesome. I got to eat everything I`d been craving to eat, meet eveyone who I`d been eager to meet, and do everything I`ve wanted to do. Simple said, Raya sakan lah! Hehe.  Marvellous summer holiday!

Raya 2010

Raya 2010

3. Life in university is very different with the life I had in college. There are more Malaysians here, 30+ of them to be exact, compared to 5 of us during college. During college we did do activities together, but I can say that we mixed more with the Japanese. Me myself was the only foreigner in my class back then, and now I have 5 other Malaysians together with me. With the large number of Malaysians here, we have a lot of activities together. We would have at least one every month, where mostly we would go for jalan2 to places and have barbeques, picnics etc. I can see things that I cant usually see in college, like their unity and cooperation in planning for trips, during preparing food the night before and so on. Yes, we did also have something like that in college, but usually it was more spontaneous act, like, “jom kuar esok jom”, something like that. So there was no much discussion or planning involved. We also didnt have annual events like new students welcoming party, seniors farewell party, or sports tournament among us back then. And ya, we also have Yasin reciting here every Thursday night, which the last time I remember having it during high school. All in all, I enjoy my life here.

New mates

Akita family

Tohoku Malaysians

4. This years spring holiday, I went back home again! I was just back 1/2 year ago, but I decided to go back again coz I had to get a few things settled, and I had a few other things I intended to do back home. One of them, I finally got my driving license this holiday! I was sangat2 happy, sangat2 lega, memang sangat2! I’d dreamt of having it for the past few years, since I graduated from high school, and the moment my instructor passed the licensed into my hand, I was like rasa nak lompat2 jak! haha! Of course la sik sampey gya, mestila keep cool, amik dari nya, padah makseh and jalan slow2 masuk rumah. Padahal lam hati nang suk gila! Hehe. I also got to go for a holiday with my family, though a short one, it was great! Sebab lamak dah sik gi bercuti ngan family. Lamak gilak2. I also get to meet with my family on my father’s side in Melaka, kesian nenek sebab kata rindu nak jumpa. Last time I went back to Melaka was during World Cup in German, which was in 2006! Nang lamak gila. There, we attended the wedding ceremony of my 2 cousins, who are siblings. They had the majlis persandingan together, and we took that chance to balik kampung. You know, quite a few of people I know got married during this spring holiday. Those my 2 cousins(one is a year younger than me), and then a classmate during Japanese Language preparatory school, and my ex-roommate at that time(who is also a year younger). Then I realize, dah tua dah aku tok duhal, dah umur where people around me are getting engaged, married and so on. Tapi kenak aku rasa aku agik nemiak? Haha.

@Pusat Sains Negara

Majlis bersanding

5. As we all know, Japan experienced a massive earthquake and tsunami recently, where the northern part of of it`s main island`s east coast was the most devastated areas. I was really shock when I found out about the news on that friday afternoon, and I was really2 grateful and thankful to Allah that I was already back in Malaysia at that time. I was really worried with the safety of my friends in Japan, but thank God that all Malaysians were safe, including those at my place. I did contacted some of them through facebook, and they were fine. My place also endured quite a big earthquake that according to my friends some electric poles outside our house went down. But gratefully, they were not under tsunami`s area as we are on the west coast of Japan. But still they had to endure one cold night without electricity, and the phones were also down. And they had to face shortage of food in supermarkets, and everywhere as a result of panic buying. Actually till today, there are still certain shelves in the supermarket are still empty, mostly the yogurts, milk shelves and instant food area. But things are getting better and better by day. Japan is still struggling with the nuclear power plant problem, but I do believe that the government is doing its best to keep it in control. So mom, dad, family and friends back home, there`s no need be worried as we are all safe and ok here. The embassy are doing well keeping in contact with us and I know they will they do their best in guaranteeing our safety here.

Yeah, it`s gonna be another year for me here. I am praying to Allah for good times ahead, semoga segala urusan kita dipermudahkan dan semoga kita semua dikurniakan kejayaan oleh-Nya di dunia dan di akhirat. Kita hanya mampu merancang, namun Allah yang menentukan. Tapi itu bukan bermaksud kita hanya duduk dan tunggu sahaja untuk sesuatu berlaku. Berusahalah dan kemudian bertawakal pada-Nya, insyaAllah kita akan dapat apa yang kita impikan.

Class trip

For 3 days before our graduation day, our class went for a ski trip in Nagano prefecture. We planned this trip as our graduation trip and last activity together before finishing our college life. We gathered at Fukuoka airport on that Monday morning and ride the plane to Komatsu Airport in Ishikawa prefecture before taking a 4hours bus trip from the airport to Nagano.

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Fukuoka Airport boarding hall

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Boarding the plane

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Komatsu Airport arrival hall

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Bus to Nagano

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Nagano still in snow

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We arrived in Nagano at around 1pm and checked in at our hotel soon after arriving. Then we went to the ski resort to pick our rental skis, snowboards and wear. My friends were all in great excitement as it was the first ski@snowboard experience for most of them. We then get back to the hotel to change into the ski@snowboard  attires and and then head to the ski resort together. Since it was still the first day, we spent the time learning and getting use to the skis and boards. We were there till about 5pm and by that time I saw that everyone had managed to at least skied and boarded down the beginner`s course without falling down.

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To the hotel

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Marybell Hotel

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To the rental shop

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The 'short cut' told by makcik at the hotel

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Getting our boards and wear

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Ready to glide!

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My friend, Shingai

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On the second day, since that everyone had master the basic skills, we tried ourselves doing some more difficult ones like making the ‘S’ shape and others. We also went to the more sloppy and difficult upper courses and some even already tried doing jumps, ollies etc. Trying and challenging to do all these skills are quite hard for amateurs like us and we do fall down lots of times in many ways either falling forward, backward or whatever ways you can think of. Skiing and snowboarding are very dangerous if you don`t know how to control yourself, in fact I once fell with my neck and shoulder down first and it was quite scary but fortunately there weren’t any injury involved. That night, after all the falls during the day, we all had muscle-aches everywhere over the body which made it quite difficult for us to move around hence why I think everyone went to sleep very early. I think mostly everyone were already asleep by 10pm that night. Me myself were already in my dreamland 2 hours before that.

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View from a restaurant at the resort

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Great view

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Got to ride this to go to the upper couses

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Two friends of mine

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The room

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Dinner time

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On the third day, we woke up early to pack our things as we were going to check out after breakfast that day before going for another ski and snowboarding session at the resort. After checking out, we put our things at one place and we then went for the last session as we are going back to Fukuoka at 2pm that day. On this day, we had almost the routine like the day before. After having much fun at the ski resort, we returned our rental equipments, change our clothes and had some lunch before boarding the bus to Komatsu Airport. From Komatsu Airport, we ride into the plane back to Fukuoka Airport where we then say goodbye to each other and go back to our own places.

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Burying Nakamuta

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Waiting for our bus

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Checking in

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Back in Fukuoka

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Night with friends

A few days ago, we had an ‘uchiage‘ party for the Thermal Lab members to celebrate the ending of our grad thesis` and presentation the week before. Our lecturer booked a place at a ‘yakitori’(something like our satay) place and after everyone gathered at the station, we walked together with our lecturer to the party place. To a coincidence, the Control Eng. Lab were having their party at the same place too, at the same time so we combined our party since that they had only 3 members including their lecturer. The more, the merrier, isn`t it?

During party like this, my Japanese friends and lecturers as usual had their favorite beers, while had the ice-tea. For the food, they enjoyed all the grilled-chicken and meat, and I settled with seafood grills. We chatted all the way through the party, about mostly everything, from our backgrounds, about life, friends, girlfriends etc, which we couldn`t usually talk during normal days at college and it was fun.

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Friends & lecturers

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My food

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Thermal Lab

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Control Eng. Lab with our Tanaka Sensei inter framing

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The party lasted for about 4hours, and at about 1030pm, our lecturers made their move home early as they have to go to work again the next day and left the six of us wondering what to do after that. Everyone felt that it was still early to go back home, so we decided to go do something together since that there are only little time left for our college student life. We had the option of karaoke and bowling, and after some ‘discussion’, the greater number of us opted for bowling. The six of us then packed into our friend`s cute Honda Life and off we went, being very careful not to bump into some patrolling policeman. Luckily we didn`t find one and we arrived at the bowling center safely.

For my other friends, they expected they wouldn`t manage to catch the last train to go home, so they rather play the 5 games pack to kill the time there and later go back to sleep at the college labs. We took turns to bowl and played the first 4 games normally. During that time they were some hilarious moments that made us burst into laughter. Most of them came from our friend Kubo who was drunk. He would fall and slide into the lanes mostly every time he bowled. And there was one time he accidentally threw the ball into the lane next to the lane next to him!Hahaa! It was different case withmy lab mate Eiji, who was ‘bullied’ by the others during the games. It was not the only time he got bullied by his classmates as he is originally the ‘bullied child’ in our class. I know that they were only joking with him, sometimes I pity him for getting picked all the time. But, like Natsuhiro said, “Eiji looked very happy getting picked”, he sure looked happy when everyone teased him.

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"Daijoubu desu!!", said my friend, Kubo(black jacket with thumb-up)

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Filling the form for bowling

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We took 2 lanes

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Eiji and Imai bowling

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Eiji getting 'bullied'

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For the 5th and last game, we thought of having a competition among us. To make it more interesting, we decide that the bottom 2 person would have to treat the top twos for two tries of the “UFO-catcher” games. To ensure that it would be fair for all, the condition is that everyone had to throw with their left hands. Though I didn`t score well in the early frames, I manage to get 2 straight strikes after that which really bounced up my scores, and the result, I got the top 2 together with Natsuhiro. After the game, we the winners got to redeem our ‘prizes’ and we tried our “un” at the “UFO-catcher”. But to our bad luck, none of us manage to get something from the machine. 残念..

After having much fun at the game center, we rode back into Egashira`s cute car and got him sent us back to college. Egashira then drove back home while the others went to the labs and me, after saying goodbye to the others, I went back to hostel for a good night sleep…お疲れした！

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Winners redeeming prize from the losers

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