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| Hippo Participant's Experiences | ||||
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| Well that
was the first e-mail I received from Rinako-san, a new friend who I love
for her warmness and eagerness to learn a lot about other countries and
foreign people. I never told her how they should call me, but she already
had a nickname for me, Nura-san! Rinako Kamakura, a housewife and her husband,
Hirooki Kamakura, a real-estate businessman are my Homestay host family.
They are blessed with two lovely and brilliant kids, Soutarou and Rio, who
are 3 and 2 years old. I remember how the kids felt awkward having me staying in their house for a week that they ‘attacked’ me in the room but then ran away when I acted as a ghost and scared them out. Rina-san will always ask them to stop bothering me but chasing and being chased by the kids was the only way to communicate with them… |
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| To have
the opportunity to visit Japan really excites me. Traveling is my hobby
after all but I never had as much preparation as I did before leaving for
this country. To learn Japanese was the top of the list besides maps and
train routes. Everyday I browsed through the Osaka city website so that
I won’t miss any interesting places. Japan’s transportation
system is so systematic that I could even get the access to all bus and
train routes together with the ticket prices and the timing from a single
website, believe it or not? I was warned to be very careful about food and drinks over there. Muslims of course have to take care of these obligations but as for some Japanese, not drinking alcohol could be very weird for them. For some reasons, most chocolates and breads are even considered non-halal and I could understand if they were so bizarre for them. I never resisted chocolates before! We left Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, 28th May with Japan Airlines. Man, the food was not to my taste! I couldn’t even stand the food in the plane, how could I survive a week in Japan??? |
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| Day 1: Sunday, May 29, 2005 | ||||
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| After
approximately 7 hours, we arrived at Kansai International Airport which
is built on a man-made island. We bought ¥1300 airport limousine bus
to Hankyu-Umeda Station, the transportation hub of Osaka. At that point,
I sighed, “how expensive is life in here…”. The journey from the airport to the city centre served us with views of the coastal area of this city of the Kansai region. The area was fully occupied with industrial activities but yet they looked so clean and well-organized. Logs were arranged nicely and so were the boats. No rubbish could be seen at all. Amazing! After almost an hour, we arrived at Hankyu-Umeda Station. From there, we crossed a street to Osaka Information Centre. Almost everybody seemed to walk very fast and they looked very busy though it was a Sunday. I wonder how it was like on weekdays! At the Information Centre, we grabbed as many leaflets as possible though very few were in English… Then we walked about 20 minutes to the HIPPO Office. Everything looked small to me; even the lift was half the size we have here in Malaysia. While walking I observed that cycling was a popular mode of transportation among the city dwellers. I thought if Malaysia has mild weather like Japan or such countries, we would be walking and cycling too, right? |
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| All of
us were nervous to arrive at the Hippo Office because there we would meet
our host family for the first time. All of them were holding mini banner
with our names on them. The banner made by my host family was written ‘Selamat
Datang Nurussaadah Mokhtar’. Cool! All of them were written in Malay!
Before we traveled, my friends and I talked about how funny it would be
if they waited for us at the airport and raise our names on that kind of
banners. Awful! But we were lucky that they did it ‘indoor’.
We just sat with our host families and I noticed everybody was holding a dictionary together with a lot of hand movements, struggling very hard to explain things or create a topic… everybody was smiling, some kids looked happy but some looked amazed at the people of different skin and some women wearing scarves. Rio-san looked very stressful because she was sick. Her tiny size attracted me and I made a move to make her to accept me but she was the ‘hard’ kind. She kept saying ‘iyak’ which means no! And she cried out for ‘okasan’. I understood she only wanted her mother to soothe her. Kids really are fascinating. When Rinako-san, Hirooki-san and I were struggling to make ourselves understood each other, Rio-chan suddenly created a scene. Poor Rio-san, she vomited! There we went… While other families were busy greeting and welcoming, we cleaned up Rio-san. So guess what was our immediate plan? Went shopping for Rio’s dress! |
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| Hirooki-san
dropped Rinako-chan and me off at Hanshin Department Store. It looks not
different at all from typical Malaysian stores. I took that opportunity
to get to know more about Rina-chan. I wasn’t really sure how she
felt actually when I told her I was a fan of Takuya Kimura and Nanako Matsushita.
I was quite disappointed when she did not favor any of them. Perhaps I was
hoping too much to find something common between us… Yeah; I was going
too fast… It was lunch time and so we went to dine in a restaurant. That was the first time in my life when I felt worried about what was I going to eat. Wild vegetable noodle soup was what they ordered for me. Vegetable sounded okay but noodle comes from flour and I was concerned for a probability of non-halal substance in it. At that moment I could see how worried Rinako-san was and I tried to explain my situation in the most pleasant manner as possible. Since Japanese were very polite, they could be very sensitive too. Of course, I must have looked like a dreadfully weird person! I mean, vegetarians do exist in this world but it was not easy for them to accept people who could not eat even noodle or bread or chocolate in their country. I myself felt uneasy with people who refused my offer. Kamakura-san’s family had received HIPPO guests from America, Indonesia and Vietnam before. Obviously none of them were Muslims. So I said to myself not to worry as people take some time to adapt to new situation in a totally different place. Our next point was Osaka Castle. I had some initial information about this huge castle from the internet. It was quite a hot day while we walked up to the castle. But it turned very cool and windy as we reached the top of it. |
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| For dinner,
we had grilled seafood in a restaurant designed with Japanese traditional
interior. Seafood was served on a small table and we sat on the wooden floor.
Gosh! I ate a lot that night. And I could see how Rina-san looked relieved
seeing me eating that much! Seafood was my most preferred meal and I had
it with rice and fresh salad. Japanese really are particular about everything
especially food. I bet you can never find any food either from a restaurant
or a shop that is not clean and fresh. They insisted that I try raw salmon.
I did but I could not take more than a bite. That night was so unforgettable! We walked into a cool night of Kambara neighbourhood. It was such a peaceful place. Japan cities recorded very low crime rate. I was not worried not to walk alone in their narrow streets just to look at small gardens that almost all house had in one of their corners. Though it was cool and windy, it was dry too. My nose was bleeding a bit and I knew I had to drink a lot and applied more skin moisturizers. On the way home, we passed Kurakuenguchi Station, the nearest local train station to the house and walked along a river which was a famous spot for cherry blossom season. Hirooki-san told me that during the week of cherry blossom, many people will come to have picnics or lie down under the trees. It was quite a pity because I actually missed the cherry blossom season which took place for only a week in the early month of April. As a substitute to cherry blossom, I get to watch fireflies instead. There was no comparison to cherry blossom of course but those fireflies were charming enough to me. |
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