Tak ada tempat duduk dalam bus!

Hari ini aku, San & JoSH naik bus dari Pasuruan ke arah Malang, hendak menuju Purwosari. Bus penuh sesak. Tidak ada tempat duduk satu pun.San menggendong JoSH, sedangkan aku meletakkan ransel berat itu di lantai, bersandar pada tepi sandaran kursi sambil menjaga keseimbangan, berjaga-jaga jika rem itu dinjak sopir tiba-tiba.

Kondektur berteriak, "Masuk ke tengah, di tengah sebentar lagi banyak yang mau turun".

Kami pun bergerak dengan susah payah ke tengah melewati space yang sempit, meminta maaf kepada penumpang lain yang sedang berdiri atau duduk ketika kami melewati mereka.

Menit demi menit pun berlalu. Seorang Bapak sepertinya hendak turun, Kondektur berteriak kepada seorang wanita yang berdiri di depan kami, menyuruhnya duduk. "Sebentar lagi ada yang turun, tunggu ya." katanya kepada San.

Tak kunjung ada yang turun. Untung JoSH tidak rewel pagi itu. Dia sepertinya menikmati suasana di bus yang berbeda dengan bus yang biasa dia tumpangi di Busan. Dia melihat sekeliling, ke bawah dan ke atas. Tangannya mencoba meraih besi pegangan tangan di langit-langit bus.

Aku melihat sekeliling. Penumpang bus beragam usia, pria, wanita dan anak-anak. Di sebelah kanan San duduk ibu-ibu berpakaian rapi. Di sebelah kirinya sepertinya pemuda yang membawa ransel berisi laptop dan seorang bapak yang sibuk menelepon. Di sebalah kiriku, ada seorang ibu yang menaruh kepalanya ke kursi di depannya, sepertinya sedang pusing. Mataku bergerak ke arah kanan melihat seorang bapak tua yang sepertinya asyik sekali memainkan game di telepon genggamnya.

Dalam hati aku mencoba menebak-nebak. Adakah dari sekian banyak orang ini yang tergerak hatinya untuk menawarkan tempat duduk mereka untuk San yang sedang menggendong JoSH?

Apakah mereka mau berdiri dan memberikan tempat duduk mereka untuk San dan JoSH?

JoSH mulai gelisah. Dia menunjuk2 kursi dan mengatakan 'dudu' berkali-kali. Maksudnya, dia ingin duduk.

Seorang ibu di sebelah kanan San, yang sedari tadi mengamati JoSH menawarkan untuk memangkunya, namun JoSH diam saja ketika San menanyakan apakah dia mau atau tidak. Sepertinya dia tidak mau dipangku oleh orang yang belum dia kenal.

Kami pun tetap berdiri. Aku melihat sekeliling untuk membunuh bosan. JoSH mulai merasa bosan. Dia memintaku menggendongnya. Aku pun mengambil kuda-kuda untuk berdiri lebih kuat dan menggendongnya. Dia mengantuk. Kulihat sekeliling sambil terus menebak-nebak akankan ada orang yang menawarkan kursinya, kali ini untuk aku dan JoSH?

Suasanan masih tetap sama. Kulihat bapak tua itu sudah berhenti bermain game dan memutar lagu Koes Plus dari telepon genggamnya.

Tiba-tiba dia berdiri. Dipersilahkannya aku duduk. San bertanya apakah dia hendak turun. Dia bilang, "Tidak. Karena bawa anak." Maksud dia, karena aku menggendong anak, lebih baik aku yang duduk dan dia rela berdiri. Ternyata dia akan berhenti di Malang. Dia mengambil resiko untuk bisa saja berdiri lama, jika tidak ada orang yang turun. Dia rela memberikan kursinya buatku. San mengatakan bahwa kami sebentar lagi akan turun, dan bapak itu bisa kembali lagi duduk tidak lama lagi.

Terharu. Bapak tua itu di luar tebakanku. Aku menebak si pemuda dengan tas laptop itu yang berdiri. Atau salah satu dari Ibu-ibu itu yang bakal tergerak hatinya. Karena kupikir sebagai ibu-ibu dia pasti tahu bagaimana anak-anak merasa tidak nyaman jika terus-menerus digendong di dalam bus yang sesak. Ternyata bapak tua yang tidak masuk hitunganku ini yang merelakan haknya untuk aku.

Terima kasih untuk Bapak dan kebaikan hati Bapak! :)

Cambridge Series - The River

Hai hai hai....

Today I want to share some pictures and stories of the "River cam" in Cambridge.

Cambridge River Tour website says, "For many a visit to Cambridge is a once in a lifetime experience and would not be complete without a traditional punt trip along the famous college backs. We ensure your trip is memorable for the right reasons". And, yes. It was a memorable experience to me.

It costed 12 pounds (20,600 won/168,000 rupiahs) for each to enjoy River cam's view. A punter services who also became our tour guide was included for that much. He seemed understand all surrounding river's histories.

"Let's go punting!".

I went along with four of my friends who also attended the course in Cambridge. They are two Brazilians, one Irish, and one Portuguese. However, there were also three Chinese, a family I think, who enjoyed in the same boat with us.

From picture above, you can see some bridges over the River cam.

The other bridges and some sceneries along the River cam.

It was really a beautiful and very clean river.

A very clean river, wasn't it?

It was a great experience to see some colleges' back. And the awesome cloud....God created it.

I could imagine that there is a great opportunity to be a student there, because they live near to a river. They can just relax to lower their studies' tensions.

See you next week for more photos and stories on Cambridge series!

-san-

Cambridge Series - The City

Hello again...

Today I want to share some pictures of Cambridge.

It was a beautiful city. When I was there (July 17-27, 2011), I imagined that I had been living in a dream. Because if you see the sceneries, those look like paintings in a gallery.

You can enlarge every picture below by clicking on each of it.

Pictures above shows some buildings and houses around the city. Most of those buildings is very old. I am impressed to how they maintain their properties.

There were some buildings which built in the corner of streets. You also can see how colorful they painted their houses related to their neighbours'.

It shows some signposts of a park/garden, and a park called 'Jesus Green'. Was that beautiful?

You can also see a typical map around in Cambridge city. It shows some public facilities, some important buildings, and the way you get there.

First two pictures shows the signpost of parking lot spaces and pedestrians signals. The first shows how many parking lots were still available, and the second directs pedestrians when they can get across the street.

The latter twos were showing old and new model of parking lots' meters. People who want to park their vehicles on a particular road should put some money on it. It costs 20 pence (350 won/2,800 rupiahs) for each 15 minutes, and can only park for maximum of two hours.

This picture shows some public facilities.

Can you see interested design of a bus stop? Perhaps the designer thought that it will be more convenience for passengers to wait behind the glass. It will probably protect them from splashing water from vehicles, dusts, and other debris. Great idea!

Cambridge maintains her public phone box as well. Most of them had been working good. It costs 60 pence (1,050 won/8,400 rupiahs) for one hour to any landline (non-mobile) phones around the country, but can call mobiles for about three minutes for the same amount.

Bottom left picture shows two trash cans. One was for recyclable things, and another was for non-recyclables.

Bottom right was a picture of a letter box in Cambridge. One of my friend told me that it looked like a letter box in Mr. Bean's show. Yes, it was!

The last collection time was written on it: Mon-Fri 6.15 pm, and Sat 12.45 pm.

You can see here another signpost which shows the directions and some pictures of roads and streets. We should assume that a road tend to be bigger or wider than a street.

Because Cambridge was not a very big city, it was hard to find high rise buildings there, instead you can still find a lot of narrow streets or pathways (In bahasa, we called it a 'gang')

Two pictures above show Sir Isaac Newton's public house where became a pub since at least 1886 and a picture of an apple.

Sir Isaac Newton entered Cambridge University in 1661 and became a fellow of Trinity College in 1667.

Can you see the apple there which was not bitten yet? It just compares to an apple inc.'s logo which was bitten already.

It shows some transportation modes in Cambridge. You can still see a lot of people was cycling around the city of Cambridge. Don't be surprised if they will put their bicycles on any possible places or stands including the church' s fences (bottom right).

Cambridge has "park&ride" city busses, busses, busway, transport for schools, and "Hop-on Hop-off" tour busses (especially for tourists).

Hop-on Hop-off tour busses will go around the city for approximately 80 minutes with price guide as follows:

* Adult 13 pounds (23,000 won/182,000 rupiahs)

* Child (5-15 years) 7 pounds (12,300 won/98,000 rupiahs)

* Senior/Student 9 pounds (15,900 won/126,000 rupiahs)

* Family (2+3) 32 pounds (56,500 won/448,000 rupiahs)

I found a new dan interested thing in Cambridge which never saw it before. It was called a rising bollard. It was automatically down when there was a known vehicle want to go by, and it was automatically up when the vehicle pass through it. Why I said a known vehicle, because I was waiting long time enough to see another vehicle which cannot pass through it, because the bollard was not going down even the vehicle passed the camera line and very near to the bollard :)

It shows pictures of people from around the world who came to Cambridge for various activities which most of those are for vacation.

Up left shows a musical group performed their songs and people might donate some pence or buy their cds. I believe that they sang latin/spanish songs.

Bottom right shows a Sainsbury's supermarket auto-cashier. I tried twice, but feel awkward, because I was not used to it and didn't know how to do it.

By the way, I think we still need another people to do it for us, even nowadays all items/goods was barcoded already and we can check out by ourselves. I am afraid that in long term practices, people may not have any kind of relationships with other people in any kind of business, and people may lost their occupations because machines replace their positions. In short, I think that we as human being still need to relate to other people not just a machine. What do you think?

This is called Round Church. Nowadays, it is no longer a working church, but a museum of Christian heritage. It was built in 1130 AD by the fraternity of the Holy Sepulchre. It is one of only 4 round churches in England. They were all built after the first Crusade and the shape is probably influenced by that of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

This building was called Britannia Building Society. This building society serves as a bank and related financial services, especially mortgage lending. Nowadays, the building society must compete with banks for most consumer banking services. These institutions are found in the UK and several other countries.

What do you think about the city of Cambridge?

Please wait for my report about "The River" next week. See you.

Thank you for reading.

-san-

Cambridge Series - The Journey

Before I write about my journey to England, I will announce winners of the quiz last week. Do you remember the questions? See here.

The right answers are:

* I took a picture with the statue of young Charles Robert Darwin.

* The statue is at Christ's College, Cambridge University.

Thank you for all participants.

There are four people who answered it. Thanks to Maudy, Lisa, RAB and Dina. ^^

Three people answered it correctly, but RAB only answered one of the two questions.

So, we decided to give presents to all three and a runner-up present to RAB.

All participants, please send your addresses to Dita's email: dita_utomo@yahoo.com

Now, through this post, I want to share some pictures and stories of my journey. It consists of my journey from Busan, to Seoul, to Helsinki, to London, and then arriving in Cambridge. It took 28 hours in total.

When we arrived at Gimhae Airport in Busan, we shocked because there was an announcement that my flight to Seoul would be postponed. I asked the officer why and when I would know their final decision. They answered that it was because bad weather both in Busan and Seoul. We prayed to God a lot, because I had a connecting flight to Helsinki at 10.30 from Seoul.

Then I tried to find another flight such as Korean Air (at first, I chose Asiana Airlines). On the Korean Air counter, the officer said that there were no seats available. Oh, no. He continued that I still can buy a waiting list seat. Just a second before I paid the ticket, Dita called and told me that Asiana decided to go. Thanks God. He aswered our prayers in His time.

Before I went on my journey to Cambridge, I posted a facebook status mentioning that I am a countryman (wong ndeso) who are going to meet Mr. Bean through the Nokia store. Do you know what I mean?

Yes, I always feel that I am nothing. I came from a small town, Pasuruan, East Java-Indonesia, and I had a great privillege from God to go to England (A country where Mr. Bean lives) through Helsinki-Finlandia (A country where Nokia comes from).

I was very excited. That is why I took many pictures which (maybe) for some people are unimportant. I took pictures of airplane navigation which informed passengers regularly about the latest condition of the plane and the journey itself. I also took pictures of the interior, and a remote control which controls each monitors in front of each passenger for watching video, playing games, for lights, etc.

Even, power outlet on board was a new thing for me. I never saw it inside airplanes :)

By the way, views up there was very beautiful.

After nine and half hours, I arrived at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport (not Fanta). It was a nice, clean, and comfortable place. There are a lot of flights arriving and going from Helsinki Airport. It was intended to be a transitting airport, especially from Europe to Asia and vice versa.

After waiting for almost seven hours at Helsinki Airport (Thanks God there was a free wireless internet connection), I continued the journey to London. It took only three hours from Helsinki to London by British Airways.

I got prawn and mayonnaise sub roll for dinner. It was very delicious, yummy.

Can you believe that I took those pictures at night? It was around ten o'clock at Helsinki, and arriving at eleven o'clock in Heathrow Airport, London.

The last journey was from London to Cambridge. I waited the coach for two hours before departed. Coach? Don't be misunderstood! British people differ coach from bus.

A bus stops frequently to pick up passengers along a short to moderately long route. Otherwise, a coach stops infrequently to pick up passengers along a moderately long to very long route.

So, the designs of bus and coach correspond to their functions: thus coaches often have toilets, DVD players, air conditioning, and some cases wireless internet access. At that time, I could watch a football match between Argentine and Uruguay by wireless internet access for free.

It took two hours and fifteen minutes to arrive at Cambridge. I arrived at 3:15 in the morning.

I was impressed by the cleanliness of the toilet in Central Bus Station of Heathrow Airport, London. In contrast, I still can remember how dirty and nasty most of toilets in Bungurasih/Purabaya Bus Station in Surabaya, where I usually use it before going home to my hometown, Pasuruan.

On the right side photo, the bus (I mean the coach) which I took arrived at Cambridge station.

It was very cold in the summer time. When I read from internet, it was the coldest summer in Cambridge. It was around eleven degree Celcius.

That's all the stories of my journey arriving at Cambridge.

Please wait for my next post about the city of Cambridge.