How I Met My Japanese Friend

No, this is not a kind of story about love and friendship amongst Ted, Barney, Robin, Lily and Marshal in sitcom series “How I Met Your Mother”. This is my sequel of events on how I finally met my first friend from Couchsurfing, a web-based social network that connects travelers around the world.

It was a calm afternoon on September 16 until I received an email from a Japanese man named Yoshinori Dota. That calmness suddenly turned into a ‘hurray’ when I read his message.

“Hi!

Nice to meet you.

My name is Yoshinori Dota.

I’m going to Jakarta for a travel next week.

If you have free time, I want to talk to you at café or restaurant.

Thank you!”

That was the first message came into my inbox after I made an account in Couchsurfing a month before. So I could say this message just made my day! I’m very interested in meeting someone new, especially someone with a different cultural background. I love to hear different accents, see different gestures, listen to new stories, and share my stories as well. So, I’m very excited to meet this guy. After some short chit chat via Couchsurfing inbox, we made an appointment. We would meet at Senayan City, a shopping center placed at the center of Jakarta, at 6 pm on the 18th of September. Two days to go. “Yay! It’s gonna be super fun!” I said enthusiastically.

…..

Tuesday, 18 September.

5 PM. The clock on the wall looked at me impatiently. I still had to finish some works when my computer told me to turn it off soon. The cover of the book that I edited was still waiting for my senior’s approval.

5:30 PM. The tick-tock of the clock on the wall hurried me up. My mind disturbed me with a depiction of evening crowd on the street in Jakarta. I turned my computer off and cleaned my table. Still, the cover hadn’t been approved.

5:50 PM. I was only physically at my office, but not my soul and mind. I was haunted by guilty because I couldn’t keep my promise to be at Senayan City at 6. In my head I imagined today’s work would be a happy ending story: my senior came to me, showing her wide smile, told me the cover was already good and I could leave with the same wide smile on my face. Unfortunately, this is not a fairytale. She left the room without saying any approval. Okay, it meant we had to continue the work tomorrow. What I had to do that time was getting at Senayan City as soon as possible.

6:05 PM. We, my friend Laras and I, stood at road side, trying to stop a taxi. Some taxis passed in front of us, but all were occupied. Gosh, I really didn’t want to be late this time. The road was so noisy, but it still couldn’t beat the crowd noise in my head imagining how crowded the road that led us to Senayan City would be. Back to focus. Stop a taxi. Ah, thank God. This chauffeur must have been an angel. His taxi was available! We hurriedly sat and closed the door. Then let the crowded road took its part in this story.

06:50 PM. Dressed in white and black poloshirt, Yoshinori was already there, sat by himself on a white chair among the crowd in that foodcourt. As a Japanese, he was punctual. I apologized and he said no problem. We ordered our dinner. He ate “empal daging” served with “sambal”, which is well-known as one of the spiciest food in the world. :D

“Do you like spicy food?” I asked him.

“Not really.” (But he tried “sambal” anyway)

I came with my friend, Laras, who totally hated spicy food. She didn’t touch her “sambal” at all. We then talked about a lot of random things. Yoshinori told us that it was the first time he visited Jakarta and after a couple of seconds later I knew that Jakarta was not really an appropriate place for such a man who said, “I love mountains! I love climbing. I’ve climbed Mount Fuji and it was really a crazy fun thing to do!” And this is what he wrote on his Couchsurfing wall about “One Amazing Thing I’ve Seen or Done”:

Climbing Mt. Fuji is my greatest feat. One time I walked with my 70 friends from Tokyo to Mt. Fuji and then climbed it. It was a very wild story. The distance between Tokyo and Mt. Fuji is about 100km or more. We didn't have to spend money because we couldn't stay in a hotel or something, so we slept on the road, under the bridge and anywhere comfortable. We spent 5 days. That event name was called『FUJI BAKA』.

He asked me to recommend places to visit. Since he liked mountainous and quiet places, I suggested him not to stay only in Jakarta, but also to some mild places like Bogor or Bandung. I told him he could take the train and I wrote the route on a small scratch of paper. He said he would go there. (And he did!)

“What is your ‘relationg’?” He gave that question when my mouth busily chewed my rice, roasted chicken, and cabbage. I didn’t get the last word.

“Sorry?” I said when I engulfed my food.

“What is your ‘relationg’?”

“’Relationg’? Relationship?” Still I couldn’t get it.

Yoshinori then took an electronic dictionary from his bag. He typed a word and showed it to me. “Oh, religion!” It was like a ‘eureka’ for me, being lastly understood what he meant. I’m not a kind of person who would be irritated by being questioned on my religion if they don’t mean to discriminate or judge me by their personal belief. “I’m Catholic,” so I answered. We then talk about the custom of our own religion. Catholics usually pray at the church once a week. Yoshinori was a bit surprised when Laras told him Islam taught its people to pray five times a day. “I’m Buddhist but I don’t pray as often as you both. Maybe I pray three times a year, when I am in my hometown, Japan. Hahaha….” Although he didn’t officially pray often, I could see he showed ample gratitude of what universe had given him. He thanked for all things came in his life. I thought it is just another form of pray.

21:10 PM

We concluded that pleasant night with taking photos from my instant camera. We made two instant photos. One for him and one for me. We thanked God that the hectic evening ended up finally with wide smiles. Happy ending doesn’t belong only to fairy tales, does it?

[caption id="attachment_223674" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Laras, Yoshinori and I after having dinner at Senayan City"][/caption]