So last Sunday I went to Thailand, on my own for the first time. By on my own, I mean, without following any tour guide or following any school trip or the likes. So this trip was basically to go and see Tokyo Girls' Style, which does end up in disappointment due to stupid organizer doing lousy job.
My Thailand Trip Report
But that's not really what I want to talk about here though.
One of the interesting things that always happen whenever one travel is the meetings with random people that is really surprising. Every time I go to Japan, I'll stay in a backpackers hostel and I'll be getting like new roomates almost everyday and it kinds of let you meet people from all over the world. Meeting people (hell I sweat, I'd have no idea I'll be saying this considering how much of an anti-social I was) can actually be fun because the world is just so random and certain people are just so unexpected. Here are a few interesting characters I met in this trip :
1) A certain Japanese family
When I was going to take my flight from Kuantan to Kuala Lumpur, while waiting at the departure hall I heard someone talking in Japanese when I looked around I saw a family of Japanese (Parents and 2 young boys prolly around 3-4 years old I guess) browsing through the souvenir shop. As much as I would like to practise my Japanese with them, I guess I should not bother a family on vacation and didn't say a word to them.
When I boarded the flight, the father was sitter right next to me and they were panicking so much because the guy at the airport accidentally tore off the wrong ticket. One of their ticket to Osaka was torn instead of the ticket to KL. He was desperately trying to talk to the stewardess about it, but neither understand each other. I helped him get his problem sorted out by being the translator and had the chance to talk to the guy.
He kind of blew away the image of an Osakan, because the whole family is just so damn quiet. You'd expect more life out of someone from Osaka and the guy also hardly knows about a few Osaka landmark that I've been talking about. So it's either the internet has been cheating me or he just don't care about what's available in Osaka at all (lol) They chose Kuantan randomly as a choice for vacation without even doing proper research and stuff. I guess when you can afford it, it just doesn't matter where you go huh? This was my first time talking to a guy from Osaka and he just go against every stereotype I had about Osakan. lol, so unhealthy.
2) Masaru
I met a Thai with the nickname Masaru at Thailand at the event hall. Now this is one guy that is living my dream job. He's basically a game tester and his job basically consist of playing every new game that just got into the market. Judging from the way he speaks, I guess he is socially awkward too but meeting people of the same type kind of helped him to be more open and to be talkative too. For a game tester, he barely understands English and is pretty fluent in Japanese. Which was funny, because for the first time ever, Japanese was the communicating language for me outside of Japan. He helped me communicate with other Thais, really a nice guy. Albeit a bit eccentric. But we all are.
3) Yamada
At Don Mueang airport, waiting for my flight back home I met this 79 years old Japanese man named Yamada. The dude is freaking 79 but he's travelling alone around the globe with hardly anything at all. A small bag, a photo case and a trusty stick. Seems that he was heading to Calcutta to meet his "teacher" he said. Most probably either seeking for Zen or just a devout Buddhist I'd assume. He was talking to other Malaysian in English and was having a good time with everyone, such a nice guy. When I talked to him in Japanese, he was so delighted but unfortunately I was a bit too late because their flight arrived.
4) Angelo
At LCCT when I arrived home and waiting for a transit but to KLIA I met this Spanish guy named Angelo. Real tough looking dude, huge backpack and stuff and fits your typical image of a backpackers. Apparently he was visiting Sarawak and just came back and now he's heading back to Canary Island, his hometown. Guy is working in Australia for 3 months and now is on a 5 months break and has been going around Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia an Thailand. He is really friendly and apparently works as a diver and repairs boat. The look on his face when he mentions about how tasty was Kek Lapis was pretty priceless.
5) Palestinian guy
Now this guy is the most surprising one out of all I met this time around. This guy is a PhD student in U*M and he is from Palestine. Since Palestine is not recognized as a country, his nationality is Refugee. For some reason, U*M is desperate to terminate his PhD studies. To the extend that they forced his supervisor to resign and relocate him to another university and the forcing him to change his research topic so that he'll have to restart from ground zero. This man has collected every evidence and email throughout his studies and he showed me everything and I was basically dumbfounded because it was all just too overwhelming. He is obviously a rich man because he paid for his PhD without scholarship or anything and using only his own money. Spent about RM50000 through this whole mess that they brought upon him because he need to travel to and fro Palestine and Malaysia. They are fucking with him also in a way that now he cannot register for his 3rd semester because he has no supervisor but that's also the problem that U*M created because they cannot force him to change his topic because according to the university's rule for you to change topic you'd need permission from your supervisor. I met him at the airport in KLIA because they are going to have a meeting between the Vice Chancellor, a representative from Tun Dr. M (I swear I'm not making this up) and a few other big shots. These blokes are stumped because there are no legal ways to get rid of him and I just don't understand why do they want to get rid of him in the first place? Someone is pulling the strings somewhere.
He said something towards the end which left me speechless
"Back in my country, we face destruction and problems everyday against the Jews and the Israelis and now in a Muslim land, I'm still being persecuted upon and still have to fight for my own right... for education"
