Going Overseas

Dear Ricardo Morales,
When it was announced that I had won the scholarship to study in Australia, I leaped with pride and joy, and felt like I was in seventh heaven. But then before departing, I had a lot of trepidation, apprehension and nervousness of going there. I was only a "kampong" boy, suddenly going to a strange foreign big city. I did not know what to expect. I had never met a "white man" before, and now I would be expected to live amongst them. It was a scary thought. It would be a gargantuan cultural shock when I arrived there. To top all of my anxieties, I had only 5% mastery of English language. I would be totally lost when I arrived in Australia.

Armed with only a pair of tailored made suites and a small briefcase containing my documents, I boarded the "Qantas" airplane from Jakarta to Sydney, where I would be undergoing a 6 months training in English language. After a brief stop over in Perth, the plane approaching Sydney around 11 night time. It was a scene that I had never seen before, glowing lights everywhere, it was like in seventh heaven alright, with stars twinkling from horizon to horizon. It was just sheer beautiful.
Checking at the customs, I was very grateful that a representative from Indonesian Consulate came to greet me when I arrived. He said that I would be taken to a hotel and picked up in the morning to go to the office. True enough that I was taken to a hotel and picked up in the morning to be brought to the office at downtown Sydney. There were 4 other new students there. And this beautiful Australian woman from the office took us for the tour of the city. Something like she showed us how and where to catch transportation, shopping, gave us a few telephone numbers and addresses and treated us to lunch.
It was with great relieve when I met these 2 Indonesian students at the English class. Apparently they started a month earlier: Wahban Wibisono from Jogjakarta and Sugeng from Banyumas, both from Java Island in Indonesia. It was an enjoyable situation for me ever since, "no more worries". We were placed in separate accommodations in Sydney, so that to learn English and Australian way of life quicker. Luckily we were not too far apart from each others. I stayed furthest away at Lennox St in Newton with Mrs Blauw, a room and board accommodation. My place was not far from railway station, so I took the train everyday to class at downtown Sydney. Whilst they stayed in separate places in the Darlington area near to The University of Sydney and had to come to class by bus. There were 6-12 students in the class coming from different part of Asia: Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Langka and India. The student numbers kept changing, as some students graduated and later on some more coming in to join. We learnt mostly about conversation English from 9 am to 3 pm Monday to Friday.

I was so much impressed about the city of Sydney, that everything seemed to be very orderly. The houses and buildings were all nice and beautiful. All the streets were wide and smooth. The traffics were very orderly including the pedestrians. There were a lot of luxurious cars on the roads, and surprisingly very few honking noises I could hear, unlike back home. And most of all about the people, they were all very polite. The women were all very beautiful, and the men were all very handsome and all of them wore nice clothes. I could not help but admired all the things I saw and experienced. After a few months in Sydney, I met more Indonesian students, and got informed that 9 students altogether including me would go to Perth Western Australia to study. I felt more and more at home, and felt confident to go around by myself, getting to know and learnt about the beauties and intricacies of Sydney.
The three of us most of the time went for lunch at Hyde Park just next from the classroom building. It was a shock for us when we saw for the first time young people at the park kissing and necking during their lunch break. So many of them, oblivious to everything in their surroundings. Many passers by seemed to be ignoring them too. But for us it was just incredulous amazement.
We also got to know what "fair dinkum" Australians doing during the weekends. That they liked to watch their Australian football rules, went to the racecourses and bet, stopped at the pub and drink lagers. And most of all they liked to go to the beaches. They were sun worshippers, and all the beaches were always crowded. The smell of suntan lotions were everywhere. We went to Bondi and Manly, the most popular beaches a few times with fully clothed, because the weather was still too cold for us and we felt more decent and comfortable. We saw these swim suits these Australian girls wearing, like wearing nothing. Another incredulous amazement. But it was with awed and admiration when we watched the surfers for the first time, on how they managed to stand on the tiny surfboard and glide on top of the waves with such skills. It was like a dance, displayed in wonderful beauty and grace. It looked like a lot of fun and excitement.
We went sightseeing every weekend, particularly we liked the ferry ride to Luna Park and to Taronga Park Zoo from Circular Quay ferry terminal. We also liked to go for a walk at Royal Botanic Gardens just next to the Sydney Opera House. One thing I was beginning to notice that most of the young people carried portable radios with them and I could hear the same song played over and over again. Later I learnt that it was "The Beatles" that was played over the radio day and night. It was not really my type of song, but got the hang of it later and like it a lot.
There were many Dutch population in Sydney, mostly evacuees from Indonesia during the second war and becoming permanent residents. There was and Australian-Indonesian Association (AIA) in Sydney that really good for new students to join. We could meet some Australians and practise our limited English without too embarrassed about it. I found it that English was the hardest language to learn, compared to the 3 local dialects I learnt back home. Sometimes I wondered out loud how these Australians managed to understand each other when they talked so fast. We met this nice lady Helen at one AIA meeting one time. She invited us to go for a picnic one day to Lyne Park at Rose Bay about 40 minutes drive from my place. She picked all 3 of us up, and we brought along some lunch. There she showed us on how to play cricket, a very popular sport in Australia.
There was an Indonesian language lecturer at The University of Sydney who gave an open invitations to Indonesian students one weekend to come to his residence in Katoomba near Blue Mountains National Park. We hitched a ride with an Indonesian student who already had a car to go there. It was about 1 1/2 hours drive away, and we met quite a number of students there. After lunch we went for a hike to the National Park and saw "The Three Sisters", a three peak rock formations that had legend in them.

As the time for the conclusion of English language was nearing, Helen invited us to come to her place in Ashfield for a farewell party. She said that it was not far from railway station. We came by the train and sure enough that we found her place quite easy. She stayed with her parents that were also members of AIA and were there to greet us. Helen was a divorcee and had one daughter that stayed with her too. They were very friendly toward us. They were the Dutch evacuees that now called Australia home. We cooked Indonesian food with the ingredients she already bought. We made a mess of everything there as most of Indonesian way of cooking, but we cleaned them after lunch. We probably put too much chilly in the food, but they said it was lovely. They also had a swimming pool at the back, so every body except the parents went for a swim. We entertained them with Indonesian songs later in the afternoon, and also sang the Australian folk song "Waltzing Matilda" together. To close the day off Wahban sang his favourite song "Santa Lucia" solo with his booming tenor voice, that I am pretty sure Luciano Pavarotti would be envious to hear. I was. The six months in Sydney passed by very quickly.
Top lr: Me, Wahban, Sugeng near Hyde Park.
Bottom: Helen's place in Ashfield. Me on left holding guitar. Standing lr: Hasan Basri, Bachtiar Abbas, Helen, Basita Ginting, Ryantho, Wahban Wibisono and Sugeng.
Sitting lr: Mustakim Abdurrauf and Sunoro.

The Vancouver Sun Run

Dear Dianne Garrett,
Another Vancouver Sun Run has come and gone. This year's 54,317 participants was breaking new record, exceeding last year's 50,746. As usual it was a wave starts, 5 all together. Each wave was marked by coloured balloons high above their starting lines. Yellow balloons for fastest runners, followed by greens, whites, purples and reds. The fastest runners starting first then the slower ones. It was done to prevent collisions and accidents. The starting gate was marked by the noisy chip sensors to detect individual numbers on the chip placed on runners' shoes, and recorded the starting times. Similar sensors were placed at the finish line to record finish times. The race started from West Georgia at Burrard heading west to Stanley Park, continued to Beach Avenue, Burrard bridge, West 6th, Cambie bridge and finished at BC Place Stadium. The route was dotted with big numbers from 1-9 indicating the distance in km to the finish line.

The winner this year for the men section was Soloman Tsige from Ethiopia with time of 29:23 and the prize $3000. Dylan Wykes won $1000 for 2nd place + $2000 for top Canadian, Ryan Hayden won $500 for 3rd place + $1000 for 2nd top Canadian. The women section was won by Teyiba Erkesso Wako also from Ethiopia with time of 32:05 and receive the prize of $3000. Lioudmila Kortchaguina won $1000 for 2nd place + $2000 for top Canadian, and Lisa Harvey won $500 for 3rd place + $1000 for 2nd top Canadian. The Kenyans that dominated the event 11 times in the last 13, did not participate, so the Ethiopians took over. People from East Africa seem to be very good at distance running.

And what was my time? It was a "decent" 154:15, about 2 1/2 hours. I was keeping my neighbour company participating for the first time. It was a very nice day, and we had a leisure walk. We visited nearly all of the water stations, and stopped at nearly all of the pit stops. If you had to go you had to go, I guess. A day later, she called me to complain about not being able to get up because of sore body, even after taking Tylenol 3. And added that this would be her first and her last. I just laughed and said that first time Sun Runners always said that, and next year they will be back again. I also pointed out to her that the Sun Run is all about participation, exercises and healthy living. No pain no gain.

Let's play Chess

Dear Inna Suvorov,
I have not played in any chess tournament for a very long time now. I used to play chess with a co-worker of varying shift over the phone, or met occasionally over coffee. We both had magnetic chess sets, and left messages on the answering machine for the moves. We kind of on the same level of skill, with him winning 60% of the time. We completed a game in one week, sometimes longer. Then I lost interest and stopped playing. And after we moved on in different jobs later on in life, we lost track of each others, and that was that. The last time I heard from him, was that he was joining an Internet chess club with opponents from all over the world with equal or higher ratings. He suggested me to join, but declined.

A few weeks ago I read this article in the newspaper about a chess tournament in Mexico the "Morelia / Linares Super GM Tournament". It was Grandmasters only tournament that participated by the top 8 Grandmasters in the world, so the "Super GM" name. Each player played each other twice, 14 rounds in all. Evidently they played in 2 countries, the first 7 rounds they played in Morelia, Mexico and the last 7 rounds played in Linares, Andalusia, Spain. The tournament was amazingly won by Indian chess Grandmaster Vishy Anand. And because of his win, he became the highest rank grandmaster in the world with FIDE rating of 2816. This is better by 15 points over 2 grandmasters with same ratings of 2801: Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria and Vladimir Kramnik of Russia, both participated in that event. This is the first time ever that the best player in the world hold by a "non white", and people in India took a very great pride and joy because of his achievement.
And that piece of news, all of a sudden sparked some interest in me to play chess again. So I did some inquiries and located a chess club near my place, a 10 minutes drive away. They meet 3 times/week from 7-11 pm. I also inquired the British Columbia Chess Federation (BCCF) and got some website addresses about chess in BC and Canada in general. And to my surprise they still have my name on their players list with my old rating of 1875. But that is way too high now, probably my rating now is 1600 or less because of inactivity for a very long time. Although my highest rating was 1985 when I was a member of "Perth Chess Club" in Western Australia.
In Canada, I used to be a member of "Port Coquitlam Chess Club", and competing in regular tournaments there with mixed results. But my best result was second place at "New Westminster Open" awhile back. I joined chess tournaments at "British Columbia Institute of Technology" a few times in the past with also mixed results, no prizes to show for. You need to be in top 3 from 25-35 players competing to have a prize. I played a couple of times at the prestigious "Keres Memorial" chess tournament which is conducted every year in May at the Hungarian Cultural Centre in Vancouver. I had a very strong results from the 2 tournaments I entered that gave me the good rating of 1875. Although still no award or prize to show for, I managed to beat some very good players and felt that I accomplished something. Now come to think of it, I definitely will be going to see this year's "Keres Memorial" tournament in May 18-21,2007. But not playing in it, just watching it, because of lack of preparation I will be just embarrassing myself if I play. Check mated in 5 moves or something. It is a very strong tournament using 7 round Swiss system over 4 days during Victoria day long weekends. Many players from all over Canada and United States come to play.

In the past I had good results from playing chess. I received a few trophies and cash to show for. In Australia I won once the "Fremantle Open". Came in 1st and 3rd in "Western Australian Open" Reserve Division 2 years in a row in a strong fields. My rating then shot to 1985. There was an Indonesian Obstetrician from Jakarta participating with me in those 2 years. He was an avid chess player doing specialized Obstetrics training in Perth, and a very good player himself. I also joined the prestigious "Perth Chess Club" and played a few tournaments there with mixed results. I won the "Perth Muslim Students Association Chess Tournament" once with strong fields. In Indonesia I won 2 years in a row at "Rumbai Chess Club" tournaments in Sumatra with moderate fields. In Canada I came in 1st and 2nd at the "Indonesian Independence Day Chess Tournament" in Vancouver organized by the Indonesian Consulate with moderate fields from Indonesian students at UBC and SFU 2 years in a row. So I have some credentials in playing good chess. I used to play Ruy Lopez variations for playing white pieces and Sicilian Defence for playing blacks. But I am kind of blurred now how to play them effectively.
By the way the most Grandmasters in the world are from Russia with 164, highest rank is Vladimir Kramnik (2801 rating). I do not know why the Russians are so good in playing chess, maybe something to do with their harsh winter. At one time they had more Grandmasters than the rest of the world combined twice over. Imagine that. Canada has 5 Grandmasters, with highest rank Kevin Spraggett (2611), followed by Alexandre Lesiege, Mark Bluvshtein, Dmitri Tyomlin and Pascal Charbonneau. And Indonesia has 4 Grandmasters, with highest rank Utut Adianto (2587) followed by Susanto Megaranto, Cerdas Barus and Edhi Handoko.

(Photo): "Final" at Rumbai Chess Club, Sumatra, Indonesia. This photo was supposed to be in color, but our Rumbai Photography Club of which I was a member, could only process in B&W print.

Training time

Dear Hilary Trotman,
The 10 km Vancouver Sun Run will take place on Sunday April 15, 2007 at 9 am. The results of the race will be published on the daily newspaper "Vancouver Sun". I am doing my training every other day around my neighbourhoods. I have a few routes for my practise run that I do alternately each time. It is about 6 km distance that takes me 45-50 minutes to complete, mostly by running and walking. I am passing by 3 neighbourhood parks on all the routes and do stretching exercises in 1 or 2 of those parks. I try to choose the routes through residential and avoid the car's fumes from the main road. But unfortunately for 5 minutes back and forth I have to run beside the main road. I am really all set to Go!
Here I attached a couple of photos of locations that I pass each time on my run.

(Bottom photo) Going out of residential neighbourhoods into main road. This one with Vancouver city skylines at the background.

(Top photo) Coming back on the home stretch, I will pass a parking lot of a Community College that now has been turned into a construction zone. The parking lot is slated for expansion to the Community College with a 6 story tall building. The existing College are the 2 buildings shown at the back. I usually stop at the site and do stretching exercises on the pedestrian look-out provided, whilst watching all the activities there. I am always fascinated by construction activities.