By: Diniyah Imaniyah
That day was the happiest day for all participants. Indonesian delegate were attended and met Taiwan delegation, the Indonesian consisted of 10 people and the Taiwanese were 5 people. This trip is held by Sakura Science Exchange Program (SSP) on October 1st-7th, 2019, presenting the undergraduate and postgraduate students to seek the deepest knowledge at Marine Station of Hiroshima University as its known that Japan is a leader of technology and highly respects their culture. Around 21:00 On 1ST October all participant arrived at Hiroshima Airport and welcomed by the Professors and Sensei, so spending the night at the Airport Hotel.
The first day, in the morning all participant should going to Mukaishima, a town located on Hiroshima Prefecture that’s where the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) placed. The agenda started by doing laboratory orientation and introduction, followed by a study of classification and phylogeny of marine organisms, then do a plankton collection which everyone might try to take the tool for collecting the plankton and observing the results. The plankton collection tools shaped like a fishing net only it has a finer net and a collector at the side of the net. At lunch, Sensei told all participant have to do the lunch and dinner together everyday. Since arriving at MBL I really fall in love with self-independent of Japanese people, they were doing everything responsibly, they teach how to clean up leftover dishes, how to tidy and clean up the dinning room together exactly after finished the dinner.
The second day, all participant learned the evolution and development of marine animals, also observed the anatomy of phylum chordates such as hemichordates from the genus Acorn Worm, cefalochordate and urochordate. The participant also observed the growth eggs of phylum chordates to be a juveniles. At the night, we do our welcoming party at Shusi-maru Restaurant and that’s really fancy, everyone probably taste their first-original wasabi and matcha at Shusi-maru.
The third day is a ‘tourist day’. Everyone of participant has the opportunity to visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum which witnessed the battle as well as World War peace in 1945 and the UNESCO World Heritage Itsukushima Shrine located on Miyajima Island. The journey to the destination takes all public transportation such as Shinkansen (High Speed Railway) and Hiroden (Hiroshima electric Railway) then crossed the island by Miyajima Ferry. One thing I know from oneday journey, that Japanese always honour the history and highly respect the humanity.
The fourth day, we did a course on metal accumulation in ascidians, ascidians are animals of the subphylum tunicata. Invertebrate animals that live in shallow water. The ascidians ‘body is absorbing vanadium, then in this observation all participant should divide to 5 group and each group consist 3 person for doing the research and calculate the total vanadium on ascidians’ body by Atomic Absorption Spectoscopy (AAS) instrumentation. At the night, we caught sea fireflies and tested fluorescence of these animal, also we screen the anatomy.
The last day is the day where all participants made presentations about their impressions and results of their learning along journey with Sakura Science Exchange Program. After that we tidy up our luggage, also dormitory and going back to Airport hotel for farewell party. Last day always be a sadest and precious. On a farewell party, every teacher share their story and advice, and I learn more about life from their story. Just like how the teacher said “if we want to look younger, we have find our happiness in life”, and I feel honour to met all the participant and spend the time together. One more quotes “the world is so small, you will notice it when you are old”, I hope maybe one day we can meet again anywhere on this earth. The journey of exchange have been completed, this valuable experience provides many stories that will always be remembered and become a new spirit to keep fighting in the future. For all teachers who provide knowledge in class or out the classroom during this event, and especially for the Sakura Science Exchange Program that has given me the opportunity to participate this event, I said thank you so much. hopefully there are more opportunity for me to return and study at Japan. fin.-