Jadilah Nekad II : Handshake Event – Angga’s Report

I arrived in Epiwalk, a new venue for a JKT48 handshake event -the very first time they decided to use a different venue other than f(X)- at around 10 in the morning. Let us just say, I’m little bit wobbling due to last night karaoke event for the Jadilah Nekad II program after watching the theater together

I then met one of Jadilah Nekad II participant, SHINJI, and together we headed to the coffee shop where Japarta waited along with Da-Chi and Mt. Joss, both are participants in the Jadilah Nekad II: Won’t You Please Notice Me program.

We also got a full bunch of OOM48 members (A pretty well known parody of JKT48 who consist of middle-aged salaryman) and local JKT48Stuff authors such as Pitra, Ijul, Red, Haddad, and djt waited at the coffee shop and in the middle of a friendly trading of AKB48/SKE48/NMB48/HKT48 merchandises with JKT48.

It was such a nice view that I can’t stop smiling looking at them. A very friendly atmosphere and almost like I’m home with these people around me. We miss RHKilis this time though, since he attending AFA – Singapore. Next year then, Bud!

11 O’clock and after a few sips of a very nice ice chocolate, I decided to join the queue line for Diasta in a mission for Kata/B from Everyday48.

I have to say that they almost have a nicely designed queue system. It was such a huge improvement over the last handshake event in my own honest opinion (They did it well the last time, but unfortunately, space constraint and wrong application of the classic Hot and Cold system make it worse).

Too bad they decided to use one entry ticket check point for every two handshake booths this time. This decision results in a bottleneck at the entry point and the queue became very long, greater delay time, and..well…let’s say..in a disarray.

I’m just hoping that next time, they will have two entry point per booth for batch processing as well as railings. Of course Hot and Cold system as well as basing the queue system based on Markov Model would help for sequential random event like this.

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I can see that they tried to make the queue faster this time by putting the entry check point directly before the two booths. But between faster and consistent (Using the mix of appropriate Hot and Cold system and the now current system they used), I’d preferred the consistent one. But then again, as long as the application is correct.

Because although being faster in service per customer via the shorter route, the variability of coming customers with no exact line limit (And bottleneck) will results in a greater delay time per customer in queues compared to the limited, slow moving, but consistent one.

This is what I have in mind for 30% shorter delay time scheme in the hot-zone queues lane (Calculated using the steady-state parameters for Markov Model: Poisson arrivals at rate λ= 2 handshake participants per hour for simple calculation).

But then again, please do remember that the after-departure area aka Handshake Booth is one the greatest cause of variability in delay time as well as space constraint.

The bigger the space is, the better organized the queue line and waiting area will be.

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Long story short, kudos to the officials for trying to make the queue system better. Still not perfect since it is really in a total disarray and still have some important unattended bottleneck points, but we are slowly heading to the correct path now. The fans are A-Okay for a long queue as long as it is not in a total disarray (Not knowing where the queue line is, which lane are we going into, people crossing the lane here and there, and the list goes on).

Back to the story then. I queued for Diasta, a long queue one, then I met this cute tall girl. I directly say my hi to her and after a short exchange of talking and handshaking, I told her that I have a special message for her from one of JKT48 overseas fans. She looked happy when she hear that but she perhaps didn’t thought that it not just your regular “Say Hi, please” message. It is indeed a special picture message from B.

Then out my tablet with B’s picture message and I gave it over to Diasta while saying: “B’s Special message from Florida, USA. Ma’am”

Diasta took my tablet and paid a very detailed attention to the message. She said none, but she smiled and her eyes focused on the message. Her eyes were glittering. She really said nothing in this short exchange, but she just can’t take her eyes off the picture message, even for a second.

Time’s up and I’ve got to go out. She handed me back my tablet and said “Thank you, really, thank you for this. Please say my thank you to him and oh please attend our Team J special booth!” while handing me my tablet and her sticker.

Team J booth is where they sell various things such as food with the girls as the waitress and cook. Hmm..another long disarray queue then. Nah, I’ll pass. I want to reserved my legs for tomorrow office hour.

I took a rest for a while in the make-shift HQ at the local coffee-shop. The once cozy 2nd floor of the coffee-shop now turns into a wota mess because of us . But thankfully, we bought many drinks that one of the barista can attest to by saying “Dear God, our sales today is really off-the-chart! and this is still very early in the morning!” when I decided to talk to her.

I’m not really paying any attention to the center stage where the girls having their own spotlight MC session and talent show. But at that time, I think it was Kinal who did the MC and Beby did some amazing UZA dance cover. My throbbing legs prevent me from paying any attention to any other booth, unfortunately.

Anyway, it’s the second session now. Time for another mission box from B! This time, it was Novinta. As usual, bla bla, I queued again. Another long queue to enter the Temple of Nobi.

Long story short, I arrived at her booth, she said hi to me and asked me my name. After that short exchange, I gave her my tablet and told her that this is a very special message from a fan from Florida, USA. I decided to speak to her in English since she’s pretty good in English and I can express myself better in English. She smirked a little bit due to my weird accent tho’ (As Haddad described: “You sounded like you are a cross breeding between David Moyes and local Batak’s girl” )

Her reaction was mostly unique , she stood stiff and just saying “Really? Really? For real?” while reading at the picture message. She was so dumbfounded that she even forget to gave me her sticker . Her last word before I leave her booth: “Please say my thank you! Please tell him, I want to meet him!”

Oh, I told Nobi to visit both JKT48Stuff and Everyday48 too. She doesn’t know about these two sites, actually. Or should I say, most of the girls I met doesn’t know the very existence of English based websites saved for Melos no Michi. (Melooooooos, I want to strangle joooooo! )

Session 3 now. Got no ticket for this session and I decided to get some rest first and enjoying my cigarette outside. I walked outside joined by Da-Chi and we take some short puff. This was the time when we met three other guests from Japan! They were here for Akicha actually. But Alas, Akicha was sick and they were left with no other choice but to exchanged their tickets for the other girls.

I decided to call Japarta for a help in conversation exchange since my Japanese is limited and Da-Chi’s English is limited also. Anyway, since I barely have any JKT48 merchandise (I opted to save some of my money for my future child education, if I ever get married, that is), I decided to exchange our cigarette instead

Anyway, I hope those three great guys could join us in our future program of Jadilah Nekad!

Oh and…uh…TSEL, why your signal is so bad in Epiwalk? Da-chi can’t meet his friend, Kanon, due to this. Kanon is a Japanese girl who lived in Indonesia and attended the same school as Rena was. I want to meet her too, actually, after Da-chi told me about her. Another cultural exchange chances wasted due to bad signal…

Back to the HQ now, getting prepared for the 4th session when I met the barista I told you earlier at the stair; she was paying attention to the center stage and I can pretty much hear her mumbling about if only she was a few years younger, she wanted to join the 3rd generation audition.

On the fourth session, I decided to proves the myth about Dena’s robotic, templated approach to handshake. Just one ticket. Another long disarray and chaotic queue. Some of my friends already told me about Dena’s template and I determined to proves it. And…yes…it was a direct 1-to-1 copy to what my friends already told me .

But hey, that is what makes Dena unique! I just can’t stop laughing after that, gotta make sure I do some handshake with her another time to enjoy her templated approach and created a full fledged blue-print for it. Don’t change your approach Dena, just don’t.

Anyway, here’s Dena’s flowchart for Template v.1.0.0 – “I Never Saw This Guy Before” – Plan.

5th session! Time for a groovy Beby! Well, mission box from B actually. Got my tickets, prepared B’s picture message and off we go to Beby’s booth!

And oh boy, she’s gorgeous alright with her new hair cut. Exchanging our “Hello” for a bit, and showed her B’s picture message. The reaction is almost the same as the other girls before, happy but in disbelief

I told her it gonna took much time and money for B to fly over to Jakarta from Florida, she said she understood and this much is already more than what she deserved. Humble Beby is humble, way too humble in my own honest opinion.

I can’t exactly remember which of the girls asked B’s job since the security is always pushing me before my time is up and the speaker blaring songs here and everywhere, but I remember answering it with “He works in a game shop” and after that some short talk about whether B also have Pokemon in his store shelves

And now session 6 and time for some laughing gas in action by visiting Sendy right after Japarta . She’s the complete package of cuteness, alright.

I smirked and congratulate her for meeting Japarta once again which produce a happy laugh from her. She admitted that she was so happy to be able to meet Japarta once again and proceed by asking me to say her thanks to Japarta before the security pushed me away.

Session 7 is coming up and it is now time to say Good Bye to Japarta, SHINJI, Da-Chi, Mt. Joss, and the three great guys we met before. Those three guys will have the same flight with the Jadilah Nekad team, so they decided to go together to airport.

It was a touchy moment to say the least. To say good bye to great friends is never easy. I almost got mushy because of it. But thankfully, one of the three guys we met before, Riki, if I’m not mistaken, already found his consolation in the hands of Sinka. Good job Sinka! He was so happy meeting Sinka that we keep jokingly reminding him not to Oshihen from Akicha .

Just a joke between us anyway, since he was Akicha’s birthday party leader and have a very special commemoration pictures with AKB48 girls complete with the signatures and all of that.

Meanwhile, Da-Chi, who also loves Naomi, keep persuading him to choose the older sister instead.

We also met Ades from Rookie Boom there, where I introduce our guests to and they took some pictures together. Rookie Boom is now a star themselves in 2ch.

We have some great talk there, one of it was how Ve still remember Da-chi from their encounter in Roppongi by re-enacting the exact same sentence Da-chi asked her to translate when she teach Bahasa Indonesia to the audiences in Roppongi, which shocked Da-Chi to his vein. “I still can’t believe it. She remembers me,” He said. I’m sooo…sooo much glad that all of the guys is having so much fun here.

Oh, and remember Mt. Joss bought the wrong tickets at Yuuhi handshake event? He can now used those tickets to meet Ve and oh boy, he was so happy too!

Great job Ve!

After my farewell hug, and almost crying due to that; I decided now it is the time for some “ME-TIME” with Shan

Oh but wait! First thing first, the mission box from B to Shan! This is it, the climax of B’s chained picture message, the most special one. I prepared two tickets for B and 6 for me, total in eight.

Long disarray queue once again…and now…here it is, Shan! I already feel comfortable around Shan (although it is not vice versa from her body language and expression ) and I’m so pumped up to show her B’s picture message, so I just high-fives her when I entered her booth while saying “Heya, Shan!” and told her that I brought her a very special surprise.

I asked her whether she still remember that once I asked for her autograph for a friend of mine living overseas. “Yeah!” she replied. “Here ya go: B!” I gave her my tablet with B’s picture message in it. She take a look at it and went “Uwaaaaaaah!!!” , look at it again, and “He’s cute,” she said. B, my man, you are one hell of a cute guy aren’t you

I took a peek of my stopwatch, and it counted at 26 seconds. All right, my time now. Just as the time I locked my tablet and getting ready for a handshake, one of the security came in and pushed me away. I was utterly shocked by this security guy. I can’t even spoke for myself! I just looked at Shan, looked at the security trying to say that I got 8 tickets for this. But before I could told him anything, the security guy told me:

“WE STILL HAVE A LONG QUEUE HERE! THE TIME SLOT WON’T FIT!”

Sigh…so it’s my fault that the time slot won’t fit? so it’s my fault that there’s still a long queue? so the tickets I bought counts for nothing towards the needed of the mass?

Shan who doesn’t know how much tickets I bought said her sorry and gave me one of her stickers. That’s it. I don’t even got the chance to told her about where B lives and which states he represent. I didn’t even got the chance to handshake with her which is -ironically- the name of this event. In total, 50 seconds were robbed from me due to the “The time slot won’t fit” reason. The counted seconds varied between me and Febry who waited behind me with two seconds difference.

I paid for these tickets all right, I deserved 80 seconds for it, don’t just robbed it away like that.

Oh well, at least I already able to show Shan B’s picture message, and that alone, already makes me super pumped-up and happy.

Moving on to the 8th session, my last mission box! It is time for B’s picture message for Yona! Actually, I almost gave up and said my sorry to B later on since my legs are trembling like there’s no tomorrow due to fatigue. But a man must stay true to his words! And thus, I walk like a drunkard to another long disarray queue helped by Pitra. Thanks Pit

After queuing in line and repeated reminder from Pitra not to bend my leg since I’m already experiencing some small cramp, I was a few meters away from the booth when suddenly, the lights were out.

The officials (perhaps) decided to stop the handshake for a while due to the booth was so dark without any lighting and they were concerned about the girls safety. My logic agrees to this but my legs were not. But anyway, a nice call to stop it for a while. The girls’ safety came first.

Looking around, I can see Tata got out from her booth and told the security to keep continuing on with the handshake regardless of her own safety. What a thing to do Tata, kudos.

Yona peek a little bit from her booth, looking at the queue, seems like she was torn in making a decision to let the handshake continues and breaking the rules or stay within the rules, very understandable. The security around Yona’s booth were a little bit worried looking at us, the fans, queued and waiting and waiting and waiting. One of them decided to continue on with the handshake and the first thought on my mind was “This guy is nice. I wish he had his own booth so that I can shake his hand.”

Now is the time! Pitra gave me the OOM48 pin and it is time to gave Yona my tablet with B’s picture message in it! She was fazed with the picture message while I explain the historical background of it as well as promoting JKT48Stuff and Everyday48 of course. I really can’t tell what kind of expression she made since she put the tablet so close to her face

The security then came in and pushed me away, took a peek at my stopwatch, 10 seconds sharp. The first time ever the security did it right for me. Seems like Yona is so happy to get the picture message as she handed me a full load of her stickers, A dozen of Yona stickers in my hand now. She asked for another OOM48 pin though

On my way back to the HQ, I met a very friendly and well spoken Ogino-san who told me to wait for another hour or two since there will be a special performance with a special surprise from the girls. I’d love to! I really am! I promised Ogino-san to watch the special performances and then jot down the event review.

A promise.. “A man must stay true to his words!” is what I said earlier. But alas, after another continues waves of leg cramps in HQ, I’m no longer a man but degraded to just a mere bawling pampered baby losing his most precious toys while calling his driver to come quickly and helped him walk to the car.

My deepest apology Ogino-san that I can’t keep my promise to watch the performance, I paid attention to live tweets friends of mine make while laying down on bed and was so happy to read that Manatsu no Sounds Good debuted there as well as the calendar announcement.

Things to note from the event :
– Beby Dancing to the tune of UZA
– Rona singing splendidly to Kotak’s song “Beraksi”
– Stella’s performance in singing Ten to Five – I will Fly. A tear jerking performance by her. Stella, why do you have to go?
– Sendy singing Celine Dion – The Power of Love. A foreigner walking beside me commented shortly “Amazing voice..”
– Ve and Kinal Atarimae Taisho version, which surprises the Jadilah Nekad II participants
– Noella’s heart throbbing performance with her guitar
– The duet singing from I forgot who since I’m in the queue and I concentrate fully on my weak legs, sorry
– Rena selling Fortune Cookies! . I got two cookies for a mere 10.000 IDR.

I wrote this review down today while working and I must say, I can’t stop smiling. The leg cramps is nothing compared to the fun we had. It was nothing compared to the international connection, cultural exchange I’ve experienced the whole day.

Great job JOT for making such an event. Thank you for trying to make the queue system better, it still needed some touch, but I can attest that they have the greatest interest to make things better now, it won’t be easy, but I still have my utmost believe that they will, sooner or later, find the best way to handle the queue disarray. The mini show on stage is a very refreshing change from the long queue although it somehow contributed to the queue disarray due to no railings.

One thing to note tho’, due to the disarray, me and Pitra decided to do some little experiment by using a used ticket for Yona’s. The ticket passed flawlessly…of course Pitra threw away the used ticket and did not use it for his own advantage. Well, that’s one of the cons for a disarray queue.

Thank you very much to Haddad, Red, Djt, Pitra, Japarta, Ijul, Ryand, Ryan, Mt. Joss, Da-Chi, SHINJI, the three great guys from Japan, Arman, Nathan, Herlina, Ines, Imran, Ades, Mario, Febry, Ted, all of the OOM48 squad, all of Stuffers , Ogino-san, Rahmad, Rangga, dimasdw, the girls, the staffs, Everyone! Everyone who attended the event! Thank you!! It was totally an unforgettable day.

And B, bro, thanks for the quest you gave me, without it, it won’t be the same day I’ve experienced.

Just a reminder though to all the fans: When you done with anything, please throw the rest of it to the nearest garbage can you can find. It is not pleasant to see a used cup of Noodles laying around everywhere. It is not pleasant to see papers left-over from cutting your tickets laying around everywhere (Yes, this also applies to us, you guys and me, who use the coffee shop as the HQ). Always remember: The change starts from you.

See you guys soon on Jadilah Nekad III!! and please wait for JKT48 Handshake Festival Event report from our Japanese team!

Special Note for Coffee Shop : Stop tempting me with Equil. I drank 8 bottles and my stomach is not really fond of it now