Changes on My Everyday Commute— 30 Days Writing Challenge

Well, I have never thought to write about this topic before, but I guess it’s kinda interesting since I have a unique background on my everyday commute and I believe that commuting might changes myself. First of all, my everyday commute is totally different, it depends on the city I lived in. I have lived in four different cities so far: Bandung, Surabaya, Kuala Lumpur, and Seoul.

When I lived in Bandung, my hometown, I usually commute to school which is located around 5 km from home only in 15 minutes. In facts, the entertainment district, the business center, the epicenter of education called Dago, Setiabudi, Sukajadi, and Riau areas are nearby to my home. It’s located at the north part of Bandung upon the hill, sometimes it makes the commute to/from home feels a little longer and further compared to the actual one. But I could say that it was an enjoyable journey, I could enjoy the scenery and feel the breeze during commuting despite of the traffic jam and narrow roads.

I used to commute with car or picked up with motorcycle by my friends. The funny facts is I could drive a car and ride a motorcycle ( I prefer not ride it because I have a trauma) but I don’t have a driving license yet LOL, probably that’s why my mom is over-worrying me when I want to drive and commute around the city myself. When Gojek first launched their application, I use Gojek more often because it’s way more convenient and cheaper. My commute to/from school only cost 1000 Rupiah back then.

Since I was accepted in college, I lived in Surabaya and my commute usually happened to/from uni, mall, and grocery store. I lived in apartment located 3 km from my university but very close to a mall and grocery store. It’s been three years and I consistently use Gojek and Grab (even though they’re so expensive nowadays). It takes me around 10 minutes ride to uni and it cost around 12.000 Rupiah for one way trip. I tried to look at my expenditure recap and surprisingly it cost me around 1.5 mio per month only for commuting (is it categorize as extravagant?). Commuting in Surabaya without private vehicle is very hard and expensive (in my opinion) because there’s no accessible public transport yet. What about commuting on foot? It’s almost impossible, sidewalks are hard to find and the weather is so damn hot I could melt!

During my 3rd year in college I was a person with super high mobility. Not only commuting around Surabaya, I could commute to four different cities in a month. My friends even called me ‘woman in the air’ because I used to commute from one city and country to another by a plane.

In the end of 2019, I lived in Kuala Lumpur for internship a month long. My commute happened to/from laboratory and Bukit Bintang almost every day. My apartment located in Selangor which is around 20 km from Kuala Lumpur and makes my commute takes longer than usual. It takes me around 30 minutes to KL. Mostly I use ERL or LRT and partly use GrabCar. In KL I learned that commuting with public transport is great but isn’t as convenient as I expected because I still have to use GrabCar and the weather isn’t that good for me to walk from a station to another.

Now, it’s been 3 months I live in Seoul. The difference between my commute here with the rest is; I don’t go to uni because I live here already. Furthermore, I don’t go to uni because there’s literally no meetings due to covid-19 pandemic. So mostly I commute to/from so many attractions in Seoul using subway and bus. Luckily they still operate during pandemic and they provide so many facilities to ease the access, it makes them so convenient. I could say that this is the best public transportation I’ve experienced. I also used to walk in Seoul even though the roads are mostly uphill, the walk is just fun especially when it’s with our beloved one, we could talk a lot and it could be a simple quality time for us!

All the experiences on my commutes, all the differences, and the travelling environments I move through, impress me and leave marks. Even if I’m not conscious of how the event has affected myself at the time, I realize sometimes much later, how forceful that event was.

From now on, over time, and through repetition, I believe that what we experience on commuting becomes part of who we are, and who we are comes to be part of the environments we move through. It means that rather than passively transporting us, commuting journeys and transport systems are actively changing us.

-d-