It’s been a week since I left Chiba University. It was my very first trip to Japan, and the 6 weeks in Chiba University was really exciting, meaningful and memorable to me.
I arrived at Narita Airport at 0710 morning on the 26th July 2010. I was then took the direct train from Narita Airport to Inage. It was about 10:00 morning when I arrived at the Inage JR station where I met with Mr. Yohandri, who was then leaded me to check into the Chiba University International House. On the following day, Mr. Yohandri guided me to Chiba University. That was my first time to step into Chiba University. I was then met with Dr. Josaphat, the head of Josephat Microwave Remote Sensing Laboratory at Center for Environmental Remote Sensing (CEReS).
On the 28th July 2010, there was a Symposium on The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Japan-East Asia Network of Exchange for Students and Youths (JENESYS) Programme, which was held in Lecture Room 102, Center for Environmental Remote Sensing. I was the third presenter in the symposium scheduled at 1000 morning and I presented the brief introduction on the development of Synthetic Aperture Radar System in Multimedia University, Malaysia. On the last day of the symposium, there was a workshop on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Image Signal Processing conducted by Dr. Josaphat himself. The workshop was very informative and I had gained a lot from it. At the end of the workshop, we also had a demonstration session of SAR Image Signal Processing on JERS-1 SAR data by Dr. Bayuaji.
Throughout the 6 weeks in Chiba University, my main focus was to exchange idea on the SAR Image Signal Processing with researchers from CEReS. After several discussions with the group, they inspired me to revise our SAR Image Signal Processing program to process JERS-1 data beside RADARSAT-1 data. At the end of my visit, I managed to draft out a MATLAB code which able to process the JERS-1 data. Although the output SAR image was not perfectly focused, at least we had some positive results.
Besides doing research, the researchers from CEReS were kind enough to invite me to join their outing group to Chiba Science Museum and Fireworks Festival. They were really friendly and it was fun to hang out with them.
In short, this visit really meant a lot to me and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Josaphat for inviting me to Chiba University. Last but not least, I also would like to thank Dr. Bayuaji, Mr. Yohandri, Mr. Iman, Mr. Bambang, Mr. Ilham, and Mr. Prilando, for their hospitality, my visit to Japan wouldn’t be so interesting and enjoyable without you guys. Thank you.
(Lim Chee Siong, Lecturer, Multimedia University, Malaysia)