A trip to Kyikehteeyoe

Hi, it’s Genki.

I went to Kyikehteeyoe, where is famous for its Golden rock from 17^th to 19^th December with my friend whose name is YeThuAung.

We left Yangon at 9 pm and arrived in Kyikehteeyoe at 2 am. 

The first bus to the top of the mountain on which Kyikehteeyoe Pagoda is located starts from 6 am so we had to wait. But fortunately we could stay in the hotel which we booked and soon found it so comfortable.

After a little rest in the room, we took a bus to the top of the mountain. The bus was more like a truck than a bus and we had to sit on the back seats. The driver drove roughly so I could see many people feeling sick. It took about 30-40 minutes from the base of the mountain to the destination. Actually the scenery from the bus was really similar to that of Japanese mountainous areas in summer.

Let's start our trip!!

Bus station on the base of the mountain

After arriving at the destination and walking for a while, I could see something shining, reflecting the sunlight. It was Golden rock! The first impression was just awesome. I recommend you to go there in the morning because you can take good photos from the east side.

The entrance of the pagoda

Kyikehteeyoe Pagoda!!

After walking around the rock, we headed to the other pagoda which is located a little far from Kyikehteeyoe Pagoda and we had to hike. It was harder than we had expected. There are many souvenir shops along the way. Sometimes they sell traditional medicine made from snake, deer, and other insects. It was a little disgusting for me.

Dead deer

Dead snake

We also went to a waterfall near Kyikehteeyoe Pagoda. Many people were playing there.

I also enjoyed buying some souvenirs.

During the back way to Yangon, we visited some pagodas on the way. There are so many pagodas in Myanmar.

Shwemawdaw Pagoda in Bago city.
Actually Bago is on the way from Kyikehteeyoe to Yangon.

Anyway, thanks to my friend, it was a wonderful and exciting trip. I really appreciate it.

See you soon.

About happiness ~short notice through the Bago survey~

Hi, it's Genki.
Through my survey in Bago city, I started to think of something. It is a simple question. What is happiness?

 The reason why I think this kind of thing is that I found not all the people but even many poor people in Bago seemed full of vigor and looked satisfied with their current living condition. At first I thought that they must be unhappy without enough income, good houses, and other many services which we can get in Japan. But somehow they looked happy of living everyday life with their families. It was a little shocking to me.

 In Japan, even though there are many services and things around us, I find myself feeling less satisfied. Just for example, I was happy just playing in the park with my friends in my elementary school days. But I can’t feel happy only to do it now. Other example is that I cannot fully content with my new iPhone even though I was really happy when I first got my cell phone with much lower performance in my junior high school days. That’s because I now tend to think like “more and more” and becoming greedier. Because of high speed in technique improvement, I noticed myself thinking in a way that newer and better things will come soon. But I may never be able to feel satisfied as long as thinking in this way.

 People in Myanmar have a room to kindly accept me, who is from completely different environment and quite stranger for them. If I was them, I could never do that. I a little envy them because I would never feel how they seem to feel. But now I think it is important to be able to content with what we already have and what we already are for our happiness.

It is just what I thought through the survey. As a first step, I’m thinking to start from appreciating all the environment around me including my family, friends, and other many things.

 It is a short notice and a memo. I’m sorry for the long sentences.

 See you next time.

Bago Survey

Hi, it's Genki. Today I want to talk how my research is going.

My research topic is the relationship between flood and poverty. The reason I chose the topic is that I found many poor people near the river in the last field survey in Myanmar in June. I'm here in Myanmar for the student exchange program but I also want to collect data related to my research topic by taking advantage of this trip. 

This is the scenery from the bus from Yangon to Bago. In Myanmar, they open the windows even though we are running so fast on the highway. We can get to Bago in less than 2 hours if the traffic condition is not so bad.

Well anyway the field survey in Bago has finally started. I was nervous at first so as my counterparts from YTU, but I learned how to make it soon. I think the key is just listen to what they say sincerely looking at their eyes. But easier said than done. As time passes and we get tired, it was becoming more difficult to just listen to what they talk to us. The guys who are on the pictures are helpers from YTU to ask my questions.

Through this survey, I found something. Some people here cannot earn money during a certain period, which makes their income unstable. But also the respondents I asked questions were not look unhappy. Of course one of the reasons is the season (Actually the rainy season is sometimes the most difficult season for them and it is summer season in Myanmar now.), but they didn’t look so thin and I could feel a vitality from them.

During the questions, many other people came to see what we were doing. I found that all the people in a district are like relatives. They sometimes answered the questions instead of the respondent. But this trend was remarkable especially when we ask questions to poor people. I'm trying to ask both rich and poor people in order to reduce the prejudice.

After the questions, I gave the respondent a ballpoint pen. It is a small thing but they looked happy when they got it. Some people asked me more pens.

I gave them ball-point pens.

I hope I can make some results after the survey by analyzing data on GIS.

By the way, I'm getting used to Myanmar food now but in the third day I got really sick that I cannot move after I ate pork curry. But thanks to all the YTU friends, I could go to the clinic and get some medicine thus got better in a few days.

Anyway, I’m now getting used to the survey and I find it very interesting. I can get knowledge and experience which I would never acquire in Japan. I really appreciate to all the people who arranged this trip.

See you!

Meeting @ DMH, Nay Pyi Taw (24-Nov-2015)

Hello everyone, its me Seemanta (サム).

So the day began at 5:45 am. We had to catch an early flight to Nay Pyi Taw. After almost an hour long flight we arrived at Nay Pyi Taw International airport at 8:00 am.

Early morning flight to Nay Pyi Taw

Since we had some spare time, and its on the way, we decided to have a look at the Parliament building. However, due to security reasons, we had to park our car around 0.5-1.0 km away. We clicked some pictures around there.

The road was very wide (8 lanes by 8 lanes)

You can see the Parliament building in the background

We reached DMH office at 8:45 am. We were a bit early. The meeting started at 9:30 am. It was attended by Dr. Kawasaki, Dr. Acierto, and myself from UTokyo side and by  Mrs. Ye Ye Nyein, Dr. Tin Mar Htay and two other staff from Meteorology Division of DMH. Dr. Ralph gave a very informative presentation regarding his current method and framework for the climate change analysis study on Bago River basin. Following the presentation, DHM also shared their techniques and models used for their climate change analysis, WRF modelling and forecast issuance. We also discussed about data availibility and data sharing. DHM were very willing to share their data with us. The short meeting concluded on potential close collaboration and support between the two groups.

Later, Dr. Tin Mar Htay took us around the DMH buildings and showed us their operational forecating division, data server and other data collection systems.

Dr. Tin Mar Htay explaining about the forecast division of DMH, Nay Pyi Taw

After lunch we took our flight back to Yangon at 1:30 pm. We reached our holel at around 3:00 pm. Then me and Dr. Ralph went to the famous Shwedagon pagoda. It was his first time there and he was awestruck by its beauty. He seemed to be very happy as he had his camera with him. Mr. Genki also joined us there. Dr. Ralph said he took more than 100 pics (within 30 mins). We left for hotel to have dinner with Dr. Kawasaki at the hotel restaurant.

Happy Dr. Ralph!

It was a nice trip. And, eventhough for only 4 nights, I enjoyed my stay there. Looking forward to come back again sometime soon.

Until then, good bye and take care!

Full Moon Festival

Hi. It's Genki. 

The full moon festival was held on 26^th, November. From what my friends told me, this festival is the biggest festival in Myanmar and held on 26^th November every year. Actually they said that the similar festival is also held in Thailand at the same day.

This is the National Holiday but the festival itself starts mainly from 4:30 pm. I asked some of my friends to take me to the festival place. I could feel that all the people were so excited.

At the streets, we could get some tickets beforehand which had a certain number on it. Then we exchanged the ticket for some goods at the designated shopd. Actually we didn’t have any tickets at the first time but my friend Bobo got tickets from his students. We got so many things that they were heavy to carry.

There were many people on the street

You can see each shop has its number

Then we went to the place where a festival sponsored by Coca-cola was being held. This festival was called Paper Lantern Festival. It was fantastic! I now understand that Myanmar people really like festivals. There were many shops and game corners. But I also thought it was similar to summer festivals, Matsuri, in Japan.

A big stage for the event

One of the game corners

Traditional Myanmar foods

After that we went to Inya Lake which was also the festival place. There were many people enjoying and some people were doing fireworks. Actually almost every square in Yangon was for the festival this night. But what I was surprised is that although many people were so excited, I didn’t see the one who was drinking alcohol. It’s mainly because of religious reason.

Inya Lake at night. There may be a limit to my iPad camera.

As above, I enjoyed the full moon festival in Yangon. I guess that as the economy grows the scale of the festival will become larger in the future.

That's all for this report. Thank you for reading. See you soon.

SATREPS workshop @ YTU (23-11-2015)

Hey, its me Seemanta (サム). I'm writing again after a long gap of almost 3 months.

The day started with breakfast at hotel restaurant at 8:00 am.
It was the most important day for us (of the entire trip/visit) this time, as we had a workhop titled "Water-related disaster management in the Bago River Basin". We left for YTU at 8:30.
The workshop started at 9:45 am with the opening remarks by Dr. Akiyuki Kawasaki.

Opening remarks by Dr. Akiyuki Kawasaki

There were eight 15 mins presentations. The first presenter was Dr. Aung Than Oo, from Irrigation Dept (ID). He talked about the flood hazard of the Bago city. The second presenter was our very own Dr. Ralph who accessed the future climate change over the Bago basin. The next two presentations were by Miss Shelly (Ph.D. Candidate, YTU) and Dr. Shimozono (UTokyo). Miss Shelly talked about her work on flood inundation mapping in the Bago basin. Dr. Shimozono explained the tidal influences on floods in Bago basin.

Dr. Aung Than Oo giving presentation

Dr. Ralph talking about future climate change over Bago river basin

We had a tea-break at around 11:00 am.

We took this oppurtunity to take a group picture!

The break was followed by the presentation by Mr. U Aung Myo Khaing from Directorate of Water Resources and Improvement of River Systems (DWIR). He talked about the activities of DWIR in the Bago river. Next, I gave a presentation about by my research on integrated hydrological modelling in the upper Bago basin. After that Mr. Ochii from Japan Water Agency (JMA) talked about the integrated operation of dams for flood control in Japan.
The last presentation was by Dr. Komori from Tohoku University. He shared his expereiences from another SATREPS project in Thailand (IMPAC-T) for which he was the coordinator.

Dr. Komori from Tohoku University

Following the presentations, we had a joint discussion on "how to implement SATREPS R&D in Bago River basin".
The main discussion points were on the equipment installation, more investigation of water flow, and improvement of current model used.  For the equipment installation issues, discussion on the support from irrigation department were facilitated. Factors to consider such as energy source, mobile signal, and access to potential observation site were reiterated. Also, negotiation on the cited potential sites for AWS and telemetry installation were discussed.

Group discussion between the Myanmar and Japan sides

Guest comments were provided by U Tint Zaw, Deputy Director General, ID and Prof. Koike Toshio, Department of Civil Engineering, UTokyo and Director, ICHARM (International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management). They shared their vast experiences and expertises on river improvement & watershed management, dam operation and sedimentation control.

The workshop concluded by the closing remarks from Dr. Win Win Zin, YTU.

A small token of appreciation from YTU side to Prof. Koike

A total of 54 participants attended this workshop which includes  9 participants from Japan, 34 from YTU and 11 Myanmar Project Stakeholders (ID, DWIR, YTU, DMH, and others).

Complete program of the workshop

Following the workshop Prof. Koike gave a lecture to the YTU students. The title of the lecture was “SATREPS Seminar: Disaster Risk Reduction(DRR), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and Climate Change(CC)”. He talked about the water cycle, climate change, disaster risk reduction, sustainable development goals, and resilience.

Prof. Koike giving lecture to YTU students

For dinner we went to the famous "Golden Duck" restaurant. The food was great, as usual.

Perfect way to end a successful workshop!

We had a very fruitful discussion and positive feedback from Myanmar side. Everyone seemed to be satisfied by the current progress of the project (it being only in its first year). We believe this workshop was a success!

Thats all for now. See you next time!
ご自愛なさって、おやすみなさいませ。
またお目にかかれますのを楽しみに致しております。