Water Level Transmitter Installation in Myanmar - Day 5 & 6 (2019/02/01~02/02)

Hello everyone, this is Liu Chang writing about the rest of our Myanmar field trip. Because most of our mission were accomplished in the beginning, so I decided to write the rest two days as one blog.

In day 5, we were planning to have some lectures with Sann Win Waung and BoBo Win about usage of windows server. However, because of the hard work of the first 4 days, Ralph-san got a stomach flu and had to rest at the hotel. So Sam-san became our teacher and taught us about how to make tasks in windows server and how to communicate with water lever and weather stations through ports.

Sam-san having a lecture in the server room

In the evening, I went to the supermarket and got some medicine and food for poor Ralph-san. Hope he will be better soon.

In day 6, Ralph-san is still feeling not so good, so me and Sam are invited by BoBo Win, Kyu Kyu, Aye Myat Thu and Aung Aye Aung from YTU to have a sightseeing in Yangon. With their car our transportation became convenient.

At first, we went to Sri Mangalar Kabaraye Cave Pagoda. This is a pagoda built inside a cave by six monks. There are many wall paintings inside the pagoda which telling stories about Buddha. But I couldn't understand the Burma language, so BoBo-san bought me a English book~ Thanks a lot for his kindness.

outside of pagoda

wall paintings of Buddha

outside the cave

inside the cave

snake dragon

tasty icecream in the pagoda

Then we went for a restaurant hold by a famous actor in Myanmar, the food there is sour and spicy. We ate with our bare hands which is a new experience for me.

lunch served above one big leaf

After lunch we went to Aung San Market for shopping. I bought some postcards there and our kind friends gave us a lot of presents like wallets and snacks. One amazing thing is that there are a lot of galleries here and as long as I can tell they are all quite fascinating.

At last we went for dinner in a palm wine restaurant. The palm wine has a special smell and tastes good in deed. We also had some palm fruits. The happy time is always faster than usual. Finally we have to say goodbye to eachother. Yangon really feels like my hometown (especially the spicy food). Hope we can meet soon in the future~

Aung San Market

palm wine

palm fruit

night view of Yangon

Water Level Transmitter Installation in Myanmar - Day 4 (20190131)

Hello everyone, this is Liu Chang writing about our after-work in Myanmar.

Today we invited officers from DWIR（Directorate of Water Resources and Improvement of River System）、JICA（Japan International Cooperation Agency）、DHPI（Department of Hydropower Implementation）、IWUMD（Irrigation and Water Utilization Management Department）、DDM（Department of Disaster Management）、DMH（Department of Meteorology and Hydrology）to report our recent progress and to discuss about next water level station.

meeting with stakeholders

After the formal meeting we also have some personal discussion about our equipment and space requirement.

discussion about space requirement

In the afternoon, we had some conversation with Prof. Khin Than Yu and Assoc. Prof. Win Win Zin from YTU about our plan for next year. Further cooperation is needed for the maintenance of current stations.

discussion with Assoc. Prof. Win Win Zin

discussion with Prof. Khin Than Yu

After that we charged the rest equipment in the beautiful sunshine~ I even fell asleep on the grass.

charging the battery

In the evening we could finally have meal outside. So we chose a Korean restaurant and went shopping in the supermarket. The shops are quite modern and it's hard to tell Myanmar from Shanghai or Tokyo in the supermarket.

dinner at a Korean restaurant

outside of the supermarket

Water Level Transmitter Installation in Myanmar - Day 3 (20190130)

Hello everyone. This is Liu Chang writing about our major installation day. To finish the installation as soon as possible we gathered together at 7:30. And we actually started the installation at 8:30.

At the beginning, me and Sam-san were responsible for the solar panel installation and it's quite an interesting work. The sunshine was also quite comfortable and this mission was finished just within one hour.

installation of solar panel

Secondly, we wanted to install the radar level transmitter. But this took much longer than we think and we need to ask the works' help to install it at the corner of the panel. It was quite a dangerous work and sadly we couldn't be any help of that. In the meanwhile we were preparing for the floating ball level transimitter in the small house.

installing rotator of floating ball transmitter

installing radar level transmitter

floating ball transmitter

We forgot our lunch while installing all these things, but finally, the equipment was tested and installed successfully on this site. Ralph-san has done most of the work, but we all learned something during this installation~

Ralph-san teaching about the transmitter

group photo after installation

overview of our water level transmitter

Because it was already late after installation. We have to eat lunch together with dinner in a nearby supermarket. I thought we had some Singapore food there, which was quite good~

chicken with spicy sauce

my dinner of fried chicken

Water Level Transmitter Installation in Myanmar - Day 2 (2019/01/29)

Hello, everyone. This is Liu Chang again writing about our water level installation trip in Yangon, Myanmar.

After a good sleep and delicious breadfast, in the morning went on the instllation site near Thanlyin Bridge.

breakfast at Super Yangon Hotel

As you can see from the picture below, our installation site is a small platform beside Thanlyin Bridge. The good new is that it's much bigger than we thought at first sight. All of us can stand on it and finish the installation together. The bad news is that it's a little bit dangerous to do this work considering it's about 10 m above the water surface.

installation platform

installation site from Google map

After discussing with construction contractors and students from YTU (thanks to Sann Win Maung and Chit BoBo Win), we decided to conduct the installation tomorrow morning. So the rest of our day will be to prepare the equipment for installation and testing its functions in SATREPS (Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development) office at YTU (Yangon Techonological University).

At first, I thought it would be a simple task for I've got some experience about weather station. But it's quite a different thing to do it from beginning. I've been stuck at first level about how to install the solar panel. We have to consider about the latittude of installation spot, the direction of bridge and the influence of the bridge. To give the panel most sunshine even in rainy season, we decided to make the angel to be 20 degrees. However, it still took us a lot of time on fixing the steel framework. Of course, Ralph-san worked on the radar level transmitter of which he lacked experience. But everything worked out fine at last. So we are good to go further for tomorrow~

fixing the steel framework

testing the radar transmitter

Water Level Transmitter Installation in Myanmar - Day 1 (2019/01/28)

Hello, everyone. This is Liu Chang, M2 student of Kawasaki Group, writing about our water level transmitter installation trip in Yangon, Myanmar. Sorry I didn't update the blogs in time, so each blog will have a time tag on the right side.

The first day was quite a relaxing beginnig. Me, Sam-san and Ralph-san met at Narita Airport at around 10 am and our plane took off at 11 o'clock. However, because of our preparation before the trip, none of us actually got enough sleep the night before. So we tried to grap some rest on the flight.

When we landed, we headed directly to our hotel. The astonishing thing is that it's actually all of Japanese style, the manager of hotel can speak quite good Japanese. It even felt strange to have a Japanese restaurant nearby. Ignoring the hot weather in Yangon, there won't be much difference compared to Tokyo, at least of this hotel.

watermelon juice from the hotel

decoration of the wall

comfortable room with adequate space

first dinner in Yangon

Thai food of recommendation

PS: we had a lot of dishes here, but my favorite is the Thai food. Although it's spicy, I'll still keep my recommendation.

東大SDGs

東京大学の未来社会協創推進本部の登録プロジェクトとして、以下の二つのプロジェクトを掲載してもらいました。

途上国での災害と貧困の関連性分析
<https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/adm/fsi/ja/sdgs_project188.html>


デルタ危機と水害レジリエンス：自然環境、インフラ、社会経済構造の多次元分析モデルの探求
<https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/adm/fsi/ja/sdgs_project067_00022.html>


川崎