This is the tourist center and mini museum building at the entrance of the park. In the museum building on the right, I talked to the students about the geology of Thailand in general.

The Paleozoic Era and why it was named the Carboniferous Era. How did the great forests and giant insects come to dominate the world? This area is the boundary between the old Indochina and Chanthai plates, and is part of the Tethys Sea, where limestone rocks from that period are distributed.

The walk to the observatory is very picturesque. It is not too hot because of the altitude, so it is a nice walk.

Then, we drove to the main sightseeing spot where karst landforms have developed, and took a commemorative photo.

Local boys followed us all the way. The boy in the center spoke to me in English, asking me where I was from. I took their picture at the end.

Lunch was, as usual, sticky rice for the other teachers, but I had my favorite fried rice with seafood and kai jiao (egg omelet). The soup was a little spicy.

From here, the car you see here will take you to the entrance of the karst terrain, as the mountain road is inaccessible to ordinary cars. I will upload a video soon.

From there, we now climb up a narrow limestone gap. It is a very narrow place, and a fat person would have a hard time. There are fossils here and there, and I was looking for them a lot.

Now, we have arrived at the observing spot. This is called Kunming of Looi. You can see the beautiful limestone rain-eroded terrain. I have never been to Kunming.

Returning to the souvenir shop area, I went back to the original place to go to the Waterfall. A tranquil countryside sightseeing spot.

On the way, another teacher gave us a coconut as a gift. After drinking the juice, you can eat the coconut inside. I brought it home and it is now in my refrigerator.

The last stop in the park was the WaterFall. But I spotted with my eyes the dried-out stalactite ruins on the right. The color of the waterfall is very strange, probably because it was a waterfall in a limestone cave. I think it is something like a hundred plates. My theory is that it is the crumbling remnants of a huge limestone cave. I explained this to the students who came up from the waterfall after they had spent a lot of time playing in the cascade.

A magnificent stalactite is clinging to one side of the cliff. This is evidence that this place was part of a limestone cave. A scale pen is sandwiched in the center.

It is a very hard way to climb up a 500m mountain at once. The last part of the trail is a series of stairs, as you can see. Even I, who traing hard every day, flinched at this, but of course, I climbed to the top with a young teacher!

A wonderful sunset was waiting for me. The summit is made of limestone. I am very curious about the geological structure of this peak, since the foot of the mountain is brownish mudstone.

The center of Loei can be seen at the bottom. All the students reached the summit, some early, some late.

From here, we have to go back down the steep stairs. It is a very scary place to go down.

I looked for the boundary between limestone and mudstone, but could not find it. I wanted to know if it was a limestone block or if it was layered and consistent. By the time I got back to school, it was well after dark.

This is the field trip guide I've been working on in my room after class.

This is the food situation in my room these days. Almost all of the staple food is fruit. The bottom left is "Takoyaki (octopus dumplings)" that I buy at the market. A pack of takoyaki costs 20 THB. By the way, the mangoes in the photo are 35 THB for 3 pieces (1 kg), which I added today. The dragon fruit on the right, which I saw at the market, cost 60 THB for two. I buy them because they are inexpensive, but I have to think carefully before I buy them because I will be leaving this place this Saturday.

Since this dragon fruit is white in color, there is no danger of mistaking it for bloody stool in the bathroom. I eat durian every day, but it does not decrease in quantity. I try to eat it before meals, not after beer.

Yesterday we had a special class, and in the morning I talked about the G-R rule for earthquakes and complex systems, which were a bit difficult, because I forgot half of them they are in their first year of high school. Nevertheless, They were able to draw the graphs well. In the afternoon, we went from the theory of continental drift to plates. When I was showing pictures of glaciers in Canada, the principal, who had just returned from a meeting overseas, came to see the class and nodded his head. Since it was their last class, I asked them to fill out a questionnaire, and surprisingly, they responded that they could understand my English very well. Many students marked "Very Good" in the overall evaluation. This made me happy.

At the beginning of the lesson, two movies (pyroclastic flow in Unzen and CG of Pompeii) were shown and students were asked to think about the fundamental difference between the two movies.

Many students noticed the difference between real and CG. After the class, many students looked at the 3D seismicity map. They were really surprised at the number of earthquakes in Japan.

This is another class. The student in the back is making a peace sign. In this social networking site, teachers post pictures of their students without any hesitation. And at field trips, the teachers are always pointing their cameras and taking lots of pictures. It seems to me that the current situation in Japan, where people are extremely concerned about having their portraits posted on SNS, is unusual. Well, I try to avoid normal photos as much as possible.

I finally connected to FFFTP via tethering, and found that the size of the English top page is 0. It may be that some strange operation was performed when I was changing the settings and doing other things with the disconnected FFFTP. I have an AIS sim connected to my iPhone, and I think it has unlimited internet access. Tethering is a universal solution today.

A structure that looked like some kind of insect eggs or chrysalis, right next to the door of the room. I have never seen such a structure in Japan.

Yesterday and today, students and teachers from other high schools in Looi province came to visit us. In the morning, we observed rocks, Yhin-sectionsand volcanic ash (akadama soil). In the afternoon, we discussed seismometers and analyzed seismograms. In the cool condition of the morning, we look for limestone fossils in the school pond dried up. The number of participants was a little small. They seem to have come from quite far away and arrived just before morning.

Taking a photo of a sea lily. The loupe and the smartphone are well used.

his is a photo of a thin sliver.

Washing akadama soil, crushing and cleaning 5 to 10 times repeated.

This is a statistic to examine the S-Ptime variation of the epicenter determination. The number of people was small this time, and perhaps my explanation was successful, so the scattering was small.

This is the answer to the question "Which of the contents of yesterday's session interested you the most? Surprisingly, some students were interested in the seismic waveform analysis, which was quite difficult for everyone. The last point "on time" means that some students pointed out that my time progression was right on schedule. I am a little disappointed that there was not much interest in the seismograph.

Yesterday evening, I was driven to Chiang Khan again and invited to a dinner prepared by the principal. This is a man dressed for the local festival "Pieterkorn" standing on the tourist street. He takes pictures with tourists and receives tips. I also put some coins in the jar in the foreground and had my picture taken. Peter corn" is not actually an English word, but a local word. I was surprised. https://www.thailandtravel.or.jp/thai-festival-02/

Beautiful decorations outside the restaurant. This is also unique to northern Isan.

We had a wonderful sunset on this day, too. The Mekong River is on the right, and today's restaurant is on the left. This is a photo from the view point a little further along the promenade.

As usual, a sumptuous meal and Chang beer with ice. The Tom Yung Kung of the day was the spiciest I have ever had! Well, I drank a little bit of it. The principal told me a story about how he was taken to a sushi restaurant for the first time when he visited a high school in Shizuoka Prefecture on a business trip, and how he gradually learned to eat sashimi, which he could not eat at first. He express this situation as "adapted". After that, every time a local teacher asked me if I could eat spicy food, I answered every time "adapted".

After the dinner hosted by the principal, we strolled around the city of Chiang Khan again. After the dinner, I was served with snow beer, which I had been served on the street before. I had to pee again in the middle of the night.

While everyone was washing akadama soil in the bathroom outside during the morning lecture, an earthquake hit us in real time. Later I found out it was a 5.9 magnitude earthquake in Taiwan. There was a little noise of people moving up and down. I knew it was an earthquake at a glance. I introduced a little about it in the afternoon seismograph class. In just 10 days, we have already collected about 4 earthquakes, including small ones. The conditions are very good. I am looking forward to the future more earthquake records.

Since there were only a few students today, we were able to spend quite a bit of time observing. This is an observation of the green transparent pyroxene that can be seen after washing akadama soil.

As usual, lunch is served in the physics classroom. When I asked him about it, he told me that it contained pork brads, and I immediately told him that I was sorry and could not eat it.

As for the students from other schools, most of them were interested in thin sections and seismogram analysis, but there were also many who found rocks interesting, which was good. The principal said yesterday that he would like  to me to come back next year, so I asked them what kind of field you would like to have next year's similar event. The answer was astronomy. One student in geology is a student who participated in the Geology Olympiad and she is 12th grade at Loei School, who is taking a special course at Chiang Mai University. I gave her a polarization unit and a few thin-sections as soon as I heard that she was going to major in geology at university.

This is a sketch of a thin slice of the earth from a previous class I gave to a special class of geology enthusiasts. I was told that I could have the original as a souvenir since I made a copy of it. It is a very beautiful sketch. The upper left is an example I picked up from the net.

It was a short time work, but it is very well done. I thought it would be a good idea to use a smartphone or tablet to project the image and have the students sketch based on it.

After class today, we were driven to a mini-museum in our neighborhood that showcases local culture and traditions. When we arrived, local children were practicing a dance and we were allowed to watch. The hand gestures and music are unique. The hand gestures and music are unique. It seems to be a traditional dance and dress of northern Issan, but I heard that it is strongly influenced by Laos. After the good show, I put about 140 baht in my pocket and went to the souvenir shop next door. To click the image, then the movie start.

I usually do not buy souvenirs, but since this shop seems to be directly operated by the museum, I took a chance and bought some souvenirs. Unlike the souvenir shops in Chiang Khan, where tourists are used to shopping, this is a peaceful store with a neighbor lady tending the store, who is not so commercial. I asked her to take a picture with me. Souvenirs are shown in the following photos.

These will be the only souvenir of my stay. In the foreground is a hanging object similar to the one that was displayed in the cloister at the previous limestone terrain. I wanted one of these. They cost 100-150 THB each. I also staked out some local textile fabrics. The light purple one on the left is a big one for 500 THB. The black one on the right is a small one for 350 THB. The total price was 1200 THB (about 4500 yen). The store is not a commercial store and would probably be more expensive if bought in Chiang Khan or other places. I was very excited to buy these items to support the activities of this community.

My two-week stay was a blur. The flower buds of the orchids I bought at the market at the beginning of my stay have started to bloom. Since plants cannot be brought back to Japan due to quarantine, I gave them to S sensei, who took care of my all life in this campus, along with the rest of the food and other things. This concludes my Loei Diary for 2022. Hopefully, I will be here again next year.