The ticket for the direct flight from Surat Thani Airport to Chiang Mai Airport, which is next to NST (Nakhon Si Thammarat) where I visited before, was provided by Chiang Mai University Demonstration School, and it was business class. Thank you very much.
They were Mr. Y of Chemistry (left) and Mr. F of Physics (back) who are known before and anewcomer. F Sensei mainly took care of my stay this time. He is a graduate of Phayao University Demonstrasion School, where is my first visit school in this trip. He also graaduated Chaing Mai U physics eduvation department. So, he told me about the differences between the two universities, and I informed the Phayao University staff about it on Line.
Yesterday, I accompanied a hiking and nature observation group to two sites: a waterfall site near Chiang Mai University and a high mountain site at 1,600 meters by car. The group consisted of 30 students of the SCiUS course, Dr. B, a university professor (geology) who teaches geology at the school, and a lecturer (ecology). This is the cafeteria (Canteen) where we stopped for breakfast. There is a 7-Eleven and other stores in the cafeteria.
here are a few stores open for breakfast on Saturdays, and students buy their breakfast there. This cafeteria is mainly used by university students. Decorations celebrating the Chinese New Year are also prevalent in the cafeteria.
Now, we are at the site of the waterfall, a short drive from the university. Prof. B of the university explained the geology to us. This is the second time to meet him since we met in August two and a half years ago, when we made a geological field trip together. I gave him some of the Japanese rocks I had brought as a souvenir. The following is the diary of 2.5 years ago, I visited the site and made a tour. http://seagull.stars.ne.jp/2023_SciUS/CMU/index.html
It took about an hour to climb up the hill by car. We arrived at the campsite of the mountain which is quite high in Chiang Mai. It is already over 1450m at this point. There is a hiking course from here to the top of the mountain, about 200m higher. Many tents were set up at the campsite, as it was the weekend. Camping fever seems to be more and more popular in Thailand. The temperature was 19 degrees Celsius, the same as in April in Japan, and the mountain cherry blossoms, which are similar to the Japanese species, had just fallen, leaving many remnants of pink flowers on the mountain paths. It was a cool place, not unlike tropical Thailand.
Cymbidiums were planted in the ground, and this plant was just in full bloom. I remember growing some of them in a greenhouse I had built at home a long time ago. It is nice to be able to plant in the ground.
We had lunch at this camp site. I bought some not-so-spicy side dishes and rice from the university cafeteria. Drinks are Thai tea, which was recommended by a teacher. It is sweet as usual. Lunch is always taken care of by the teachers of the Affiliated school. Thank you very much for their support.
On the hiking trail to the top of the mountain, a young resercher, who has just become a lecturer after earning her Ph.D. He talks about insectivorous plants, parasitic plants, etc., looking at actual samples one after another. The Thai language was difficult to understand, but the accompanying physics teacher from the affiliated school sometimes translated for me. I thought it was a good opportunity for the students to be inspired to become researchers themselves.
Well, we are walking up the mountain trail, whistling and sighing. It was a wonderful climb for me, with a refreshing breeze that wasn't too hot, and tropical birds singing.
Finally arrived at the summit. I compared the height with my GPS. Unfortunately, the photo can't be seen the display, but the GPS showed 1690m. My Garmin GPS that I bought almost 20 years ago is still in use. However, it is nice for Thai people who are not good at walking in hot weather to be able to drive to almost the ninth stage of a mountain of this height.
From the summit, we descended a little to the north, and everyone was taking pictures at the place where the view is said to be the best on this ridge. Unfortunately, the air was a bit hazy due to PM2.5 coming from the north. This is said to be a problem of this season in the northern part of Thailand. They told me that it is not always from foreign countries such as Myanmar, but also from burning the remains of sugarcane, a local specialty. They all say that they long for the clean air and scenery of Japan. This is a very different experience from that of the continent.
I bought it for only 30 baht at a souvenir local shop when I returned to the campsite earlier, but my daughter refused it at Line, so I had no choice but to keep it as a souvenir for myself.
The lower part of today's route is the camp site, and the dotted path through the ridge and summit is the hiking route. We went up the north ridge to the camera spot and came back. You can see that the road is very close. However, I was surprised to see some people who had come up the very steep mountain path by bicycle. There were also people who loaded their bicycles in their cars and came close to the road to enjoy downhill riding. Bicycle fever seems to be very active at least here in Chiang Mai.
Today, I am going to repair the seismograph that is placed in the dormitory of this school. The output of one of the horizontal motion seismographs is low, so I am replacing the coil and repairing the pendulum for the first time. I thought I could finish in half a day, but the repair work continued into the afternoon and the time was over.
A replacement for a broken spring is being made. There are many variations of my seismographs, and this is one of the early ones, with a short length of the fixing screw and the spring itself. I had no choice but to use nippers and sanding to make the spring of a later model fit the narrower screw spacing. This kind of machining is usually my specialty, but I had a very hard time because of the limited tools I could borrow.
The design of this pendulum was so bad that there was not much space between the pendulum and the fixed part of the pillar, so I had to melt the pendulum with a soldering iron to create the space. The file I borrowed was too small, and I only had nippers on hand, so this was the only way I could think of. I spent about 4 hours to replace the coil with the one I had brought, but to my surprise, the low output remained the same, and the day's effort was in vain. The only possible solution was an amplifier. However, since I did not bring a replacement amplifier this time, I decided that I had no choice but to update the entire system, as described in the above main text.
Somewhat discouraged, I go to the dormitory cafeteria of the affiliated school to buy a late lunch for my physics teacher, Mr. F. He says that the cafeteria is open even on Saturdays and Sundays. Many students live in the dormitories because they come from neighboring prefectures. However, the admission test is highly competitive because of the scholarship, which is the same as other PCSHS schools.
I had my favorite dish, kaijao rice. After eating this, I reassembled the seismograph and managed to get it back to an observable state, although it was only 2 channels.
The students who are representatives of the Information Olympiad and the Biology Olympiad did all the work of setting up the data sharing to GoogleDrive. As expected, the information students were quick to learn and are now viewing the automatically uploaded data at the hotel. Only the east-west movement in reddish purple has no signal. The wind is affecting the signal because there is no cover. I am sure that the students will make a cover with an acrylic laser cutter as soon as possible.
On the way back to the hotel after finishing the work, I stopped by a store selling goods on the university campus.
I bought the T-shirt you see here. It is slightly reddish in the hotel certificate. 299 baht. The design is similar to the summer uniform I bought at a Cerezo Osaka summer game a long time ago. The hat and water bottle were given to me by the school when I arrived. The wisteria color of the hat is the symbolic color of the university. I am glad because I wanted to get some goods of Chiang Mai University. I am going to wear it when I join a field trip in Japan next time.
Here are some scenes from the special class. This time, the class is not so long, but it is an exercise of seismograms, and this is the usual practice of epicenter determination and Richter scale estimation using JMA data. In the physics classroom, there is a pendulum experiment, and you can see that the class is usually held as an experimental class. This is nice.
http://yossi-okamoto.net/KVIS/KVIS-ISF5/index.html
In
the application, the students practiced for the first time to determine
the epicenter from the Japanese and Thai seismogram of the same
earthquake. The students seemed to be satisfied with the result. I have a practical training guide on my web site.
This is a big shopping mall next to my staying hotel.
Now that non-visa travel has been extended to two months. I remember two
years ago, I did my visa extension at the immigration center office
somewhere here. ---I was wrong about the location! Visa renewal was done at the following department store not here(correction):
http://seagull.stars.ne.jp/2023_SciUS/CMU/img/img_0607.jpg for the story, http://seagull.stars.ne.jp/2023_SciUS/CMU/ index.html
I usually buy cheap rice at the food court on the 4th floor and bring it home, but today I found my favorite ramen restaurant, No. 8 Ramen, and as usual, I had the Paitan Chashu (grilled pork) ramen for 108 baht, which was very inexpensive. The taste was as good as ever. Unlike in Japan, water is not served unless you buy it. Well, that's a common practice in other countries, so it can't be helped.
A little video of Chiang Mai city. This is the place where we came down from the mountain on the way back from the inspection tour. The scenery looks somewhat similar to the Kitayama area in Kyoto.
This is the area around the university campus in Chiang Mai, which also looks somewhat like the Hyakumanben area in Kyoto.
This is the hotel where I stayed in Chiang Mai this time. There are not many signboards, so you will get lost if you don't have a car to take you there. Moreover, I stayed in this annex building.
The rooms are unlocked with a number key. This is the first time for me to use this type of key. It is difficult to remember the six-digit number, so I always look at a memo and type it in at first. I was also surprised to find that the door was unlocked when I pressed the lock button from inside the room. I came back and panicked. I'm glad nothing happened.
The entrance to the hotel is confusing, with a sign that reads “Shin”. The entrance is next to a Chinese restaurant. You can see that Chiang Mai is surrounded by mountains like Kyoto. The sky is a little hazy with PM2.5.
It is named “Shin” and seems to have been designed in the Japanese style, which is its selling point. The floor is not linoleum, which is a common feature, but a wooden floor, which is unusual. The room was nice as long as there were no ants or mosquitoes. However, electric mosquito repellent was burning at night.
The toilet was a bit unusual, so I'm posting it here as a reminder. Usually, the shower toilet on the left is a hand-held type, but this one was equipped with a Japanese "Washlet"toilet.
The water pressure is quite high, and it is very easy to use. However, paper cannot be flushed down sewage pipes in Thailand. Japanese people should be careful about putting them in the box on the side. At KVIS, where I used to work, a researcher from Japan clogged the toilet.