Winter in Japan 1/2018

This winter it snowed in Nagasaki.

There was something different. The colour. It seemed a lot brighter than usual. I was just amazed at what I saw.

Having lived in Ho Chi Minh City all my life where there is sun all year round so it was my first time seeing snow ever. It looked quite magical seeing the little flakes floating down.

It was very cold. Everything was covered in white flakes, it was so beautiful. I never thought that I'd ever seen snow in Nagasaki since my friends told me that it is not so frequent for Nagasaki to have snow. So even if snow might not be a big deal, seeing this was quite special to me. I was amused to see someone who were throwing snowballs at each other. Unfortunately, the snow didn't last too long - only two days, the snowfalls stopped and the white slowly melted away. Anyway, I felt delighted because I could see snow as my dream. 

Site tour to Yamanato Water Treatment Plant in Sasebo City, Nagasaki

As a means of enhancing further knowledge acquisition in drinking water treatment, graduate students of Water and Environment Engineering (WEE) are taken out to the field to practically see and learn the applied principles in their field of study. It is such a motivating event, because students get exposed to the real life situations in the field which helps to trigger their minds on how to develop feasible solutions. The exposure is also important in helping students to correlate between theories learnt through lectures and the actual engineering implementation.

Based on the background above, the students of WEE were taken to Yamanota drinking water purification plant, located in Sasebo city, to practically see how membrane technology is applied in water treatment. The plant was designed for a capacity of 50,600 m³ and uses the microfiltration technology for purifying water. Membrane modules packed with ceramic membranes of nominal pore size of 0.1 µm, measuring 180 mm in diameter and 1500 mm in length are used. The plant uses a total of 800 membrane elements all fitted in the dead-end filtration mode. Backwashing of the membranes is carried-out for 3 s after every 6 h filtration period. This is aimed at hydraulically washing away fouling substances from the membrane. Yamanota water purification plant is supplied with raw water from 4 different sources, namely; Yamanota, Kawatani , Korobiishi and Komota reservoirs respectively.

It is Important to note that the need for high quality drinking water lead to the technology advancement by replacing the conventional treatment processes previously used at the plant, with coagulation-microfiltration (MF) technology in 2010. MF is more superior in regards to the high quality of water produced.

Students were extremely happy with such a great exposure to use of modern and advanced technologies in drinking water treatment. Such trips will help the world to bench mark from the good advances in technology for the betterment of society and the people.

Great thanks to Prof.Takahiro Fujioka for supporting students to understand the applications of membrane technology in the water industry.

Author: Ronald Katalo

Discussing with other students about their experiences during the tour

The memories of a year

The end of a year is always a scenario like no other. There are so many things that can happen in a short space of time. We often say that we have time while time makes its mission which is to consume events. These events follow one another in an order Happiness, Woe. Sometimes we are so good that we think that this happiness is eternal knowing that it hides an opposite event. So, it is in relation to the proportion happiness / misfortune that we define how was our year. In addition, I would be able to say that the year 2017 was my best year if an event had not occurred. On March 22, 2017 the world took me a close friend. I saw one of my most sincere friends leaving. His death was the surprise of my life. What struck me most was that he left the day when the world celebrate water which is my field study. On the eve of his death who told me that I will not go to the water conference I planned to attend, I would not have believed you, but that was the case. He always said to me, “my brother trust to yourself and reach your set goals”. Among those goals that I had set for myself was going oversea to continue my studies on water. Therefore, his disappearance was another motivation for me. Indeed, after these events I had focused on my goal and luckily, I reached it. I took a flight for Japan, a country I always wanted to visit. On September 2nd, 2017 I arrived at Narita airport with a great motivation: to discover, to learn and to go back to serve my homeland. So before taking off for Nagasaki I spent a few days in Tokyo for orientation sessions in order to integrate easily in my new home. Me as well as African brothers benefiting from the Abe initiative scholarship have learned a lot and share our customs there. These events were followed by my departure for Nagasaki to finally begin my new mission as an international student. Nagasaki, as you know, is one of the most famous cities in Japan because of the events of 1945. If there is one thing I had to confirm it would be the adage that says that you have to go back to better jump. So, throughout my journey I imagine even the ruins left by the atomic bomb but to my surprise it was the opposite because I have seen only beautiful buildings and smiling faces. Before the beginning of my lectures I had visited some mythical places like the museum of the atomic bomb. At first doing the classes in a foreign language was not easy, but over time I adapted a little. Classes were sometimes marked by company-level tours to get a sense of what the water treatment plants looked like. Several interesting things happened before the end of the year, such as December 31st. Thus, during the last day of the year my friends and I went to Suwa Jinja to celebrate the last moments of 2017. Finally, 2017 was a year rich in mixed events but after all we must be realistic and try to move forward.

Pictures taken in Suwa jinja on December 31st

Author: Sidy Ka

Happy New Year 2018!

  The new year is now upon us with new posssiblilities, new hopes and  challenges. As we step into 2018, it is also a time to reflect on the year gone by and share with your family and friends. On the night of 30^th December, we went to the Sujiwa Shrine and had a feast to celebrate the New Year Eve, it was exactly midnight and we shouted out “Happy New Year” together!! On top of that, in the next week, we got a chance to see the snow for real. It was so cold, but it is an amazing scene to behold. I wish everybody a good health and a successful year in 2018! 

New Year Feast

Me with the Horse Statue in the Shrine

New Year with friends

December 2017 - End of the Year

  December has came. We are at the end of 2017 and the new year is just around the corner.  The third quarter in Nagasaki University has ended and the fourth one has already began. The weather is cold as usual, but we are used to it now, I guess. Last week, we joined the observation trip to Mamizu Pia and Yamanota Purification Treatment Plant. There are so many things I could learn from there, especially about their modern technologies, which is far more advance than in my country. In Mamizupia, they use ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis technologies to desalinate seawater in order to get the fresh one while Yamanota plant uses ceramic membranes. Both systems are very well organized and operated. The plant staff invited us to try the treated water and half of us could not distinguish it from the tap water. It is demonstrated how far Japan has gone in terms of wastewater treatment. I am looking forward to learning from them. ^_^

The air drying bed for making sludge cakes

The RO system in Mamizu Pia

The ceramic membrane system in Yamanota Purification Plant

The pre-treatment system in Yamanota Purification Plant

Picture before leaving

Autumn in Japan

      Autumn (“Aki”) in Japan usually begins in early September, and it’s also the time when the storms hit in Japan. The weather at the time is similar to the rainy season due to usually having autumn rains; however, everything will get better in mid-October as the winter winds blow. The man supposed that autumn in Japan is the happy period to relax and enjoy nature pleasantly, and it will last from September to November when maple trees convert the color leaf from green to red or yellow. There are some festivals and interesting activities to visit and enjoy during this time of year such as Akimatsuri (Autumn festival), Kouyou (Red leaf season), and the amazing natural scenery.

The maple trees at Nagasaki University

-Le Phat_09/12/2017