The Ondol...

I can't believe that fall is already here. It is getting down into the 40's F at night and I have had to turn the ondol on. The "ondol" is the Korean traditional underfloor heating system and is renowned as one of Korea's greatest developments in architectural design. Although the modern ondol has been altered much from its traditional roots, current ondol's consist of a network of hot water pipes flowing under the floor for indoor climate control. It is widely believed that the ondol dates back to the Three Kingdoms (37 B.C-A.D. 668) era where the hot smoke and exhaust of stoves in cooking rooms under the living quarters were used for warmth. The traditional ondol consisted of utilizing the smoke coming out of the wood or coal burning stove by sending it through a series of smoke passages under the floor with a vertical chimney on the opposite end of the home to provide draft. This type of heating system was used with concrete and wooden floors, with all types of floor covering (e.g., stone, tile, wood, vinyl, and carpet), and at ground level or upstairs. Choice of floor finishing requires careful consideration, because changes of floor finish may affect performance. My floor is mainly cement with a very thin vinyl floor covering.

I turned my ondol on a few days ago and am continually adjusting the temperature, but can say that it is a pleasure to remove my shoes and walk on a nice and warm floor. It also helps me understand Korean's obsession with sitting and sleeping on the floor. If it ever gets too cold in my house this winter I know already where I am headed.

Seoul 2007 International Fireworks Festival

Yesterday approximately 2 million people found there way to Yoido Island in Seoul to attend the 2007 International Fireworks Festival. I confess that I am not one for capturing pictures of fire- works, but I did get this one that I am fond of. There is a tree in the picture that is silhouetted by the fireworks on the other side. I met a friend in front of the worlds largest church, Yoido Full Gospel Church, and we walked from there to the Han River Park to attend the festival. There were three sets of fireworks each with a different corporate sponsor. One sponsor was an American firm, I could not hear the name said, but they lit the fireworks to the sounds of Joan Jet and the Black Hearts' "I Love Rock'n Roll" and Dave Mathews' "Two Step." I have fond memories of both songs so it made for the fireworks to be even more stimulating. One of the things that Even I fell victim to was the obsession with using a camera phone to take pictures with for uploading to a web blog or do whatever with... I recal at on point getting a picture of nothing but the back-lit screens of cell phones with a rapidly dimming plume of fireworks in the sky. In my case I submit to you my the results of my obsession. The only justification that I can give is that I forgot to put the SD card back into my camera and had no memory so taking pictures with my 2.0 megapixel camera phone was, dare I say, a lifesaver.

There are two impressions I have from this event. The first is that I have never seen that many people in one place for a festival. Second, seeing that many people in one place and trying to navigate the crowds made me dizzy. My friend let me hold her hand so we could stay together. At one point the pushing and shoving got so intense I almost lost my grip of her hand. We were trying to go in the opposite direction of the crowd, but had to go with the flow because we just could not fight it anymore. Had it happened I it would have made me feel very uncomfortable. Let's just say that being in a crowd of TWO FREAKING MILLION PEOPLE was crazier than the fireworks show, which was cool too.

I picked up a program from the Yoido Full Gospel Church and think I will need to check that one out. I have heard about this church when I was in the US. There are something like over 800,000 members, that is crazy. My understanding is that they restructured the leadership into smaller cell type home groups. I don't know much about it, but when I do I will send an update here.