Cheonggyecheon.

This project is a massive daylighting project of a stream through the middle of Seoul. It cost $900 million, and has apparently cut the number of vehicles in downtown Seoul by 2.3%, and increased the number of users of buses by 1.4% and the number of subway users by 4.3%, and decreased the ambient temperature in surrounding areas by 3.6 degrees Celsius. Plus, it looks cool, and helps with stormwater management: we saw it in the afternoon under normal conditions, and then later that night after some serious rainstorms - it was closed to pedestrians, because it had flooded, as it's supposed to in a storm event. It was pretty great, and a much needed visual and sectional break from the city of bright lights, cars, and high rises. 

During normal conditions, you can bike or walk along its banks, or sit on benches under trees. It's similar to the project we saw at the Olympic Village, which I don't know anything about and have to look into some more. It seems very similar, but older perhaps, because of the prevalence of more mature trees and plants. Here, it was easy to see where the stream had overflowed its banks, and how the system was designed to handle it, and how pleasant a place it was to bike, run, sit, play badminton, or take a walk.

Cheonggyecheon: normal conditions.

Cheonggyecheon: same view, after major storm. Paths are flooded, stepping stones submerged.

Olympic Village daylit stream. Notice mini bike ramp down the middle of the stairs.

Olympic Village daylit stream/park.

Olympic Village daylit stream: note the flattened grasses showing extents of storm events.

Helpful Seoul.

While I will continue to post thoughts on gers [because I still have some more], I figure it's also time to move on to Seoul, since I've already been there and gone. While it's not one of my research sites, I still had my eyes and ears open, and my camera and sketchbook at the ready.

Seoul is one of the friendliest places I've ever been: from our first outing, where an nice old man bought us drinks at a grocery store, we were continually delighted with people's friendliness. It wasn't a far leap to see the extension to the most helpful "mini-infrastructure," especially surrounding bikes. Seoul is an incredibly wired, fast-paced place, and within that craziness, there were constant touches of urban thoughtfulness. Some of my favorites:

Recycling is everywhere - though being able to speak Korean helps...

Interactive touchscreen city maps in the subway!!

My favorite - mini ramp to roll you bike up from the subway!!

The view from the "bike" we rented in the Olympic Park: note markings, lanes, colored pavement...

Our touring contraption for the Olympic Park. It cornered like it was on rails...

Public bike pumps installed at bike racks.

Public accupressure walk. I did it. It hurt.

Other nice touches: the subway cards ["T-money"] were extremely easy to use, and had refill machines all over the subway stations. You can use T-money for cabs, buses, trains, the airport express, everything. It costs 3000 won to set up your card [about $3] and then 900 won per ride [about 90 cents]. We rode the subway everywhere - the cleanest, nicest subway I've ever seen. I also liked the umbrella-wrapper stands that were outside each building. If you're carrying a wet umbrella, insert it into this stand, and out comes a plastic cover over your umbrella. While I'm not a fan of the waste it generates, it is a thoughtful touch. 

And, I liked the shoe insets just inside the doors of residences. Like many other places in Asia, it's customary to remove your shoes upon entering a Korean home, and this little step provides an area to remove your shoes, corral the dirt, and give a threshold between outside and inside.

And finally: there were more flat screens, video screens, and media devices per square foot than I've ever seen in my life. Each subway car alone had at least 12-16 screens, showing the route, advertisements, what to do in an emergency, etc. The screens showed where the train was between stations, making announcements in Korean and English [with a happy little song at each stop, of course]. Above ground, the screens and flashing signs became overwhelming [especially since we'd come straight from Ulaanbaatar] - though not surprising, in the home of Samsung and seemingly hundreds of other media technology companies. My favorite colliding of worlds: the movie advertisement for "Oasis of the Seas," the cruise ship that the wharf in Falmouth, Jamaica was built specially for.

50' tall video screen plays images of "Oasis of the Seas" in downtown Seoul, in the biggest cross-world-research-site-connection-mind-screw-worlds-colliding moment of the past year.

 

Quit yer whining!

Upon seeing each ger in the Gobi outfitted with a solar panel, Jonathan made an excellent point: no one can ever say they can't afford PVs, or that they're too much work, or that they're too delicate: we've seen Mongolian herders using them with no problems whatsoever. 

One of the main tenants of my research is to seek out "non high-tech" means of climate mediation, so no PVs, complicated systems, etc, but I have to admit: seeing PVs used here so effectively, and hand-in-hand with low-tech, tried and true solutions, gives me something to think about. The PVs themselves really aren't the problem, it's the size of the load we Americans demand. If you only need to power one lightbulb, a TV for a few hours, your charger, and maybe one or two other things once in a while, the PV can be a minor [if crucial] part of your energy strategy. And, in the case of the herders, it's not a part of their climate mediation. They rely on passive technologies for cooling and refrigeration, and on localized carbon based systems [burning dung] for heating, cooking, and heating water - and all of these loads are lessened by excellent insulation. Remove those loads from the typical American energy footprint, and PVs suddenly look much more reasonable. 

Oh wait, that's what we've all been trying to do for years. So maybe I didn't learn anything new here, just got some confirmation in an extreme situation, and some great pictures to prove the point.

Adjusting the panels to track the sun.

Solar panel outside the front door. Must be late morning: the panel is facing east-ish.

Not PVs, but sun powered: drying cheese curd in the sun [on the roof of the ger]. Once dried, this curd has an indefinite shelf life. It is also credited with giving Mongolians their beautiful white teeth [seriously: everyone looks like a toothpaste commercial].

Ger thoughts.

Ok, since I'm supposed to be doing research, I thought I'd mention a few observations I've made on the Mongolian ger. First off, I got corrected [as was usually the case] on my pronunciation of Mongolian: it's said like "gear," with a rolled, aspirated, swallowed R on the end. Like "gearrrchgh" but quickly.

Anyway, these houses have changed little over the past 1000 years, and that was part of the draw for me: could people have figured out a housing form that was so perfectly suited to the climate and their lifestyle that it didn't require modification over time? The answer seems to be, yes.

My next question: since I only observed the ger in action in the Gobi, how might its operation or construction change in the other climates in Mongolia? All nomads in Mongolia live in gers, and since the climates range from desert to mountains to forest to steppes to lakesides, how does the ger micro-adjust to those climates [since it doesn't change overall form, material, or construction]?

While I need more time, equipment, and energy to pursue that question fully, I did find a few things out by observing how people operate their gers in the Gobi. First, they are oriented south. This [as I think I mentioned in an earlier post] is mostly because the prevailing winds come from the north, but it also has solar implications. The door is usually open while people are home, as that is one of two sources of light for the interior [the other being the central hole in the roof], but by the time the sun azimuth reaches due south, the altitude of the sun is too high to reach into the ger. Instead, it bounced off the light colored sand at the entry and into the ger. Direct sun, I imagine, does enter into the ger in the winter, when the sun's altitude is lower. 

This orientation also provided for easy access to the ger's solar panel, which every family seemed to have. It was usually small, and powered a lightbulb, cell phone charger, and maybe, a TV for a couple of hours. The occupants would move the panel every couple of hours, so that it always faced toward the sun. It was sometimes leaned up against the side of the ger, laying on top of the roof, or in one case, attached to an exterior stand.

Second, occupants used the bottom part of the felt to regulate airflow through the structure. By raising and lowering the felt on the north side, prevailing breezes entered the ger from the cool side. The breeze was significant: I measured inside breezes equal to or slightly less than the average prevailing winds outside the ger.

Third, this opening, being low, facilitated a stack effect with the overhead hole, drawing air through the ger. It also seemed to facilitate convection, and I'd like to build a model to see if that's the case - initial observations [i.e. watching the smoke from our hosts' cigarettes] seem to support this. The door also provides a large opening opposite the smaller ventilation openings, further encouraging passive ventilation. On days when I recorded an exterior breeze, the interior breezes in the ger were the same or greater than the exterior breeze.

Fourth, the felt insulation itself. While only about 1.5" thick, it seems to provide excellent thermal resistance. I consistently showed outside surface temperature readings on the ger walls and roof at 20 to almost 40 degrees hotter than the wall surface temperature directly to the interior of those spots. The interior wall surface temperatures were also usually less than the exterior ambient temperature, and about the same as the interior ambient temperature.

Also, I noticed that each ger has a ground gutter - a small trench dug around the exterior, that collects water from the roof and directs it away from the ger. This came in handy the night we had a big storm, and I'm sure, helps prevent flooding of the living space. The gers have no raised floors, or even attachment of their walls to the ground: the whole thing is held in place by its own weight, and its tendency to push up on the compression ring is resisted by big weights [which can be in the form of metal car parts, rocks, tires, whatnot].  

All this points to two things: 1. I need to build some simulation models of gers to map all this and extrapolate more info [cue the quaking in boots for fluid dynamic models and re-grappling with Energy Plus software...], and 2. I need to visit more gers, in more climates, at other times of the year [cue moving to Mongolia for the next year]. I guess I could get used to the taste of mare's milk...

Raising the lower portion of the ger wall on the north side; it's propped up with a stick. I also saw empty vodka bottles employed thus.

Ventilation! Note also the ground gutter.

Roof opening. They are always kept half open, unless it starts to rain hard.

Dogs always know the coolest places to curl up...this was the only shade for miles around.

A ground gutter is the only clue that a ger was here...

Gers are very cozy places. This is the altar wall, with storage boxes on either side. Note the drying laundry above; we also saw mutton drying in this location in other gers.

Gobi Desert, Day 5.

We awoke to clear skies and quiet after the previous night's storm. Our last morning for fried dough and mare's milk, our last time muddling through conversations in faux-Mongolian, our last time trying to acquire drinkable water in the desert. And, we soon found, we'd miss it.

We started off by helping to build a mini-ger - our host has built a scale model of a ger, with all the appropriate framing pieces, that can be assembled in the proper order and with the proper connections. It was amazing, and I don't know if they understood why we were so excited [archi-nerd alert]. It even had all the proper furniture and fitments, and a mini stove that actually worked [she filled it with smoking dung for the final touch]. 

After we built the mini-ger, we went on another walk and found some caves, and climbed some more rocks. We were supposed to get ourselves to Mandalgovi to catch the bus back to Ulaanbaatar, but the jeep didn't show up. We got a call on our hosts' cell phone [yes, cell phone] that the bus wasn't running, so a mini-bus would be picking us up instead. And, so it did: full of Mongolians. We climbed in the back seat, and the driver [shirtless of course] commenced the 6 hour jostling back to UB. We only had one flat tire [for the changing of which our driver put on his work pants over his regular pants. Still no shirt, but got to protect those pants!] At one stop, he produced a bag of fried dough balls covered in sugar and a carton of ACE juice, which we all shared using one cup. It was like a delicious pre-school snack. The ride was bordering on epic: too bumpy to talk, draw, read, or hear anything, the highlights were watching the scenery and placing mental bets on whether the bus would make it up a hill in 1st gear or if a walking goat would pass us, laughing.

We got to UB, but then it took 2 hours to navigate the city traffic, get a cab from the bus station, and collapse at our hostel. That night I had one of the top five showers of my life: even tepid water out of a broken handheld showerhead in a room with no curtain is glorious after five days of dirt, sand, goats, sheep, dirt, horses, camels, sand, mare's milk, dirt, sheep's ankle bones, hiking, flat tires, dirt, and collecting dung.

Assembling a mini-ger.

Adding the roof rafters [toono]. Note the furniture and carpets inside...

Putting on the roof felt.

It's done! A real one takes about an hour to assemble.

Big ger, little ger.

The Gobi, from on top of a rock formation.

The back seat of a Mongolian mini-bus. My foot is resting on a fuel container, which could contain gas or vodka.

The mini-bus. There were ten of us in there.

And, because I'm my father's daughter: the Trans-Mongolian, enroute to Beijing across the Gobi.

Gobi Desert, Day 4.

Ok, now I'm really behind. Still making Gobi posts, and already past Korea and in Vietnam right now...Oh well, I think I'll have some time here to get caught up. 

Our 4th day in the Gobi opened with the blazing sun, as usual. We had our breakfast, packed up our tents, played some ankle bones, and learned how to shoot ankle bones. I ended up buying a set in Ulaanbaatar, so now I can bring the fun back to the states: should be fun, as long as I remember how to distinguish throwing a "camel, horse, sheep, or goat..."

After breakfast, our hostess showed us the traditional method of making felt. She makes felt this way still, and it's used for boots, saddle blankets, and most importantly, ger wall insulation. So of course, I was fascinated: homemade insulation! She took wool that she had beaten to different consistencies, layered it, beat it some more, added water, squished out the water, rolled it, squished it some more, rolled it some more, then unrolled it: felt! She made a 16"x16" square, and all I could think about was how long it would take to make a whole ger's worth. This mystery was solved, however, when we visited the Fine Arts Museum in Ulaanbaatar, and we saw some 19th century paintings depicting everyday life: they made giant rolls of felt, that had to be rolled and squished using horses. So, she was just making us a small sample. 

We all loaded up in the family truck, which was filled to overflowing with wool: they were headed to town, and would drop us off at our next ger along the way. We made a few stops though, to walk through and climb on the rock formations. This portion of the Gobi was the bottom of a sea, and the formations were incredible. I kept imagining the rocks thinking it was way more fun to watch all the fish swim by than the occasional human clamber around. This was where we saw the water beneath all the rocks [earlier post]. 

We arrived at our overnight ger around midday, and our teenage host asked if we wanted to go on a walk. We knew now that that could mean anything, so we brought backpacks and water. Good thing: "walk" can mean 10 miles in open desert, as it did this afternoon. We climbed a giant hill, and got a view of the whole plain, we scrambled up rock faces and inside caves, we visited a massive outdoor amphitheatre, which is a UNESCO world heritage site for the origination of the traditional Mongolian long song. I got out my tinwhistle to test the acoustics, and after playing a song or two, handed it over to our guide, who promptly played a couple of tunes for us! That's why I love the tinwhistle - every once in a while, something like that happens. We were both so delighted, we played some more, and I sang a couple of songs. It was a place you could really belt it out. 

We got back "home" and tried to quench our thirst with hot mare's milk, and then I climbed some rocks to watch the sunset on my own. Nothing like having miles and miles and miles of land in every direction, turning red with the sunset to the west, and black with a gathering storm to the east...

It did storm that night, thunder, lightening, rain: but our little tent held together, and we were none the worse for wear.  

Making felt. Here, she's adding water to the wool.

Where we woke up on day 4. The sun is really this bright.

Rock formations in the Gobi.

The former seafloor, Gobi Desert.

The desert!

Our overnight ger: last night in the desert.

Sunset in the desert.

Some goats. They snuffle a lot.

Baby goat!

Gobi Desert, Day 3.

On the morning of day 3, we had a special treat, in addition to the usual fried dough breakfast: buuz! Buuz are mutton dumplings, and are delicious. Turns out it was good we had a bit more fortification for the day ahead, as it turned into quite a marathon.

We had a slow morning around the ger - singing, watching out host doing some woodcarvings [he makes gers, and all the accompanying wood decorations for the furniture and framing members], and then watching the family bring in the horses. No one ties up their animals, unless they're about to leave, or if they're visiting someone. Otherwise, the horses, camels, etc roam freely, and the owners just go out and round them up when they need them. [There are no fences in Mongolia, and all the land is for communal use.] As such, the relationship between people and horses is different than what I was used to seeing - the owner approached the horses very carefully, and from the ground. he first wrapped a rope loosely around the horse's foreleg, then, talking to the horse the whole time, he moved his hands up to the horse's head, and slipped the bridle over. The horses all get tied up on a long horizontal rope, and it took forever to get all the horses bridled. The rest of the family was engaged in keeping the horses from escaping the tying-up area.

After our goodbyes to the family, we headed out - turns out only one horse was coming with us, so we took turns riding him. Mongolian horses are smaller than many breeds - but they aren't ponies. They're pretty feisty, and really, really like to run. They also like to eat certain plants, and I learned to spot those plants before he did, so he couldn't yank on the reins in search of tasty nibbles all the time. It was a Mongolian style saddle [wooden!] which was surprisingly comfortable. Well, not so surprising really, seeing as how Mongols have been perfecting horsemanship for the last millennium. Our guide through the desert sang to himself for the entire 4-5 hour trek, which, though I found much to meditate on from on top of my mount, I could see would be imperative to staving off boredom on long trips. The landscape was completely empty, no one but us and a ger or two along the way.

We stopped for much-needed lunch and milk tea [diluted and room temperature - quite refreshing compared to the hot stuff we usually got], and had a quick nap before setting off again, this time by horse cart. The sky looked quite foreboding, but we made it to our overnight ger without getting caught in any weather. I think I mentioned this in another post, but it bears mention again: there are no real roads out here, just tracks. And, these tracks shift seasonally, depending on where people live. It makes sense: roads can't be permanent, if people's homes aren't permanent. It makes for a fascinating landscape: this year's roads crossing last year's roads, crossing ghosts of roads past. 

Our overnight ger was the nicest we'd been too. Bigger, fancy woodwork on the framing members, and three generations running around. They had hundreds of animals, 27 horses, at least 4 motorcycles [iron horses...] and 3 gers. The matriarch was such a good host, we felt very welcome. We played soccer with the kids, Jon got to try Mongolian wrestling with someone more his own size [who was, apparently, a real wrestler - we spotted his boots in the ger...], and we had some of the best food we'd had so far. We went to bed rather early though - it was a long day in the desert. 

But not, of course, before I got some good temperature readings on the ger.

Tying up the horses.

Some of Gundsambuu's handiwork: a toono [compression ring at top of ger roof] a uni [roof rafter], and Dashnyam, his son, providing scale.

Carvings on the toono and uni. Orange is the traditional color for these elements, as well as the interior furniture.

Us with the family: Gundsambuu is next to Jon, and his wife is next to me, in the blue. Mongolians, it seems, rarely smile for pictures, so even though everyone looks somber, we had a lot of fun with this family!

Me, a horse, our guide, and the Gobi.

Playing soccer!

Sunset, the Gobi.

Jon holds his own in Mongolian wrestling. First to touch the ground with anything other than a foot loses.

Nighttime.

Desert wayfinding.

Spending time with people who know how to traverse and live in the desert was fascinating. At first, the desert looked completely empty and barren, then, as I spent more time there, I began to see the network of tools, communication, and markers that people had established over hundreds of years of living in such a harsh climate. Some examples: ger orientation, blue cloths, and ovoo. 

Gers are oriented with their door [and only opening in the vertical plane] facing south. This is mostly because the prevailing winds come from the north, though there seemed to be all kinds of subtle reasons for this orientation too [see upcoming post on this topic]. So, no matter where you are in the desert, find a ger, and you know where due south is. Of course, this orientation can easily be confirmed by the presence of the family solar panel, which is either over the entrance, or just to the side [and naturally, moves with the sun - more on this later too].

I started to notice bits of blue cloth stuck to the rocks and outcroppings, and it wasn't until we stopped at one that I learned what they signify: water! We clambered up the side of some rocks toward a blue cloth, and our guide moved some smaller rocks away from a perfectly round opening in the granite. We stuck our hands into it, up to the shoulder - and touched cool water. The rock formation was a giant cistern.

Ovoo [Mongolian for "heap"] are rock piles used in shamanistic worship of the sky or mountains, or Buddhist ceremonies; people add rocks to the piles when they pass by. Our drivers would often honk if we drove past one. Almost every family had a small ovoo, often on the highest point near their ger, that was used for family worship. They are landmarks, and can often be seen at great distances, because of the blue cloths that wrap them. They reminded me a bit of Celtic crosses that I saw all over Scotland, marking the "thin places" - places where the space between heaven and earth is thin. 

These three things allow for all kinds of wayfinding and marking space/distance across the desert: practical [blue cloths], spiritual [ovoo], and terrestrial [ger orientation] - revealing a highly inhabited and mapped landscape, even without a soul in sight.

Gers facing south. Note solar panel!

Chimeddorj shows us a water hole in the Gobi: I can feel water, hence my grin. What I really wanted was a straw.

Blue cloth marking water hole, which is accessed under the two stones left of center.

Ovoo on a bluff overlooking the Gobi.

Ovoo; this one is about 8'-10' tall.