deli[log]ue

It is not new, but seems to get on the booming track in some parts of the world.

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Two days ago, I was back home from Addis Ababa where I had stayed and worked for 28 months. I could have resumed this blog while being at the centre of the Horn, but was too lazy to keep posting. It is hoped that everyone waiting for any update in the past would understand my laziness. Until I count myself quite accustomed to what, where and how I lived in Seoul, I am afraid that there would be no new postings. I guess it will not take too long.

It was the first time for me and 11 other colleagues to run along the Ring Road in Addis Ababa. I had seen a few number of folks jogging everyday on the road, but never tried until yesterday morning. Neither most of my colleagues did. Rather surprisingly, it was a lot of fun, I’ve got to say.

The occasion was the 3rd CRBC/AACRA 12km Ring Road Relay organized by Great Ethiopian Run (GER). Each team comprising of 12 runners (Some teams with less than 12, I noticed yesterday.) ran 1km each for 12km long course from Kaliti to Meganagna. Around 7:00 am a friend of mine parked at my house and we got to the Bole Ring Road Roundabout by 7:30 to take a bus. First we saw there were not only other runners of our team, also rather wittily decorated Japanese friends: putting on its traditional Kimono, huge and gray Afroken wig, swimming suit, Judo attire, and so on. The most hilarious one was a guy in black pin-stripe suit without shirts, wearing huge sunglasses frame drawn on his face. In contradiction to them, we were bland. We just wore official red t-shirts and our national flags.

Anyway, we all arrived at each starting points by 9 am and started to wait for our turn. While waiting and chatting, lots of participants exercised for the race. Me? Just stretched little bit, and tried to relax as much as possible. Always-great-Ethiopian-professional-athletes first passed by and also Haile Gebrselassie , and I thought I was going to wait for about 50 minutes. (I was at the start of the 10th stage from Hyatt Hospital to Imperial Hotel.) Surprisingly enough, one of the team members was seen little earlier. I saw he caught up about 7 to 8 others. Then my turn to catch up some more. I started slowly and outran one, then two, three and four finally. While I tried to shut my mouth to regulate my breath, a camera approached and the guy filming me and asking few question. At that moment, I was really trying to pitch up and just asnwered with gestures and one-syllable word like ‘Yeah.’ Then the bike carrying the cameraman boosted up, thick exhaust came out of it and hit right on my face. Little bit coughing. Then I saw my finishing line but shocked by the fact that I couldn’t see the next runner of the team. As I had felt it, he was also shocked that the team ran better than expected. Actually He was sitting and looking over to other direction. Finally I did my part for just 5 minutes and handed over the ribbon and the flag to the next runner. (Yeah, I did my bit.)

I guess we finised somewhere between 20th and 23rd position at the end. It exceeded all of our expectations. We were all worried about running here. Now the next challenge is to finish 10km in upcoming GER event in November later this year.

I’ve found an interesting news today, saying that 12 Ethipians, who mainly are offsprings of Korean War Vetrans in Ethiopia, are pleading for asylum at Korean Immigration Office. According to one of the sources, they are now being examined whether their motives are political or economic.

You can also read related articles here.

A dear friend of mine, Samuel has wrote a series of excellent travel books on his well-known (to Korean Only) blog about the trip to Southern Ethiopia (Omo Valley) we went together back in July earlier this year. You can see few nice pictures of tribes and landscape I and he took.

My own travel record is coming later if not sooner.

* I regret he wrote only in Korean. But at least you can see the pics from the recent travel and his doodling in Ethiopia for the last 2 years.