A Little Bit of History Never Hurt Anyone

Joy here...In keeping with the theme of retrospection from my last post, I've been thinking a lot about Kuala Lumpur, my new home-city.

I first visited Kuala Lumpur in 2007 - with my boyfriend, sister, and brother-in-law in tow - and have come back many times since then (once or twice per year, every year since 2007).  And as a part of my life, the city has also been featured on the blog over the years in many different guises.

A meal this July at one of our favourite restaurants in
Kuala Lumpur, Tamarind Springs.

FOOD:

There are three monkeys in the trees in this photo.
Can you find them all?

There have been posts dedicated to the food of Kuala Lumpur, like these ones from December 2011:  "Can Eat Eat Malaysia Styles" and "Can Eat Eat Malaysia Styles Part 2," or this one from January 2013, simply called "Running in Malaysia" (I think I was running out of creative inspiration on the title for that one!).  And these posts have not only expressed my frustrations with trying to balance sport with indulgent food choices, but they've also tried to showcase food as part and parcel of a KL identity, or even a Malaysian identity.  Malaysians take their food seriously!



MONKEYS:
But in addition to having a few posts that show the wide and tantalizing variety of foods to be found in this great city, I've also had a few that have highlighted the perils of monkeys in the city scape.  There are the three posts so far this summer dedicated to the monkeys:  Our first run upon arriving in Malaysia in June, the one detailing the monkey taking a swipe at me, and the one about the monkeys in the trees in my 'hood.  And there was the one back in May 2011 where I first talked about those damn monkeys.  All this is to say that I think I've done a fair job of detailing the ups and downs of trying to do sport in the midst of KL as a monkey habitat.

The Petronas Towers dominating the city skyline.

SHOPPING:
If Malaysians like food, their love of food and identification with it as a key cultural marker is closely followed by their love of shopping.  I wrote this blog post about the perils of sizing in Asia (where I am apparently an L or XL), and this one from December 2011 about Christmas in Malaysia.  Kuala Lumpur is home to countless mega malls (including one that is, in fact, named Megamall), and even the famous Petronas Twin Towers rise up out of a six-story mall, Suria KLCC.  Malls are filled not only with anything and everything you might choose to buy, but their air conditioned spaces offer room to socialize and dine in comfort.

And while I have meandered off topic, away from my ups and downs with training to give a sense of Kuala Lumpur - its food, its wildlife, its shopping - I've not really taken the time to showcase any of its history, but in the spirit of retrospection, history certainly has its place, and it's about time that I remedy my omission.

After all, once upon a time I trained as both an English AND History teacher, and have been known to be a bit of a history dork.  Oh, and I did a 3 hour walking tour of Dataran Merdeka (Independence Square) and the surrounding KL colonial districts and buildings this weekend, and all of that is waaaaaaay more interesting to this big nerd than her workouts!

Malaysian colonial history goes back very far, like as far back as the 1st Century BCE.  It seems like this area has been appealing to all sorts of colonizers through the centuries, but Kuala Lumpur as a city wasn't founded until 1857.  It was opened up as a tin prospecting area, with the Sultan inviting Chinese tin prospectors, and since the British had been in the Malay peninsula since the 18th century, they soon settled in the burgeoning tin town...and from those humble beginnings grew the city today; here's taste of some of that history:

Here's the Sultan Abdul Samad building, the former courthouse that now
houses the Tourism Malaysia offices.  It was built in 1897 and named after the
Sultan of Selangor at the time.

Masjid Jamek (Jamek Mosque) at the confluence of the Gombak
and Klang rivers, where the city of Kuala Lumpur was founded.
The mosque was opened officially in 1909 and until the big, new
national mosque was built in the 1960s, this served as the city's main mosque.

The Long Bar in the Royal Selangor Club, a private social club founded
in 1884.  To this day women are banned from this portion of the club
(although I walked in to take pictures...I don't take "no" for an answer very easily).

The interior of St. Mary's Cathedral, once the only Anglican church in
all of Kuala Lumpur.  The original church was built in 1887, and this current
one was built in 1893 and has been expanded over the years.

Over and out,
Joy

But in the interests of history, here are the run stats from my recent history:
Thursday's Workout - Drills + Strides +2x (10 min @ T stright into 5 min @ 10km pace straight into 2 min @ 3k pace + 1 min rest + 45s @ 1500m pace) w/ 5 min rest + core -> I was supposed to do 2 of those sets, and I managed only 1.

Friday's Workout - rest

Saturday's Workout - Ran for 30mins for 5.22km with an avg pace of 5:45min/km