One of the first rules of being overseas is that you should always respect the religious customs of the place that you're staying.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Sunday, May 27, 2012
The accidental triathlete
This morning I thought I'd take advantage of the clean, clear streets around Publika shopping centre and go for a barefoot run. I walked up to the mall, stashed my shoes under a convenient flight of steps (watched by some bemused security guards over the road) and did a lap of the centre.
I ran almost 1 1/2 km, which I'm pretty happy with given the heat, my mild hangover and the lack of exercise. It did get some odd looks from the staff as the crazy mat salleh jogged past but nobody seemed to mind, the surface was pretty smooth and best of all my shoes were still there when I got back.
As it was Wheelie Sunday I was also able to hire a bike and so I gave myself a 'half hour of power'. You'll be sad to hear that this time they didn't give me a pink girls bike, but on todays bike the rear brake didn't work & the tyres were half flat. Never mind - braking is for wimps and the resistance from semi-flat tyres just mean I get a better workout. I put the bike into the biggest gear and went for broke.
Hillclimb corner is two ramps that take you up to the top level - tough work in the sun. Then there's a sprinted along the top driveway, attempting to bunnyhop the speedbumps on the way (hard with cheap flat pedals and trainers on!). A few downhill corners test body positioning and cornering technique and then there's a cruise along wobbly child alley - partly to recuperate and partly because the 5 yr olds don't seem to hold their line however loudly you shout 'track right!'. I managed 6 circuits this time around, something to aim for next weekend.
After dropping the bike off and having breakfast I wandered back to the apartment, picking up some shopping on the way. By the time I got home it was 11.30 and humid, so I went for a dip in the hotel pool to cool off and to stretch my calves out. It was then that it struck me - a ride, a run, a swim....my god, I'd accidentally become a triathlete! Fortunately it doesn't seem to be a serious case as I still have the ability to smile, I haven't timed myself putting my shoes on and I haven't suddenly found a pair of budgie smugglers in my suitcase. I think I was saved because one of my transition stages included eggs Benedict and a long black. The true test will be next weekend - will I still be able to ride a bike within 4m of another person without randomly veering in their way?
As it was Wheelie Sunday I was also able to hire a bike and so I gave myself a 'half hour of power'. You'll be sad to hear that this time they didn't give me a pink girls bike, but on todays bike the rear brake didn't work & the tyres were half flat. Never mind - braking is for wimps and the resistance from semi-flat tyres just mean I get a better workout. I put the bike into the biggest gear and went for broke.
After dropping the bike off and having breakfast I wandered back to the apartment, picking up some shopping on the way. By the time I got home it was 11.30 and humid, so I went for a dip in the hotel pool to cool off and to stretch my calves out. It was then that it struck me - a ride, a run, a swim....my god, I'd accidentally become a triathlete! Fortunately it doesn't seem to be a serious case as I still have the ability to smile, I haven't timed myself putting my shoes on and I haven't suddenly found a pair of budgie smugglers in my suitcase. I think I was saved because one of my transition stages included eggs Benedict and a long black. The true test will be next weekend - will I still be able to ride a bike within 4m of another person without randomly veering in their way?
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Booze bus
Jumping nations slightly, this is one I've been meaning to post for a while. A VW Kombi converted to a mobile bar and set up in Patong on Phuket Island, Thailand. This ones for Gordy!
World Champions!
A couple of my friends (one an irregular commentator on this blog) have just been to Italy to compete in the World Enduro Mountain Biking Championship. They kicked European butt and over a single 24 hr period managed to ride over 270km each on a rough & rugged mountainbike course to win their respective categories - beating off the finest that the rest of the world could offer. Congratulations Rach & Matt, you mad bastards.....
Unlucky 4's
Malayisa is an interesting mix of indigenous Malay, Chinese, Indian / Punjabi / Tamil* and Western cultures and it has inherited some of the quirks of each one. The building I'm working in at the minute was built by a Chinese-heritage company and when they labelled the floors they considered the Chinese view that four is an unlucky number (it sounds a lot like the Chinese word for 'Death' - never a good selling point).
Look closely and you can see floors 4 & 14 have been replaced by 3A and 13A. Incidentally floor 2 is missing because the bottom of the building is a two-level shopping centre. It would be silly to miss it for any other reason.
Conversely, eight is a lucky number as it sounds like 'Prosper'. When I was in Hong Kong I read about a hotel that had a floor '88' (doubly lucky) where the apartments were priced far higher than in the rest of the building. There were only 69 floors in the building, they'd just relabelled the top one as floor 88.
*Apologies to any Indians, Punjabi & Tamils for lumping them together so casually.....
Conversely, eight is a lucky number as it sounds like 'Prosper'. When I was in Hong Kong I read about a hotel that had a floor '88' (doubly lucky) where the apartments were priced far higher than in the rest of the building. There were only 69 floors in the building, they'd just relabelled the top one as floor 88.
*Apologies to any Indians, Punjabi & Tamils for lumping them together so casually.....
A message from the Gods
The variously-aligned spirits of Malaysia intervened tonight with a message. The internet at the apartment was down when we got back which meant I could not follow my usual routine of work at the clients, come home, work, eat with colleagues (generally discussing work), work some more, shower, sleep, repeat. It seemed to me that deities of all pantheons were looking down and shouting ‘go for a run you fat bastard’, so I strapped on my Five Fingers and headed off.
This was the first time I’ve run in Five Fingers and it’s an interesting experience. As you’d expect it’s pretty similar to barefoot but the extra coverage makes you feel impermeable to small stones, cracks in the pavement and the like. You find yourself running over patches of gravel just because you can. But I can also see why so many people injure themselves starting out ‘barefoot’ running in minimalist shoes – if you’re not careful it’s easy to run further than you intended and injure your calf muscle or Achilles tendon. And I noticed when peering at my form in a shop window that it was allowing me to heel strike slightly without really noticing it. I ended up running probably 1500m (plotting it on a map later showed it to be just over 2km), which is a bit further than I usually run barefoot and I’m sure my shins and calves will punish me for it tomorrow (waking up later shows that assumption to be correct).
I cunningly planned my route to end up next to a shopping centre so after some stretching outside cooled by wafts of air-con I wandered around the supermarket stocking up on groceries and relishing the chilled air. I definitely prefer the feeling of going barefoot – it’s so much quieter for a start - but that wouldn’t be wise where I am now. Publika shopping centre seemed much cleaner and well maintained so I might give it a go there next ‘Wheelie Sunday’, if I can find somewhere to stash my shoes without them being tidied by an over-vigilant cleaner.
Incidentally for the barefoot nerds out there (I’m looking at you Marin) I’ve also been checking out the prices & availability of ‘minimalist’ shoes. Merrell Road gloves & Trail gloves sell for about 380 MYR retail ($120ish) in the sports shops. Adidas five-finger copies are a bit cheaper. Nike Frees are just under 300 MYR or around $100. You could probably get them to reduce those prices a bit if you weren’t as hopeless at bartering as I am. You can also get Nike Frees in Petaling St markets, for I’m guessing around 160-200 MYR (I’ve been to scared to ask). They’ll be knock-offs, but what are they going to do – skimp on the padding?
The internet is due to be down all night and will apparently be fixed at 10am tomorrow*. Without the 3G on my phone it feels a bit like it used to feel when there was a powercut and you would put the kettle on to make a cup of tea and wait it out. My first thought was ‘excellent – I can give Liz a skype’, then I tried to use the internet radio, then I picked up my tablet and tried to hop on-line. I could write up some visit notes but that seems far too much like hard work and I think I deserve a soak in a hot bath and an early night. Unfortunately I’d arranged to work from home tomorrow morning to get a bunch of coding-type stuff done, which is much easier when you can listen to music, swear freely and not have to wear a tie. I’ll probably have to go in tomorrow morning instead as their anticipated fix date will be 10am Malaysian time. Who knows when that will come around?
*In case you’re wondering I’m writing this in the evening on a word doc and will transferred it over to blogspot when I get the chance.
This was the first time I’ve run in Five Fingers and it’s an interesting experience. As you’d expect it’s pretty similar to barefoot but the extra coverage makes you feel impermeable to small stones, cracks in the pavement and the like. You find yourself running over patches of gravel just because you can. But I can also see why so many people injure themselves starting out ‘barefoot’ running in minimalist shoes – if you’re not careful it’s easy to run further than you intended and injure your calf muscle or Achilles tendon. And I noticed when peering at my form in a shop window that it was allowing me to heel strike slightly without really noticing it. I ended up running probably 1500m (plotting it on a map later showed it to be just over 2km), which is a bit further than I usually run barefoot and I’m sure my shins and calves will punish me for it tomorrow (waking up later shows that assumption to be correct).
I cunningly planned my route to end up next to a shopping centre so after some stretching outside cooled by wafts of air-con I wandered around the supermarket stocking up on groceries and relishing the chilled air. I definitely prefer the feeling of going barefoot – it’s so much quieter for a start - but that wouldn’t be wise where I am now. Publika shopping centre seemed much cleaner and well maintained so I might give it a go there next ‘Wheelie Sunday’, if I can find somewhere to stash my shoes without them being tidied by an over-vigilant cleaner.
Incidentally for the barefoot nerds out there (I’m looking at you Marin) I’ve also been checking out the prices & availability of ‘minimalist’ shoes. Merrell Road gloves & Trail gloves sell for about 380 MYR retail ($120ish) in the sports shops. Adidas five-finger copies are a bit cheaper. Nike Frees are just under 300 MYR or around $100. You could probably get them to reduce those prices a bit if you weren’t as hopeless at bartering as I am. You can also get Nike Frees in Petaling St markets, for I’m guessing around 160-200 MYR (I’ve been to scared to ask). They’ll be knock-offs, but what are they going to do – skimp on the padding?
The internet is due to be down all night and will apparently be fixed at 10am tomorrow*. Without the 3G on my phone it feels a bit like it used to feel when there was a powercut and you would put the kettle on to make a cup of tea and wait it out. My first thought was ‘excellent – I can give Liz a skype’, then I tried to use the internet radio, then I picked up my tablet and tried to hop on-line. I could write up some visit notes but that seems far too much like hard work and I think I deserve a soak in a hot bath and an early night. Unfortunately I’d arranged to work from home tomorrow morning to get a bunch of coding-type stuff done, which is much easier when you can listen to music, swear freely and not have to wear a tie. I’ll probably have to go in tomorrow morning instead as their anticipated fix date will be 10am Malaysian time. Who knows when that will come around?
*In case you’re wondering I’m writing this in the evening on a word doc and will transferred it over to blogspot when I get the chance.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Wheelie Sunday
Most shops don't open 'til 10.30 or so over here, and so the local upmarket shopping centre takes advantage of this and runs a 'Wheelie Sunday' every week. They close the access & service roads off to traffic and open it up to the public to ride & skate around the centre from 7.30am until 10.00am
Better still they have free bike hire - only for 30 minutes, but time on a bike is always a good thing. And it was a fine machine too!
I thought about the stairs, but it wasn't my gods looking on from the distance
It was mainly kids on little bikes & scooters, but I wasn't the only adult making a fool of myself - yes, that's a track bike being ridden by a guy in full Malaysian strip and trainers
I reckon that in half an hour I could give myself a decent workout by leaving the bike in the highest gear and doing some 'ramp-climb' repeats, but I was having more fun trying to bunnyhop the speedbumps and working on my cornering technique. Attack attack!
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