Of Being Myself

Back from Tip of Borneo…YAY! Reached to the end of Borneo… It’s perfectly blue! The ocean. I am dumbfounded by the beauty of this place. I mean, if you are of a nature person, you will definitely love this place. I’m not, and I still awe admiring the sound of the ocean, the color of the ocean, so pure, so blue…

It takes 4 hours to get there. My friend drove down to Kudat and I drove back from there. Basically God is guiding us all the way and the sign roads were a big help too. We didn’t really get lost, we manage to turn to the right way when we get to the wrong way. Basically we depends much on the signboard and catching people walking along the road and ask for the directions. People here is pretty much helpful, although some not good in explaining the road directions.

Managed to see the sunset on the way down from Kudat, in one of the villages, called water village Mengkabong or something like that. Then we head down to city area to look for my friend who just got a job here in Kota Kinabalu. We had dinner then after that we go to Sutera Harbor, one of the 5-star hotel/resorts. It is pretty huge and nicely decorated too. Guess what? They have bowling alley too…But I didn’t actually take a look of how they manage to accommodate such an activity. The only possible way is that the place is big, and they need to make the place as interesting as possible.

Tomorrow…

Heading to Pulau Sapi then by night going back home..

Going to miss KK…hehehe..people here are friendly indeed…

Too tired to write a long winded story today. See you guys back home~

I’m back..safely!

Water rafting is…FUN!! You should try it. It is not THAT risky after all. I really had a great time and really don’t mind coming again for the second time. The tour guides are extremely helpful, funny and…FUN!

The Padas River that I went to, is said to be a much more challenging water rafting activity than the Kiulu River simply because the stream at Kiulu is much more shallow. You bet. What to expect from this adventurous, fun trip? I list down the pros and cons

Pros

1. You get to meet a bunch of fun new strangers, enjoying the life of an adventurous person(even though you are not).

2. You get to exercise.

3. You get to flirt have fun with the tour guide.

4. You get to overcome your fear. (seriously I was scared stiff but now I’m braver)

5. You get to eat the nice BBQ lunch they prepared for you after the water rafting.

6. You can find tranquility watching the scenery.

7. Definitely, you can make new friends (That is, if you are friendly enough, or the other party friendly enough)

Cons

1. The ride to Beaufort is 1 1/2 hours. Then the train ride to Padas River about 1 1/2 hours(but the tour guide said 2 hours). It is a long RIDE~~

2. The train ride is not for the faint heart. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow. sometimes swing, sometimes not swinging..haha!

3. The weather! (It is pretty hot when i go for the water rafting)

4. Need to pay RM130.00 (Normal price is RM185.00)

That is pretty much of it.

Tomorrow..

We going to Kudat, to see sunset at the Tip of Borneo. My friend, being more adventurous, and unwilling to pay RM285, (we both had agreed) going to rent a Waja for RM240 for a day. How to get there, we pretty much blur at this time, following the direction and probably get some map.

Yeah, this time, I am really being a backpacker~

I’m sitting on the lounge area at one of the backpackers place called “Backpacker global” or something like that. Didn’t really get the full name. Kinda long.

Anyway, now waiting for my friends to come online. Hehe.. Homesick I must say. In another 6 hours time I have to get up and go to Padas River. My friend already booked the guy to pick us up from our hostel. I must say hospitality in Sabah as of now impressed me. They really cover from transport, food, entertainment..almost anything I could say.

When we first arrived, the hostel welcomes us by arranging a transportation from the airport. Then we discovered that nearby(around 5-1omins walk) the main city area, there is an arranged place to pick us up from 8-11pm (every hour) for our convenience to bring us back to the hostel. That really saves alot of taxi fare day in and out.

They do have the service to bring us to the mall, but that only starts at 7pm and my friend and I think it’s kinda late to start our sight seeing and all.So we took a bus down that costs us 50cents each. Cheap right??

Anyway yesterday after training, we take the chance to go for the shopping mall. Wow! They have really three branded coffee cafe just about in the same block. I go “Wow” because back in home town, we only got Coffee Bean. Here, they have Coffee Bean, Starbucks Coffee and San Francisco Coffee. Plus, they have two combined shopping malls which makes the city centre, well, more alive.

One of the stores I visited in CentrePoint Mall is Padini Concept Store. They didn’t allow me to take pictures! I don’t get it. Were they afraid that I take their concept and use it? What policy is that? I don’t understand. Someone please give me a logic reasoning behind it. Instead I’m actually trying to popularize your store to my friends. Geez…

On a different matter, I had an awful salty fried noodle in some coffeeshop for dinner. Yuck.Too salty it is not humanly possible for someone to eat that. At least that is how I feel about it. My friend and I didn’t finish it. The shop owner saw it and asked us why we didn’t finish it. My friend, being polite told him that we are rushing to get to our van.Partially true. However, I was thinking that I think the truth should be told so that he can improve his fried noodle. It is just too yucky. Come back home feeling so worn out.

Today after our last day of training, we go down to the city area again because we didn’t manage to get to see the Filipino market, as what I heard from my friend is a famous place selling pearls and crystals. We walked around the KK waterfront before that, and we managed to take some photos of the sunset going down. Nice! We had some fried BBQ fish, and some local Malay style food. Taste quite alright, but probably not a taste for city people. Unless you are the adventurous kind.

We kinda get bored so we went to this new mall called “Kompleks Asia City.” I saw an advert in the Kota Kinabalu Map stating that there have a good food cafe. Turnd out to be a new mall, grand opening is on 15th May. There are a few shops opened already, but 85% still empty. Funny enough, we ended up in an entertainment store and started playing shooting..haha! Spent about RM20 just buying the tokens and waste it away. In a fun way though. Had a crazy and great time. Hand hurt a little. Holding the gun. Playing the police shooting the bad guy. Haha! It was my friend’s first time to play this kind of thing, that is what she said. Poor thing, she is asleep now. I’m so afraid I will feel very tired later as we need good rest for rowing..

Part II comes later…If I come back unhurt..

Am going to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah today until 25th April. Don’t know why I’m not that excited. My friend booked the backpacker hostel, with an attached bathroom(phew!) which mean I do not have to share the bathroom with a bunch of strangers. Scary idea. Being much more adventerous person that I do, my friend suggested water rafting. Not so sure if we going for the Kiulu River or Padas River for that water activity. It’s of no doubt risky and scary. I did doubt for awhile if I want to do this or not. We can’t really predict when it comes to river, the water current and the unpredictable situation you may faced sitting in a raft. Is that what you called it? Well, I really don’t know. And I am taking the risk. I trust that in life, risk is necessary to outgrow your fear.

Anyway, thanks to my good friends, we had dinner tonight, sort of celebrating me going off. Though I will only be going for about 6 days, I would treat it to celebrate Bubu’s farewell as well for about 2 months, going to Mongolia again. Ah.. 2 months of silence. “We promised we be good and won’t be going out without you BuBu, like you always said, Incomplete without you.” Hey, this is applicable to the rest of the gang too yeah, don’t get me wrong. Hahaha…

Flight is 7am, and now it’s nearly 1am. Packed the clothes,but other miscellenous things still pending here. Maybe just not that excited. Perhaps, didn’t get enough sleep the day before. Ah..panda eyes. Oh well, better get a few hours sleep better than no sleep…

Hope everything turns out okay.