Monday, October 08, 2007

Kota Kinabalu Day 2

The long awaited Day 2 ROFL! XD Sorry for the long wait m(_ _)m Again, you can scroll over the photos for comments/taglines.

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Yawn~ I need more sleep and waking up anytime before 9am is bad for me. Sigh.... yeah yeah so what if breakfast is served at 7am, right? I can skip it, right? NOT! It's food for crying out loud. Food and Lase are inseparable companions!

We had toast. Dammit I should have gone to bed. +_+ And the number of toasts in the basket was not enough for everyone to take 2 slices too..... ok.... I'm sure they'll add more right? And well.... yeah like 5 minutes later they started serving each person a plate with 2 sausages, a bullseye, some baked beans and some lettuce. Pity my mum doesn't each the sausages or the egg so I had an extra sausage and egg, while the other went to my dad. I gave my mum my bake beans though cos I don't really eat em. And then they served a few more slices of toasts so I urged my mum to take it and either eat it with the beans or with some jam and butter cos I know she'd get hungry later if she didn't.

Some flowers near the lobby

Now you see why I tell you I'm like the youngest person there.....

Group photo

It's a funny moment taking this photo because after we're done taking photos with cameras, my dad gave the camcorder to the tour guide to help us record the whole group.... and we were as stiff as we were posing for the camera. Lol. Till the tour guide had to go "Why are you guys so stiff? Move around, this is a video not a camera."

Being on higher ground certainly makes the view much more beautiful... not to mention I love the cold air/weather even with a hot blazing sun shining upon me.

Some scenary =P

Yet another scenary

So after breakfast and some photo sessions we're off to the hot spring and canopy walk. Well it was more like an open bath place, but the water's source is from the hot springs somewhere (I have no idea where). And they're linked to the taps so you can mix the hot water with normal (cold) tap water to get the temperature you like. To describe the bath place a little, since I do not have any pictures of it.... basically each 'hut' has a shade with man-made tubs with taps in the middle. There are between 4-6 tubs per hut, and 4-5 huts in the area (I think). Here you can bathe and soak in the hot water to your own liking, some people (especially smaller children) share a tub, others get one for themselves.

Then there is also the place for people to soak their feet in, and only their feet. Here you cannot control the water temperature because it's for the public's (anyone's) feet... not individual. There are three long rectangular 'tubs' already filled with water where the water from the hot spring is channeled in here by a huge black tube/hose and any excess water goes out from holes on either sides of the tubs. I guess this is to keep the water circulating so you don't get stale/stagnant water. I'll try to illustrate this cos I can hardly put them in words...

] I [] I [] I [

Ok so imagine the I's are the water tubs, and the ] and [ are where people sit, with feet inside the water. So basically a lot of people can sit to soak their feet in the water, since the length of the bathe is long enough to probably hold 10-12 adults.

Anyways enough about the bath.... because the first thing we did when we reached there was to head to the canopy walk. I mean it doesn't make sense to relax your feet or body in the hot water and then spend the next 45 minutes sweating while you climb up to the canopy walk, right? So off we go.... and to bring a camera to the place one has to pay RM5, while camcorders are charged RM20. So my dad decided we should just pay for the camera and not take videos with the camcorder.

So how hard would the walk be, you ask? Well it's basically only a 500 meter walk.... but the tricky part is, you're climbing stairs worth 500 meters to reach to the canopy trail. Within the first 30 meters, my grand uncle and grand aunt decided they could never do it (I doubt they could too because they're so old and it gets worse as you reach higher). I helped them with the decend, advised them to wait below where the rest huts are, and then headed back up to join the group. Another group member decided to stay out of it too as she was a little weak and not feeling well.

Off we go! I was the last person during the climb because I went to help my grand uncle and aunt decend earlier, and because my dad was the 2nd last person and I don't want him to climb without anyone behind him just in case he slips or falls and there's no one behind to catch him. Of course if he does fall and his weight overpowers my strength we'd both tumble to the bottom of the path like marbles rolling down the stairs +_+ Thank god it did not happen. Well the climb was certainly healthy, and though I do not have the amount of stamina I had a few years ago (being a lazy PC-potato doesn't help) and is less fit, I have my ego to make sure I did alright. Why my ego? Well there are people a lot older than me who are climbing and if I were to fail (ie not being able to climb) when they can, it's a huge blow to my ego. So anyways we all made it, so no ego was tarnished.

The canopy walk.... well.... it was.... short. Lol. Mainly because the third tree connecting to the walk had fallen 2 weeks ago and they were rebuilding the canopy walk through another route but won't be done for the next 2 months. The walk was supposed to be from one end to another, ending on another tree and taking a different route downhill back to the start, but because of the falling tree incident, the canopy was now was between 3 trees, and you'll have to make a U-turn back to where you climbed up. So instead of A->B->C->D->E it was A->B->C->B->A. Oh well, was fun nonetheless and I can still look decently cute/presentable after being so tired/sweaty and 90 feet above ground.

I'm not afraid of heights

Again, my ego helped me a lot here.... I didn't want to appear scared or imagine the walk will crumble at my weight. I succeeded =P My steps were graceful, I didn't show no fear, it was fast too. Looked like a piece of cake from the outside, but inside I was going "Don't you dare make a fool of yourself, this is nothing, you have to portray to be strong!" XD Indeed I did.

After the walk, we headed down and NOW can we go take the hot spring bath if we want to. Most of us were only keen on soaking our feet so we headed there. There was only one couple who was keen on going to the individual tub baths thingie but guess what? When the lady asked for her bag of clothes from her husband, her husband didn't know where it was. And it struck him that he left it back at the canopy walk. o.O ZOMG! He then rushed back to climb the 'hill' and told his wife to stay down below but she went up with him. Talk about unlucky. I wanted to offer my help to get it for them but they rushed too fast. It also struck me that why didn't they just ask the tour guide to contact another guide up top (they have walkie-talkies) to bring it down instead? So anyways we soaked, they went missing till 10 minutes before we had to leave. They appeared dripping in sweat but there was not much time left to go for the individual baths so they had to just be content with the leg-soaking experience. Of course later the guide told them that they should have asked him to contact the guide on top of the canopy walk (see? I was right!) and they glared at him saying how he didn't mention on purpose just to torture them with the 2nd climb. The guide could only defend himself saying that they left in such a hurry he couldn't mention it.

Random picture...
Pretty pink flower-plant I saw somewhere

We headed to some muzium-like place where it shows all the beautiful places in Sabah, the flora and fauna of Sabah, the rare herbs they have, a display case of butterflies too! Well nothing fancy really cos I'm not into all that.... not really my cup of tea I just listen and walk and wait till we're done =P I did manage to see the time capsule placed in the muzium by our ex-prime minister though. I forgot what it was for but yeah.... it's just something I noticed =P

We now headed back to town, and a new hotel. This time we headed to Shangrila Hotel but not the one by the beach, the one in the city. Apparently there are two Shangrila Hotels, and the one by the beach is a 5-star hotel. The one we were in was only a 3-star =(

Me cuddling my pillows in the new hotel room....
*cuddles*
Yes there was an extra pillow and I ninja-ed it.... I love pillows.... My dad doesn't need it anyways nyahahaa....XD

We had the night to ourselves so we just walked around a little, went to some shopping mall nearby, bought some junk food (me!), drinks (dad wanted lime juice), Sabah tea (to give to some relatives who gave me money for this trip), and basically to waste some time. I bought some buns for a late night snack. I love buns XD The buns I bought I'd rate as only average though =P Had way nicer buns before.

So there it is.... Day 2. Nothing much going on because travelling took a while, and the stops were rather long.

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