Kundasang & Poring

KK trip day 3! My family and I went for a day tour to Kundasang & Poring. Since our guide insisted that we must go and see the famous Mount Kinabalu before it is covered by mist in the afternoon, we departed from KK at 7.30 am. So damn early and I ended up slept in the van during the whole journey. Only woke up when we reached the foothill (kaki bukit :p) for breakfast and some shopping. 

That's Mount Kinabalu behind me.

It was a bit chilly and the rain did not help, had to walk everywhere with my pink umbrella

If you see closely, there were some houses on the hills. 

More houses on top of some hills.

Umbrellas and scarves are our best friends on that day.

If you notice, Mount K is slightly hidden by the mist. This picture was taken around 10-ish in the morning.

By afternoon Mount K was totally hidden by the thick mist and the temperature dropped and we're a bit freezing.

Went to Kinabalu Park. 

If you notice the white stream at the misty hill behind us, it was a waterfall. And I heard that the water is freezing cold and no villagers would go there.

Fell in love with the visitor lounge at Kinabalu park

After warming up at the Exhibition Centre, we left Kundasang and went to Poring Hot Spring

A chemical-contaminated stream at Poring.

Before I went to KK, I did some research about must go places in Sabah and Poring Hot Spring is one of it.

However, I've read some bad reviews about how run down and crowded the public bath tub.

Turned out, the review is true. 

I have to say, the crowd was a little bit over the top. There were children running everywhere and most all of tubs were occupied. Honestly, I kinda doubt the hygiene of the tub as it looked rather run down. 

Both of my bath tub pictures were taken from afar, as if I was hiding in the bushes and spying on people in the public tub. wtf! It was because we skipped the public tub area and went straight to the canopy walk.

Not feeling cold anymore cause I sweat like a pig after all the hiking

Halfway to the canopy walk.

My aunt was so excited to bring us to the canopy walk but she forgot to mention one thing. We have to do some JUNGLE TREKKING to reach the canopy walk. Judging from our attire, it was obvious none of us were dress for trekking.

Moi wore the wrong foot wear some more!

Almost ruined my sandals from the 30 minutes trekking, I got stuck in the mud quite a few times.

The hiking part was a bit tricky since it rained earlier.

Reached the first canopy walk station. 

Had to wait in the tree house for our turn since only 6 persons are allowed on the canopy walk at a time.

I have no idea how far we were from the ground because I couldn't see the ground.

All that I saw were trees and branches below me.

Thrilling! 

Made friends with German tourist after being stuck waiting for my turn

Have you ever seen people jungle trekking in dress? 

My sis did it with style :p

After sweating it out, we went to check out the stalls outside the Hot Spring.

Strand and strand and strand of pearls

I didn't bought anything there because I'm not really into pearls. Since it gets dark early there, we left around 4 pm and stopped by some road side stalls that sold durians. Poor our van driver had to wait for us while we were eating the durians by the road side. Around 5pm, it got chillier and the mist got thicker, it looked as if it was 7pm. 

After one whole day of these physical activities, we all suffered from sore muscles and crammed legs the next day. However, it did not stopped us from doing some heavy shopping. Will share about my shopping haul next time!

Coping

"No matter how many times she says "I don't care",

truth is, she really does care"

It feel so good to be able to let things off my chest. Just me alone in the dark, crying my heart out. It's probably a month late but once I let it off, I felt so much better. I thought I won't think about it much after I buried everything deep down in my memory box. Boo hoo, once again I was proven wrong. Nothing hurt more than a happy memory in the past that crawled back to haunt you now. Knowing that you could have it all once upon a time, but now you were left with nothing but pain. No amount of shopping, vacation, alcohol or even cigarette that can heal the heartache. Maybe time could, I hope so. Enough of dwelling, it's a brand new day today, I'll keep my chin up and smile. 

Manukan Island

During my trip to Kota Kinabalu, my family and I managed to explore Manukan Island. My dad was a bit reluctant to go to the island at first because December was monsoon season but 5 over 1, he lost. Hehehe It rained a little early in the morning but thank God the weather was perfect for a beach getaway soon after.

Act like a tourist

Our ride to the island, it took about 20 minutes to reach there

Reaching the Manukan jetty

The cousins and us

Group photo

We spotted lots of colorful little fish just under the jetty. But when I went snorkeling, I saw none. That's because I was snorkeling near the shore. I wanted to swim under the jetty but it looked a bit scary plus I was scare of jellyfish. I was bitten once and now staying away from jellyfish forever. Lesson learnt.

Rocking the bikini after breakfast

The beach was a bit crowded since it was peak season. Both the pictures above were taken around afternoon, so there were not much visitors hanging by the beach as most of them were bombarding the restaurant for lunch.

Almost saw a fish but it swam too fast and I lost it. In the end, I was snorkeling for my sister camera cause she lost it in the water ='= Thank God we found it.

Tried sunbathing but we couldn't take the heat and abandoned our mat after 15 minutes

Straw hat to avoid the heat. Slouched my shoulder so I won't look too fat but moi stomach still bulging

We went parasailing afterward since the sis insisted. She requested for 30 minutes up in the air for a 15 minutes package. Guess how long we stayed in the air?

Taking off

I must warn you guys, I didn't look good in any of my parasailing pictures.

We were just a minute up the air and the sis already yelled for the guide to take us down. I admitted, it was scary at first, but once we were completely up in the air, it was quite fun, if you minus my sis screaming voice. Yeah, she even cried up there ='= so much for wanting a half an hour time up in the air. The thrill of parasailing was when the guide lower our parachute and our feet almost soaked in the sea water. It was scary as we were in the middle of the sea and the sea water is almost black. I couldn't imagine what were in the sea that waiting for us. choi choi choi I must be watching too much movies!

Landed! And someone was wiping her tears

Banana boat! 

Moi at the front

It was much more exciting than parasailing. Sitting at the front means you would be the one that would got splashed by the sea water. Lucky the wave that day wasn't strong and our banana boat didn't flipped. 

Boat race on the way back

Failed jump shot at the jetty

I was hoping to catch sunset by the beach but we're not allowed to stay there past 5pm unless if we rent a chalet. Bummer! Next beach on my list will be Langkawi, hopefully by this year XD

Thank you Azorias

Guess what was waiting for me when I was back from my holiday?

A Christmas package from Azorias!

Remember my Christmas wishlist from Azorias post? Where Azorias will grant KinkyBlueFairy reader a wish if they could share what they want from Azorias for Christmas. Guess again peeps, I won. I was so excited when I received the email from Joyce (KinkyBlueFairy) when she said I've won. In my post, I've picked 4 items but most of them are out of stock. Lucky me,  Hui Wen (the owner of Azorias ) emailed me and said the leopard print mermaid tail skirt is available. I gave her my address and voila! A package from Azorias was waiting for me. Very efficient and fast indeed.

The exact skirt

Mine :)

The material is light and high quality. I absolutely love the skirt and now I have a perfect CNY skirt.

Thanks Joyce and Azorias for adding another sparks into my Christmas. Besides the skirt, I also got another mysterious gift from Azorias when I wrote in to their Style Advisor column for a tip or two. 

Already settle your CNY outfits? If haven't, go and take a look at Azorias, they have lots of new arrivals just in time for CNY and they offer free local shipping until February 2012!

Christmas & new year eve dinner

Christmast 2011 was a simple one for me as my family are not really into Christmas and I just realized I didn't even blast any Christmas song unlike yesteryear. Besides, I spent the rest of Christmas Day jam-packed in the back seat of car for 8 hours of ride. 

But still, Christmas dinner is a must. Since we're on the road on the Christmas eve and only reached my aunt's place at night, she could only prepared a simple steamboat dinner. However, simple yet fulfilling dinner that was. My aunt invited over some of her friends for dinner. Family, checked! Friends, checked! Food, checked! Perfect combo for Christmas dinner.

The only downside from the dinner was I couldn't enjoy the seafood as I was still recovering from my allergic. Nonetheless, I was surrounded by my love ones, so no seafood in my steamboat was okay. But when I was in Kota Kinabalu, I had seafood overload dinners for 3 days straight to make up for the no-seafood-steamboat. :p

My dad birthday fall on the new year eve and since we would be on the road back home, my aunt suggested we had an early birthday/new year eve dinner. We had our dinner at Lotus Restaurant on the 30th. The place was ambient but the food was so so, rather bland if I must say. 

Moi with a slightly over-lined right eye

Gotcha cousin!

We had a 10 courses dinner and the food was a lot, maybe because there were 10 of us. I tried to take the food picture when it was served. Everything went well at first, but when we were entering our 4th meals, they didn't wait for me to take picture. Everyone were already ready with their forks and spoons and their utensils beat my phone - ____ - . Plus, the waitress served the food too fast. I didn't even eat some few dishes because the waitress already taking away the dishes to be put into smaller plate. So, I was just snapped the picture with one hand and forking my food with another hand just to make sure I get the food and the picture. Turned out, half the pictures were blur ops!

The starter which was my favorite among all the dishes

Herb chicken

Broccoli mushroom, didn't get to eat this however. Sigh

Duck

Steamed fish, taste rather bland

Butter prawn

Dragon fruit with sour sop as dessert

The missing dishes are fried rice (nothing special actually), mixed vegetables, shark fin soup and another dessert, red bean with melted vanilla ice cream.  But we brought our our own extra dessert, dad's cappuccino birthday cake! By the way, the name of the dishes are not as what I wrote here. I can't remember it, so I just wrote what it was (obviously, duh!)

My old man blowing his candles

Weird birthday boy he is because he never eat his own birthday cake

Guess what the old man got for his birthday??

An Iphone 4S! 

Yes, I'm jealous by the way

familienfoto 

Just notice only my dad wore white meanwhile all of us were in a bit of black

Hmmm this birthday boy sure knew how to make himself stand out

Family picture again in front of the restaurant before we went back

Simple celebration but we were all contented.