Trip to Sabah Borneo – Day 1 & 2

It was about a week our family vacation to Sabah from 14^th July – 21^st July 2011.

Day 1

Our Air Asia’s flight from JB to KK is on14th July @1815hrs and we reached KK about 2 hours and 15 minutes later. There were big numbers of us (12 including the baby) and the airport transfer has been arranged earlier on, it costs us RM50 from KK Terminal 2 airport to Marina Court , Kota Kinabalu which is just about 7 minutes drive. Expensive? Maybe it’s worth considering our numbers.

Adik baby in the flight for the first time. Luckily she's well behaved.

oh and it was Adam's first time in flight as well. He was soooo excited and kept on telling us that he will become a pilot one day. amen..

We stayed at Marina Court Resort Condominium which located at the heart of Kota Kinabalu city and it just a walking distance to the shopping malls, markets, nightlife activities and it saves our transportation cost. It is a 3 bedroom apartment which is fully furnished and complete with kitchenette, fridge, fully air-conditioner, water heater, astro, washing machine, towels and we can even use condominium's facilities such as swimming pool, gym, etc. the rate is MYR260 per night and i booked it with agent named Jack. i think nobody else would offered such rate coz based on my survey, the rate is around rm300-380 per nite. And of course I would strongly recommend Jack to any other people who want to stay at Marina Court as well.

so this is the famous marina court. some says it's a place for the hooker as well. ewwwww~

Our unit is facing sea view for the first 4 nights and pool view for the balance 2 nights.

Since we reached KK on 8.30PM and after freshen up, some of us went down to Api-Api Centre which is just behind the Marina Court to buy some foods and drinks. At that hour, there were only Mamak shop (they opened 24 hours like what we have here), 7-eleven and Orange (rival for 7-11 i supposed – u can easily found 7-11 and Orange at city area, so no worries). Oh ya, every plastic bags being charged 20 cents EVERYDAY and not only on Saturday like we have in here. We went back to our apartment, had dinner and watching TV while out there we can see the road in front of Marina Court was full with cars parked along the road (there were a row of disco, pub, bar) at the waterfront and we were thinking to go there too some other night. Hihi. Oh and that's explained on the hooker thingy at Marina Court.. huhu.

Day 2

I woke up at 7AM and went to market with my MIL to buy veggies, seafood and any other thing for our breakfast and lunch while any other family members were still sleeping. I left Adam & baby Adriana a.k.a Adik Baby for hubby to take care while i went out. We walked along the waterfront where i can clearly see now the row of pub/disco/bar. After that we reached market where people are selling various types of veggies and we were rushed to buy it since everybody’s like want to close their business for the day already, even though we thought that it was still early. Everything is so fresh and bigger in sizes.

Went straight to SAFMA building in front of jetty which we can see from far. It is wet market and they’re selling fresh seafood for even double cheaper and even double or triple bigger from our market here!! Imagining a big blue fin tuna selling for MYR24/each (not kg), crabs for rm10-12 per kg, cuttlefish, prawns.. OMG!! OMG!! huhu

It was quite hard to get taxi in the morning so we decided to go back to Marina Court with our full hands carrying veggies, seafood, etc and we managed to reach Marina Court by walking after few stop to rest. Had scramble eggs for breakfast, fish n veggies for lunch before all of us went out sightseeing in KK city.

Our first (first? whatever..) destination is somewhere around market which myself n MIL went earlier this morning. Why market? Because we can see there’s an activity there. It was like a night market and i was like so “jakun” seeing lots of things they’re selling there. Huhu.

Stunned by big prawns, cuttlefish, etc, we stopped by at a stall selling grilled seafood in the Philippine's Market. it was like being “slaughtered” knowing the price. there's a few stall selling grill seafood and the price range is same. There’s no way to bargain (or maybe we didn’t have the bargain skills or they just don’t want to coz we are tourist?). So we ended up having a middle size fish for RM35 and a plate of medium size cuttlefish for RM12 shared among us. They served saucing dip as well (just don’t suite my taste bud at all, so i prefer having the seafood without any dipping sauce).

the cuttlefish is around MYR12-MYR25 each. and the fish is around MYR20-MYR40 depending on its size.

price for the lobster & prawn is around MYR8-MYR25 each depending on its size. expensive isn't it?

The conclusion is, raw seafood is cheap there but when it’s cooked by Sabahan, the prices would be high u can’t imagine and i can’t accept coz it was only a stall in the market and not restaurant. Cisss.. So we bought lots of raw seafood and rather cook it ourselves at our condo! Nyum!! too bad i forgot to snap photos on our seafood dinner.

After had our dinner at condo, me, hubby, nasha and massurie went out to nearby Centrepoint. Just want to survey what outlets they have in there and was surprised that lots of shops already closed despite the time is only 8.30PM! Went back to Marina Court and decided to sleep early since we have a long journey to Kudat on the next day!

** to be continued ** :p