Blogging from Kota Kinabalu: Last Day!

(Note: this post was originally published on my personal blog)

We are flying back to Manila tonight! It's been a great trip. Yesterday was a blast - we went on a jungle trek and crazy things happened, the kind that only happen to stupid tourists like us...hahaha! We also went to the Poring Hot Spring. To cap off the night, we walked by the wharf where there is a strip of restaurants and pubs and we went and had drinks at the Shamrock Irish Pub. We drank pints of Irish beer and I also had a Shamrock Sunrise, which I guess was an Irish version of Tequila Sunrise, and all this while watching football on ESPN. Very Irish, yeah?

I'll post pictures another time, as we are headed out for a tour of the city, after which we'll be visiting the cultural village and possibly the wildlife zoo, and then we'll go straight to the airport.

Blogging from Kota Kinabalu: The Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park (Day 2)

(Note: this post was originally published on my personal blog)

Yesterday we went to the Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park and visited three beautiful white sand beaches:

Mamutik Island - my favorite island out of the three. Mabelle, Dale and I went snorkeling and there was so much fish! They follow after you thinking you would feed them bread. The sand was powdery white and the water was nice and warm.

Manukan Island - the biggest of the three islands, and it had the most people. Look, there are pine trees by the beach!

Sapi Island - they had huge komodo dragons (at least we think they were komodo dragons) just walking around the island!

We then had dinner at a restaurant a few doors beside our hostel.

Carmz and I got to walk around the city after dinner while the others watched Twilight. More on that next time, but here's a strange picture - they had these crustaceans trapped in mineral water bottles inside an aquarium and I'm thinking, how did they manage to fit those in there? My theory is they raised those crustaceans inside the bottle since they were very very small...which is kind of sad and cruel! Let's hope my theory isn't true.

Today we're headed for Kinabalu park...I love this whole free internet thing at the lodge!

Blogging from Kota Kinabalu!

(Note: this post was originally published on my personal blog)

We're here! Arrived early evening last night. Some pictures from the plane:

We are staying in a place called Lavender Lodge, a simple hostel of sorts for backpackers. It's my first time to stay at a place like this and I might even like it better than staying at hotels, because it's a lot like living in someone else's house as a guest. But no one brings your stuff around for you and we had to lug our bags to the fourth floor of the building, which is cool I guess - adds to the whole "roughing it" experience.

Today we are headed for the Tunkuh Abdul Rahman Marine Park - I hope I got that right. We're going island hopping and snorkelling yay! And tomorrow we go to the Kinabalu Park to do a bit of hiking, check out the hot spring and go on a canopy walk. Laters!