Sabah, the land below the wind

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Day 1 (Monday, 29 June 2009)
Peng dropped me off at the airport two hours before I had to check in. A bit too early, nevertheless I had so much fun observing passers-by. Talked to a Malay woman who came to Sarawak for kek lapis (colourful multilayered cakes which are commonly served during festive seasons by Malaysians). We took AirAsia, a local low cost carrier (with its slogan - Now Everyone Can Fly)

Landed safely at Kota Kinabalu International Airport before 4.30pm yet all passengers were locked in the plane for about 10-15 minutes as the door couldn't be opened LOL Despite the H1N1 flu crisis, not many people were wearing masks. We did though. We then went to the counter to book two taxis, paid, took turn and waited for our taxis to show up. Things did work differently here.

We went straight to Tune Hotels (a limited service, budget hotel chain) where we would be staying throughout the entire trip. Guess what? I only needed to pay RM32 for five nights there which was super cheap (but then again, three of us girls were sharing one double room) Of course any add-ons like the use of air-conditioning and wireless internet access required additional cost. It was originally Ting and me who shared one room, however when Hang joined us later for the trip, she shared the same room with us. I wasn't particularly happy with that...I would rather pay more to get better sleep at night. Despite the little room with limited space, it was very clean and quite stylish. No strange smells and there are huge mirrors everywhere! Not to mention that all we had to do was use the lift to reach ground floor, walk a very short distance then there u are... 1Borneo Hypermall (with Giant supermarket, Guardian, McDonald etc etc which was very convenient for us to shop for groceries) !!!

After taking a quick bath, we gathered, went for dinner at PizzaHut (yea, I know we should have picked some local foods to fill our tummy) then having fun shopping in 1Borneo. Needless to say, the girls were all excited. We kept comparing TheSpring in Kuching to it (like how we compared Kuching International Airport to KKIA, Kuching to coastal city, Kota Kinabalu etc earlier on). The discussions never ended. Later, we went to the cinema and watched Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen. Surprisingly, I actually enjoyed the movie very much, except that the seat was uncomfortable. I thought I wouldn't love such movies anyway. Once the movie finished, we returned to our respective room and slept.

p/s:
- Flight + hotel for the trip were booked during the promotional period. My tickets were more expensive than the rest coz I booked mine when the deadline had passed. Nevertheless, it was considered enough cheap.
- I thought Boi was the only one I know in the group, however it turned out that her cousin, Vivien and Vivien's boyfriend, Ian were someone I have long known of (attending same tuition centre, going to same high school respectively). What a small world! And I must admit that Vivien and Ian are indeed a funny and interesting couple. :P

Today's highlights:
1) Arriving in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah
2) Watching Transformers

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