Trip to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah (Day 1)

Dates: 12-15 August 2009, Wednesday - Saturday
Venue: Kota Kinabalu, Sabah
Occasion: Holiday!

It was a blast of a holiday! I enjoyed it to the max!! Wanna go to Sabah again....Sipadan's in the planning....erm...have to wait for at least another year's time :P I've quite a bit of photos to process, so it'll take me some time to get all 4 days' post up on this blog. Do stay tuned for Day 2-4 :D

Day 1
We woke up as early as 5.35a.m. on Wednesday just to get to LCCT on time. *wergh* It's WAY earlier than my usual work days, but for a much-awaited holiday, alrighto, I'm game for it ;) We've been planning for this trip since last November when the RM0 fares were released. In total, we paid only RM90.00 for return tickets from Kuala Lumpur to Kota Kinabalu!

The journey was a rather long one from the time we left home. We headed to the Paramount LRT station & from there, took the train to the KL Sentral station. From KL Sentral, we took the Air Asia bus to LCCT & finally arrived at LCCT an hour before our flight takes off *phew*

Breakfast at LCCT itself...
A simple plate of fried mee hoon comes up to Rm6.90 - just noodles & 1 fried egg *sob* So pathetic...

While waiting for our plane to arrive

Boarding the plane
Our flight was an hour delayed thanks to the weather, but thank God, the timing was actually perfect cos check-in was only after 2p.m.! :D

On the plane

Beautiful weather & sky

Amongst the clouds....me likey :D

Arriving at Kota Kinabalu

Touch down! *woohoo!*

Welcome to KKIA Terminal 2 :D

Upon arrival, we headed to the Arrival Hall to collect our luggage. After that, we found out that we had no choice but to take the airport taxi to Tune Hotel, 1 Borneo. That costs us RM50.00! *sigh* I wish we could save on that, but nope. Oh well, it's a one off thing...our friends are working when we arrived during lunch time, so we had to get to the hotel ourselves.

Tune Hotel is around 20 minutes from KKIA. I really thank God that our taxi driver was a nice uncle who took us through the KK city area & showed us around the popular spots on the way to the hotel. Thankfully my command of the Mandarin language passed for a normal conversation level...hahaha...of course, there were certain words that I can't get out from my mouth in Mandarin, but it was all fine :D

Tune Hotel is pretty much like a boutique hotel. It gives you a comfortable bed, a shower, & a fan. You'll have to pay extra for air-conditioner, television, & towel. All are within very reasonable prices :) In total, for a 3nights stay, I paid RM138+ for a room with air-con! *hohoho*

Room of Tune Hotel

The Bathroom
It's quite small, but good enough for a comfortable shower & 'release' time *lol* There's warm water shower as well! Nice.

Hairdryer & Basin

We basically didn't do very much on Day 1 upon arrival at the hotel. We rested for a while before heading off to 1 Borneo Shopping Mall, just beside Tune Hotel, to have a late lunch cum tea, & to buy some necessities like drinking water & breakfast for the next day ;) Very convenient, actually. Furthermore, Giant Supermarket was at 1 Borneo itself, so we could get some pretty cheap items *hurrah!* You can get pretty much all that you need at 1 Borneo - from groceries, to clothes, appliances, catch a movie at GSC 1 Borneo, and even take the free shuttle to KK City! *woots* Thumbs up for 1B!

After 'shopping', we waited for Kok Min, my primary-secondary school friend (whom I treat as my brother), who's working in KK as a House-Office/Doctor to bring us out for dinner. We headed to Sepangar for dinner at Gayang Seafood Restaurant, apparently a very famous restaurant among the locals & tourists! Absolutely delicious food at superbly low prices! Serious!! The only set-back is the "tauke soh" (woman boss), who seems grumpy & not really friendly...hahaha...

*22 Aug 2009 - Details of the restaurant & the prices are up!

The variety of fresh seafood

Stir-fried Scallops with Garlic (RM30.00/half kg)
Very fresh & in my opinion, it's one of the best that I've ever tasted...

Stir-fried Emperor Veggie with Oyster Mushrooms (RM12.00)
I thought this combination was initially weird, but Kok Min & I love mushrooms & I like this veggie, so we decided to get it into 1 dish - conclusion: "mou tak teng"! (irresistable)

Butter Tiger Prawns (RM18.00/half kg)
Actually the style of cooking this prawns is very common, but the freshness of the prawns made the dish SO delicious! The 3 of us walloped 1/2 a kilo of prawns clean!!

Sweet & Spicy King Crabs (RM30.00/kg)
1 kg of crabs - gone! All 3 of us aren't very hard-working when it comes to eating crabs, but we just can't resist the temptation of having yummy & cheap crabs here :D

Deep-fried Mantis Prawns (Rm45.00)
All along, I was looking forward to this dish & thought that it would come as pieces of mantis prawn meat deep-fried in its batter; I was wronged. This style of cooking isn't the best at all. We were slightly disappointed with this dish.

Complimentary Dessert - Pandan-flavoured Jelly
It's actually quite nice & refreshing after a heavy meal of seafood. The pandan is actually extracts of the real pandan leaves (and not just some pandan flavouring). Yums!

Extra Large ABC (RM4.00/bowl)
We saw many people ordering this & we were in awe at the size of the dessert - "We had to order the ABC no matter what! It's RM4 for such a big bowl!!" Well, the ABC wasn't awesome in taste la...hahaha...just the novelty of it. Even 3 of us can't finish 1 bowl of ABC...just check out the contrast of size between both the bowls :S

The restaurant

Aaron & I at the restaurant
The photo's rather dark :S

Kok Min & I outside the restaurant

Gayang Seafood Restaurant
Kg Baharu, Jln Sulaiman
Tuaran, P.O Box 12629
88300 Kota Kinabalu
Sabah.
Tel: (+6088) 229 066
Business Hours: 11:00a.m. - 10:00p.m. daily
Halal: Yes
Website: Click here


Ratings:
Presentation: * * * 1/2
Price: * * * * 1/2
Environment: * * * 1/2
Taste: * * * * 1/2
Service: * * * 1/2


Overall:

After dinner, we went around KK City & headed to Signal Hill, where I found out from the internet that it's a place to catch the sunset & the view of KK city.

Signal Hill's Observatory Deck

The view of KK City at night from the deck

After Signal Hill, we left for the Tanjung Aru Beach. Surprisingly, there weren't many people at the beach AND most of them were sitting at the pavement instead of on the sand!! So unlike Kuantan....

Aaron & I at the beach

Tanjung Aru beach was our last destination before Kok Min sent us back to Tune Hotel to call it a night. It was a great day, no doubt. I'm really very thankful for Kok Min & my other 2 friends in Sabah who took us out after their work for our entire 4days 3nights trip!! Praise God for them :D

Look out for Day 2-4's post in the next few days!


- Ruth