Day 8: Kota Kinabalu by Arushi

Our ginormous bed was enough for all three of us, until the little one fell out. Literally. Somehow Eashan woke up on the floor this morning, but was still very pleased with the quality of sleep, which says a lot about the hotel room!

We raced down to the buffet breakfast to meet mum and dad, and gorge on the multitude of foods on offer. They had pastries, noodles, baked beans, fruit, eggs, anything you could possibly eat for breakfast was laid out in front of us, including some more unfamiliar foods. One of those being ‘century eggs’, which I tried, and tasted not that unusual, just had a slight jelly texture. It’s a Chinese delicacy, cured for a few weeks to a few months in an alkaline mixture of clay, ash, salt, quicklime and rice hulls.

The breakfast was included and had such a vast array that when we were all full so quickly, we made plans to have an early dinner so we could optimise the breakfast tomorrow - taking advantage of it as much as possible! So, we planned for a light lunch and early dinner so we would be hungry tomorrow morning, and have a better appetite than we did this morning.

We spent the rest of the late morning at the pool, playing polo, handstand competitions and lounging in the sun. We found some chairs near the deeper section of the large pool and swam in the clear waters, which even had sun loungers built into the pool. The beach was still displaying a red flag due to jellyfish, but we were content in the pool, cooling off from the heat. There were even cold towels being handed out which made us feel as though we were at the height of luxury.

Millen and Eashan went to play tennis and go to the gym, whilst I stayed with mum and dad, doing much lazier activities, including starting my PADI theory for our upcoming diving training which is uber exciting! The boys eventually returned from their tennis game, which had been very very humid and warm!

Around 2 we started to feel peckish, so we ventured over to one of the resort restaurants for some lunch. There were limited options, so Eashan asked for vegetable rice and tofu, and I ordered the vegetable chard off the menu without the shrimp paste. However, what I received, was simply a glorified fruit platter much to my disappointment. Mum had the national Malaysian dish, a Nasi Lemak, and Millen and Dad had laksas. Our ‘light lunch’ that we had strategically planned turned out to not be so light, and still quite pricey as it was a restaurant within the hotel, but we left satisfied (for the most part - I had only eaten apples and some of Eashan’s rice).

There was a beer competition at 3, which meant free beer (we really are trying to optimise our stay this hotel!), so Coco Joe’s bar was our next stop. We soon found out that the beer competition only had one competitor: dad. So, mum and I joined him to see who could finish our half a pint the quickest... not a sentence I ever thought I’d write! Dad unfortunately smoked us, mum was not too far behind and I was barely two sips in by the time he finished, until Millen grabbed a straw and hoovered the rest of my drink up before mum had even drank all hers. I was given third place, mum second and dad first, which was not unexpected but still unfortunate for me. At least I made the podium!

Our prize was more beer (yippee…). Dad won three cans, mum won two and I won one! (Mum and dad were very pleased with the free beer - me not so much). We followed up with more competitions, playing pétanque and some sort of caged football game under a table.

After all this we returned to the pool for another swim, before showering and changing. We all headed to first beach in KK for the local food market, walking along the beach front which was packed! There were hundreds of people out, and as many on the water as in the beach, with lots of paddle boarders floating around (there wasn’t much paddling going on), some jet skis and these funny banana boats.

In the background, the clouds were darkening and there was an occasional warning flash accompanied by threatening clouds. There was even a distant rainbow to add to the drama. It was the calm before the storm.

Our first purchase was an avocado and chocolate smoothie, which tasted like it sounded, yummy to the four of us, disgusting to Millen. A lot of the stalls in the market were repeated and selling the same or similar things, and the products mostly consisted of smoothies / juices, mozzarella and sausage corn dogs, meat on sticks, fish, and corn.

We bought a few things each as the first drops started to fall. Then the skies opened and we hurriedly ate on the way back to the hotel, as the beach was illuminated with lightening.

I shared a mozzarella corn dog with Eashan , and had a jagung mix, which was a pot of corn mixed with mayonnaise, butter and milk. They were both delicious but very rich! Also ordered were meat sticks, smoothies, some sort of fried potato chip thing, and a hot dog corn dog. Not our most cultured food but filled a hole and cheap as chips if you pardon the pun!

We spent the evening playing scrabble and card games under shelter outside, near where we ate dinner last night. The hotel staff from the restaurant were very sweet and ushered us under their shelter, which was more protected and robust, and they gave us table lights to see our cards in the evening darkness. There was even a singer and band, who ended their set on ‘Have you ever seen the rain’, which felt very apt. We then returned to our room, excited for tomorrow.Læs mere