KK Town Weekend Hop-Over (Take 2!!)

Weekend of 25th October to 27th October, 2008.

God, it’s so hard to find time to update my blog nowadays. Work is sucking my time right out from my life like an industrial vacuum cleaner on full throttle. There’s so much I would like to blog about but…Sigh. Anyway, 2 weekends ago SL dropped by to Labuan and just like her previous visit, we headed off to Kota Kinabalu for the weekend. Why? ‘Cause basically, there isn’t much to do here in Labuan even if you damn hard try to find something to do. Well, you wouldn’t die from boredom here but...it just ain’t KL or KK, y’know?

This weekend the KK trip was abit unusual. I’ve been saying to SL for so many times but SL still couldn’t accept it. Every time SL comes to Labuan, or anywhere near East Malaysia in fact, SL tends to drag the rain clouds over!!! I mean, the exact moment SL steps onto East Malaysian shores, the sky opens up like a burst water balloon and causes a watery commotion that puts all plans into a shambolic quagmire. Remember the last trip to Labuan? It rained so hard until we couldn’t visit any islands & worst still, both of us were sniffing from a cold. Remember KK a few years ago when we climbed Mount KK? Up and down the mountain it was raining so much, the path was so wet and damp it made the climb so challenging until it was like climbing Mount Everest. And remember every time I came back to KL for those short visits and I really wanted to go that pasar malam? What happened? Yup, it rained. I think you are the Aquatic God of Rain in your previous life or something!!! But…I guess rain or shine, we still have fun together. We still managed to climb Mount KK, right? No beach? No problems, there’s always '1 Borneo' haha. Got the cold? Well at least it’s not the fever, right? ;)

Anyway, this time around the rain was REALLY bad. I heard from a friend that flights to Labuan from KL on Saturday the 25th October had to divert BACK to KL because the plane could not land!!! The pilot couldn’t see the runway or something like that and the passengers had to spend another 2 and a half hours on the same plane back to where they came from!!! If I was one of the passengers I’ll most probably end up hijacking the plane and force land it or something. I’ll go crazy. I have a slight case of ‘air rage’ you know. Take a note to NOT fly with me. Another case I heard was from my office friend’s brother that had to wait almost 6 hours in the airport in KK for his 'AirAsia' flight to Labuan (remember 'AirAsia' planes don’t load/offload passengers during rain). All this rain, storms and stuff, and how did I travel to KK during this wet weekend? We took the ferry. Yup, we took a middle-sized ferry that traveled for a full 3 hours over stormy weather to get to KK. Shit, who knew the weather was so terrible?! Was it smooth sailing? HELL NO. For the full 3 hours, the ferry was tilting from side to side, up and down and basically gyrating to obscene directions as though it was doing its best impression of Michael Jackson. Who was the ferry trying to impress?!! And did we throw up? Heck no. But I did feel REALLY glad my feet touched ground after that 3 hours though. SL was ok too. In fact SL said something of being hungry right after hitting KK. HHmmmm.

After gathering ourselves for a full half hour or so, we headed off to lunch (chicken rice that served pyramid-shaped rice. Weird but nice haha) and checked in to our 'Tune Hotel' room. By evening it was still raining like tears from a little girl that had just lost her darling pet and my worst fears slowly had sunk in. All plans for the beach and stuff will have to be cancelled. AGAIN. Sighhhh. In the end, this trip ended up as the '1Borneo trip' (and abit of the town area) because that is where we spent most of our time. Well, at least '1Borneo' had Starbucks, Big Apple Donuts, GSC Cinema, Secret Recipe, Sushi King and all that. It was not a TOTAL bore…the new plan? To stuff ourselves silly with food, food and food. And a bit of shopping haha. Well, I am going to shut up now and will just let you glance at some pictures I’ve downloaded to give you a glimpse of what had transpired over the trip. Enjoy!! :

Pyramid Chicken Rice!!! Well it looks interesting before eating it, but looks the same after you have destroyed it with the spoon hahha. It's from 'Restaurant Viya' in the town area. Sounds like an Indian place but its not. The taiko there is a chinese guy...WEIRD.

We took shelter from the rain and cold with a good ol' cuppa Mocha Latte with whipped cream of course. ALWAYS with whipped cream. Notice the blue band on my left arm? It's a 'Wall*E' limited edition watch!! Yayy!!

OooOooOOhhh, Big Apple...So big and juicy....So creamy....After months of 'Big Apple Donuts' D-tox, this is what happens. All of you be warned...

You have heard of Tune Hotels, Tune Money...and now Tune Store!!! I wonder what's next...Tune Toilets? Tune Toll Booths? Tune Coffee? The potential is endless!!!

This drink is called 'Macau Coffee'. Sounds tempting enough, and what does it taste like? Just like any other coffee hahahaha!!! It's all in the name I guess!!! From 'Hong Kong Cafe Xin Wang'.

Have you seen such a big French Toast Bun??!! Go to 'Kim Gary' or 'Wong Kok' and you will only get maybe just HALF of this baby!!! I have to admit it's kinda dry at the center of the bun but overall it's still yummy. 'Coz of the size, you can ask them to add more honey and butter for extra yummy-ness!!! Cost me only RM3.50 for this. A bargain!!!

French Toasts for breakfast!!! It's gonna fill-up the most hungry of eaters, trust me!!!

The queue for the free shuttle bus tickets to town. I remember last time we don't need to queue for this. Now there's even a waiting list, people giving each other 'the look' for jumping queue, etc etc etc. Feels just like home in KL haha. I heard they are gonna start charging from next year onwards tho...

Dinner time!!! The best dinner we had there was a restaurant called 'New York New York' a.k.a. 'We Do Not Serve Pork & Lard'. It's based on the same concept like 'TGI Friday's' & 'Chillies' (although unfortunately not as grand or 'happenning'). Their tagline: "Real food for Real People with Real Appetites!!" or something like that...See below for what they really mean.

The reason: the food here comes in super-big sizes, just like in America!!! I saw one Chicken Burger going to the table next to me, and it can feed a family of 4 people!!! WAHLAO WEHHHH!!!! Me & SL were so tempted to order that burger but we counldn't possibly finish that so we ordered this 'New York New York Massive Beef Ribs for 2' instead. For RM38.90, although abit pricey and doesn't look all that delicious, it is fact very tastey and worth your money. It's HUGE and have LOADS of meat. It comes with a delicious BBQ sauce too...perfect partner to this chunky goodness ;)

After more than 1 hour of carnivorious carnage, this is what's left...We cleaned it up so well, it's actually kinda freaky haha...

As for the drinks: Hot Choco with Mashmellows!!! It's so hard to get hot Choco with mashmellow drinks nowadays. Richly yummy especially from the rainy cold!!!

FINALLY the rain stopped!!! But it stopped only on the final day of our trip :( So, no island hopping. Sad sad. But I bet its too cold for a swim anyway haha. With the sun finally peaking out from the forlorn clouds, it's picture time!!! Snap snap snapping along the KK Waterfront ;)

Dolphins at KK??!! I wish. But it's a good companion for pictures tho!!! Snap snap snap!!!

Oh, I just bought the shades at '1Borneo' for RM65. Nice ar? I'll be going to Langkawi in December so, it'll be put to good use don't worry!! ;)

See, I told you this is the '1Borneo trip' hahhahaha. No islands, no mountains, no nature whatsoever. In fact, half way through this trip I was actually confused whether I was in KL or in KK!!! Anyway, it was fun nonetheless. Oh, I also finally bought my 'Microsoft' wireless keyboard and mouse, total package RM135. Now my quest to be a TOTAL lazy bum is finally complete. And SL bought a bottle of 'Chivas' (12 years old) back to KL for RM65, and I'll be bringing a 'Johnnie Walker Swing' back to KL next weekend for RM80. Cheap eh? See you in KL next weekend!!!