Thursday, May 27, 2010

KOTA KINABALU

After being busy with Jeff and Dephne wedding, we had a good rest in the hotel the next day.  In the evening, my sister, sister-in-law and me decided to take a walk to the evening Philipines Market. We took about ten minutes walk to reach the market. The first glance at the market, oh, its just a normal local market. Selling vegetables and fruits.


When we walked further in, we saw stalls selling dried prawns and ikan billis (anchovies) we bought one kilogram each because they were so cheap compared with the prices in west Malaysia.
As we walked inner to the market, now we all go crazy, we saw so many types of fresh sea fish laying on the stalls.













Our eyes were caught by a giant barramundi fish at one of the stall, the fishmonger told us it weights about thirteen kilograms, the price was only Rm fifteen each kilogram, oh, so cheap!!
On the next stall we saw big squids and red groupa fishes, prices were Rm five a kilogram and Rm fifteen a kilogram, wow...so cheap.... unfortunately we can't take them home unless they were frozen.


Since we can't take all those fresh fishes home, we had barbecue fish, tiger prawns, and giant squids for dinner at the stall here. All were very cheap.












The next day we hired a private tour guard to drive us up the half way of the Mount Kinabalu ( the highest mountain in the Asia), the mystery mountain of Sabah. We started off at 8am. As we were early, the mountain was fully covered by the clouds, so we have to wait for clear sky then.  The driver drove us to Mount Kinabalu Haritage Resort and Spa for a rest.










While we were exploring the resort, I saw a tree with beautiful pure white flowers, the gardener can't give me the name of the flower plant because it is from the wild.
From the resort, we drove to the National Park, where all the mountain hikers has to start their hiking from.
This is the Route Map for the mountain hikers.


We came here so that later to have better of the mystery mountain.  Our tour guard wanted us to wonder around the scenic surrounding and he would let us know when the mountain is clear of clouds. For sure, after about five minutes later, he pointed to the direction of the mountain, the clouds are slowly moving away from the coverage of the mountain, I was fast enough to snap some of the photos.




















Mount Kinabalu has been referred as mystery mountain because of the clouds, now you see it,  and at a blink of eyes you will miss it. Sometimes it cannot be seen the whole day.  Anyway we lucky then.
After spending about half an hour watching the mountain, our guard wanted to take us to the sea, Nexus Resort, which located just twenty eight kilometer from the city.  It is set amidst 3,335 acres of natural and landscaped surroundings and the beautiful beach.

The special architecture of the buildings.



The Hong Kong  famous TV series(the gems of life) had done some of the shooting at some of the spots in this resort ,like the above four spots that our tour guard told us.
Well, Nexus Resort really is a very beautiful resort.
We bought some more of the dried prawns and anchovies and some dried sea cucumber too before we fly home.