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Sunday, January 27, 2008

Trip to Kota Kinabalu 2008 - Day 1

Hi guys!! We're back from KK. The girls had such fun, it's almost a pity we didn't stay longer. Here's a quick rundown of what we did in KK.


Our flight to KK was around 11am, so we hired (for free, ahaks) my brother to drive us to the airport. As reward, he got to use my car for the 3 days we were away. The flight to KK was uneventful. Thankfully both the girls were complete angels during the entire flight, though Dina was a bit impatient and kept asking when we could get off the plane. I guess when you've seen one cloud, you've seen them all.

We arrived in KK at about 1.40pm. We had decided to rent a car via Hertz, which had sent a crew member to come pick us up at the Terminal 2. FYI, the car rentals are usually at Terminal 1 so it would be a good idea to pre-arrange such pick ups beforehand, if you don't want to spend on a taxi ride to the other terminal. After dropping of the Hertz man at Terminal 1, we drove off, making our way to the Lok Kawi Wildlife Park. Unfortunately for us, it had started to rain so we headed off instead straight to our hotel, the Nexus Karambunai Resort.

NKR is quite remote from the city center. It took us 40 minutes and 2 u-turns before we found the place. Apparently the main road had some construction going on, so the signboard at the main road was unavailable. I had to make a phone call to get some directions.
The drive inwards was nice, it made you feel like you were heading to another place altogether. As we got closer to the resort, we saw the spectacular golf course. I can understand why the Japanese would fly down here just to play golf, it really was amazing.

Our check-in process was not so spectacular, in fact it was a little painful. There was a bit of a miscomm with our voucher; apparently the hotel crew were unaware of such thing (cet, takkan le AMEX just made the package up). It took the 30 minutes to sort everything up and eventhough they did compensate me with a welcome drink, it didn't set our course for a great holiday.

The room however, was very nice. Sorry, no pictures. The bathroom had a shower and a bath tub, to the delight of the girls. As we were on the 1st floor, we even had a balcony, which gave us a wonderful view of the beach. The king sized bed was sufficiently big enough for all of us. They didn't have any mini bar which was kind of weird but fine by me. They had room slippers and also slippers for us to use outdoors (to the beach, to the restaurants, etc) which I found a nice touch. However, they didn't give any complimentary newspapers but you could read them at the rec center.

We spent the rest of the day at the resort, taking a long walk at the beach (marvellous, white sand and stretches for miles) and taking in the sights throughout the resort. We had dinner at the Kingfisher restaurant. Food was ok, but there wasn't much choice for the girls. We sat outside to enjoy the view of the swimming pools but I ended up with mosquito bites instead. Ouch!! Next time, I should remember to bring some insect repellent.

The servers were really nice and made small talk with the girls. However, there were a couple of blackouts during our meal, which was amusing yet kind of odd considering this is a 5-star resort, you'll think they have their own generator in case of a blackout.

We headed back to the room around 10pm. The kids were pretty burned out from the travel and settled in for the night without much fuss. Hubby and I layan HBO for a while (Final Destination 3..ahaks!!), and slept around 11pm.

Next...KK Day 2. Till then, be good people.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

sabah power supply iffy sikit, old system. tengah upgrade, in a few years time should be ok.. hehe

knv said...

bestnyee! karambunai ehh? been dreaming to go there!

cysev3n said...

tak pernah pi Sabah.. its great kalau Along bley share gamba banyak2!

Anonymous said...

bestnyer gi sabah. would love to go there one day. :)

zal said...

heard about the place, byk org komen kata the beach is marvelous and hotel pun luxurious. tp sbb a bit out of place, i've decided not to try...

salam perkenalan..