James Mok’s Soliloquy

Day Five 23/08/03 Sat

Day 5 was another free day for us, as we decided not to go for the trip to the hot springs and the mountain. Stanley decided to go with the hotel tour to white water rafting this day instead of going with our tour the day before, in which I didn’t go either. That ended up saving him RM400, about HKD$850 in total for the four of them. I didn’t want anything happened to Alec, so I decided to skip anything remotely dangerous.

There was a fellow tourist in our tour, who kept asking the local tour guide during the bus trip back from the rain forest on Day 3 if that particular white water rafting trip was safe enough for his 8 year old daughter. He spent over 10 minutes asking over and over if there were any possibility for this and that kinda of accidents. Which, at the time, kinda gotten into my nerves. If he worried about it so much, why not simply don’t go. I mean, what could any tour guide possibly say that would absolutely prevent all accidents from happening?

Magellan Wing

From Magellan Wing Over Looking the Marina Club

On the other hand, we went swimming again after breakfast. Instead of heading straight to the fun pool, we took a detour and walked around the Magellan Wing just to have a look see.

Alec by the Goal

Alec Took a Shot

Alec Diving

When we got back to the pool, we played some water polo. We also had lunch and banana splits by the pool. Once again, Alec order chicken wings and he seemed to enjoy them very much.

By about 3:30pm, we went back to the hotel room to shower and had a short rest as we waited for Stanley to come back to have dinner with us. By 5:30pm, Stanley came back and needed some rest, and we decided to meet at 7:00pm for dinner.

By 6:40pm, Melinda and I wanted to go to the souvenir shop at the hotel to do some shopping. Alec wanted to stay in the room to rest and watch TV, so I explicitly told him not to open the room door for anyone for any reason. I wrote down the phone number for Stanley’s room for him in case he needed anything.

It took us a bit longer than I thought it would at the shop. So I called Alec and Stanley at 7:00pm to tell them we would be about 15 minutes late. When I called Stanley, Florence answered and told me that Stanley had called Alec twice, with the first call noticing we were out, and the second call he pretended to be the room service asking Alec all sorts of questions in English with a Malaysian accent. At the time, we were in a rush, so I said I would talk to them about it later without knowing how Alec responded to the call.

We rushed back to the room after finishing shopping. As I was about to put in the card key to open the room door, I decided to ring the door bell instead just to see how Alec would react. As soon as I rang the door bell, heavy and rapid foot steps came towards the door and Alec opened the door right away! As I asked him why he opened the door even after my explicit instructions for him not to answer the door, I noticed Alec was both smiling and had a little bit of tear in his eyes. He then told me someone had called and that he didn’t know what the caller wanted.

Short Gathering Before Dinner

We went down to meet with Stanley’s family for dinner right away. On the way to the Magellan Wing for a buffet dinner, Stanley told me about the phone call. He said to Alec that it was room service, and Alec asked him what “room service” meant. He asked Alec if there were any adults there, Alec asked him what “adults” were. When he asked Alec if his parents were there, again Alec asked back what “parents” were. When he asked Alec where mom and dad was, he answered they were downstairs. That ended the call, and actually, the called wasn’t all that fun for Stanley either as Alec kept asking him back what all the terms were.

As it turned out, the white water rafting trip wasn’t even a bit exciting for them at all. Stanley said there was ONE splash of just a few drops of water on his face the entire trip. The raft was very slow where even Sarah thought it was kinda slow. So, afterall there was probably no danger to it, but I was glad that I didn’t go, and in the end, it worked out for me just as well.

Dinner was quite good except that there were too many Hong Kongers there. And you’d know the scene when you put Hong Kongers in a buffet - line-ups and pig sty. Especially at the sushi/sashimi counter. The poor girl was slicing sashimi and making sushi on her own, non-stop, all night long. Yet there were omly Tuna and Salmon, and nothing else.

Soup and salads, deserts and sushi were indoors with BBQ outdoors. A huge line-up for the lamb where it took Melinda a good 45 minutes to get a only few pieces of. I went to have Prime Rib instead where there were just three of us waiting. After the first person, I saw the chef sliced a small piece, so I let the other person to have it first. Just as my turn came, I asked the chef if I could have the rib instead of the meat. The chef took a look at me, gave me a smile, and he sliced off the entire slap of the bones and then slice off a big chunk of rib for me. As the person whom I let in front of me saw what the chef did for me, he stayed and ask for a rib as well.

Melinda came back with her lamb after I had a bowl of soup, a plate of salad, two servings of sushi/sashimi, and the rib. I was ready for ice-cream by then.

Alec Demonstrates the “Break and Burn” Maneuver

After dinner, we headed over to the bowling alley where they had bowling in the Dark with UV lighting as well as glowing in the dark everything including the bowling balls. It was packed with people but we managed to get a lane almost right away as someone was about to leave. Sarah bowled 100 points in her first game which beat both Jessica and Alec! Both Sarah and Jessica played with utmost attention, while Alec was practicing his GiGi Leung’s “Break and Burn” shots, which didn’t worked out too well for him point wise though.

After two games each for the kids, we headed back to the room and packed for the check out the next day, and called that the night.

Continue on to Day 6 - the last day of the trip.

Day Three 21/08/03 Thu

Alec Bowling

On day three, Alec finally got to play what he has been longing to play for quite some time - bowling. In Hong Kong, almost every time we went to a local recreation club, Alec would go the bowling alley and watch others play. Since Alec is not old enough to play there, all he could do was to watch. Here at the hotel, they even have kids lane, where they could flip over the “cutters” and turn them into two “wall”, so the bowling ball would be kept on the lane. Alec was able to hit a 87 point for his first game, which is not too bad, however, hitting the walls several times of course.

Fun Pool Over Looking the Sea

Fun Pool Over Looking Magellan Wing

Alec Playing Water Polo with New Friends

Alec at the Fun Pool

With Alec at the Fun Pool

After bowling, we went swimming at one of the pools in the Marina’s Club in the hotel. Private one-on-one swimming lesson was only RM34.50 for an hour, which worked out to be HKD$73.00 only. Comparing to the HKD$210 or more at our local recreation club, it was a steal. We had Alec on for an hour at the olympic pool before casual swimming at the fun pool right beside the olympic pool. The fun pool has a waterfall, a bridge, and a couple of water slides. We had great fun there.

Alec Enjoying Some Chicken Wings

Lunch by the pool was quite good. Melinda and I had burger and some satay, and as usual, Alec ordered chicken wings and he seemed to enjoy the day and the chicken wing very much.

At 3:30pm, the tour gathered together for a trip to the rain forest. I have forgotten the name of the rain forest, but it took us about an hour and 45 minutes of bus ride to reach it.

For some reasons unknown at the time, my GPS was having a tough time trekking the satellites to give a position both at the Sepi Island and here at the rain forest. As it turned out, the time on the GPS was about 12 hours off the correct time, which might not have matched the database on the GPS for the correct satellite positions to give a proper read out. After I have corrected the time on the GPS later on Day 4, I was able to trek our position quite easily at the Manukan Island.

When we arrived at the rain forest at a place resembled a house for a family with a restaurant business right by the river. They served us drinks and some dim sum, but over looking at the dirty river right by the restaurant, I passed. I had my own bottled water with me, so I had no problem there.

Sunset at the Rain Forest

More Sunset at the Rain Forest

We took a boat ride on the river to seek out some monkey and fireflies. The monkeys were not too populated, and we had to wait until dark before we could see the fireflies. These fireflies are of a very tiny variety as opposed to the much bigger ones that we have seen in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. They lit up the trees on both side of the river like Christmas trees. The boat ride took about 2 hours and we went back to the restaurant for dinner. Dinner again was nothing much worth mentioning. It is just that it would seem like almost every local meal, Malaysians would serve crabs.

By 8:30pm, we hopped back on the bus for the ride back to the hotel. On the way to the rain forest, I noticed our bus over took several cars and trucks. It would seem that our bus was the fastest vehicle on the road. When the tour guide asked us if we would want to go home earlier, I ask him if we could stay on our lane without over taking, as the highway was only a two lane two way one. But to no avail, the bus driver with his poor driving skills almost airborned the bus twice going over a couple of bridges without slowing down early enough, and he almost hit a slowing truck right in front of us while it was trying to slow down to let us overtake him, but there was head on traffic coming at the same time. What senseless drivers these Malaysians are.

We got back to the hotel by 10:15pm, took a quick shower and we went to the cafe for some late night munchies. I had a bowl of Laksa, which was curry seafood noodle, and that wasn’t bad at all. Alec had a “Little Superman” as printed on the menu, which was actually chicken noodle soup. And that ended day 3.

Continue on to Day 4.

Day One 19/08/03 Tue

On the 19th this month, we went to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia for a 6 day vacation. Since Sabah is below the typhoon and earthquake belt, there is never any typhoon or earthquake there.

Our plane departed at 8:05am and we were supposed to meet the tour at the airport at 5:50am. We decided to charter a van for HKD$210 to the airport instead of calling a taxi. The order was for 5:30am and the van arrived at our gate 5:20am, very prompt.

Some Snacks at the Airport

Before entering the immigration area, we were scanned with an infrared camera instead of the laser beam shown on the news during the SARS period. There was an LCD screen turned towards the travelers so we could see ourselves in infrared just like the Predator could.

Alec On the Plane

Upon arriving the Kota Kinabalu International Airport, there was a torrential rain in the area which resulted a 30min delay in landing the plane. It took the pilot 3 attempts to finally land the plane even though the entire time was free of any alarming experience.

Immigration at the KK airport was snail slow. Between the 3 of us and the stamping of documents, there must have been at least some 30 chopping sound of some sort over a period of at least 10 minutes to get through immigration. And there was a functional computer terminal with each and every immigration officer. By contrast, it took Hong Kong immigration officers some 2 minutes at the most to clear 3 locals or visitors alike. In short, it took our tour of 26 plus the guide about an hour and a half to clear immigration and custom. Right away, we went to get exchange for the local currency since Malaysia has very strict control over foreign exchange, one cannot get exchange for Malaysian Ringgit (RM) anywhere else in the world but Malaysia only.

Yellow Ginger Chicken Rice

After that we went for lunch for one of the local cuisines - Yellow Ginger Chicken Rice. The taste was alright, but the local guide told us that the restaurant we went to was not considered that “good” by local standard as it was not as spiced up as it should have been, but the less spicy taste was supposed to suit Hong Kongers better.

Temple

Melinda by the Temple

Before we headed to the hotel, we had a city tour. We saw a couple of Islamic temples, and one of which was designed by the heir of the one who designed the Taj Mahal in India. We also saw the tallest suspended glass wall building in Sabah, which is some 30 stories high - which is really nothing to brag about IMO.

Water Houses

On the way, we also saw quite a few water houses built on the river and the beach side, just like those in Tai O, Hong Kong.

Panoramic View off the Balcony of Our Hotel Room

Since our hotel, the Sutera Harbour Resort and Spa - Pacific Wing was fully booked, our tour was spread into just 1 or 2 rooms on each floor. Stanley, Melinda’s brother, his family and our family, 3 rooms in total all got upgraded. At first, I thought we had the best room on the club floor, the 11th floor, with a balcony over looking the golf course and the sea, it turned out that Stanley had a suite on the 7th floor. Well, I really enjoyed sitting at the balcony at least for 1/2 hour each day during the entire stay though. So I have no complaints.

Dinner at the Seafood Restaurant

Alec with Dancers

We met at about 7:00pm and headed to some seafood restaurant by the water side. It was supposed to be the best Cantonese seafood restaurant in the area. Personally, I don’t see why travelers prefer their own cuisines over local cuisines, especially for Hong Kong travelers. I’d rather taste as much local cuisines as I could. The food turned out to be nothing but some poorly cooked prawns, chicken, chicken, chicken, and fish which one could get at any “tea set” restaurant in Hong Kong.

As Islamic custom don’t eat pork, and beef is I guess relatively way more expensive, we had many chicken dishes just about every meal. There was a team of local cultural dancers performing during the meal, and Alec had a picture with the dancers after the performance. Before we headed back to the hotel, we stopped by a local street market for some fruits, which turned out at the end was a waste, as there were plenty of a vase variety of fruits each morning during the complimentary buffet breakfast each and every morning.

Bedtime after that.

Continue on to Day 2.