Archive for August 28th, 2003

KK Day 4

Published by
James
at 17:21 HKT Aug 28, 2003 in Family and Arts&Crafts. 1 Comment

Day Four 22/08/03 Fri

After breakfast, we went bowling again. This time we went with Florence, Jessica, and Sarah, while Stanley went to have a game of golf on his own. After bowling, Alec and Sarah tried to have a game of table tennis; however, our plan of having lunch before we head out to Manukan Island did not work out too well, as the schedule of the ferry service did not allow us to have lunch first. It was 11:15am when we found out we have to take the 12:30pm boat to the island, so we ran back to the hotel rooms to change and pack.

We gathered at the Sea Quest water sports and ferry charter service counter by the private dock within the hotel at 12:15pm, and took the speedboat ferry to another one of the 5 islands within the Abdul Rahman Park, Manukan Island.

As we arrived Manukan Island, we were greeted by a staff of Sea Quest who led us to a vacant picnic table by the beach. He took orders from us for the rental of snorkeler masks and life jackets and said he would be back by 4:00pm to lead us back the to dock for the last ferry back to the hotel, which was scheduled for 4:30pm.

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Alec on the Waters of Manukan Island

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Same

The water at Manukan Island seemed to be a little more clear than that at Sepi Island. Maybe it was a couple of days more after the torrential rain when we first arrived KK that gave the water time to clear up a bit. There were more garbage in the water here though. Visitors to Manukan Island were of a greater racial variety than Sepi Island, where Sepi Island was packed with Hong Kongers.

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Alec Snorkeling

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Fish by the Seabed of Manukan Island

We all had a great time snorkeling, and saw a much greater variety of fishes, corals, and sea cucumbers here. And we almost missed the ferry after a late lunch for we were too busy snorkeling. Lunch here again was not too good. We did manage to do some souvenir shopping right by the restaurant though.

After lunch, we hurried back to our picnic table and returned the snorkeler masks and life jackets, and rushed to the dock. At the dock, we saw a sea snake crawling on one of the columns supporting the dock.

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Outside PortView Restaurant

After showers and a short rest at the hotel, we all chartered a van downtown to have some serious seafood dinner. Portview was the name of the restaurant. As with other seafood restaurants there and here as well in Hong Kong, they have fish tanks of live seafood right in front of the restaurant. We ordered some abalones, oysters, tiger prawns, a fish, and a couple types of clams. Everything but the tiger prawns were not too good, or a least not up to Hong Kong’s standard that I am used to. However the tiger prawns was great. They were of an inch thick and about 9 inches long head to tail. Towards the end, we also ordered a couple bowls of sharkfin soup for only RM15 each. For the price, that was alright. Total bill came to about RM330, which was OK.

After dinner, we went to a small supermarket nearby and shopped for some soft drinks and popsicles. We bought some Ube Root popsicles and Avocado popsicles. The Ube Root one is my favorite.

Before our van took us back to the hotel, we stopped by the Islamic Restaurant from before, and order out some 12 pieces of naan to be brought back to the hotel. When we got back, we headed up to Stanley’s room and had the naan while we watched some TV.

That was it for Day 4.

Continue on to Day 5.

KK Day 3

Published by
James
at 12:28 HKT Aug 28, 2003 in Family and Arts&Crafts. 0 Comments

Day Three 21/08/03 Thu

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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.

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Fun Pool Over Looking the Sea

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Fun Pool Over Looking Magellan Wing

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Alec Playing Water Polo with New Friends

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Alec at the Fun Pool

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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.

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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.

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Sunset at the Rain Forest

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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.

KK Day 2

Published by
James
at 11:17 HKT Aug 28, 2003 in Family and Arts&Crafts. 2 Comments

Day Two 20/08/03 Wed

7:15am morning call, 8:00am breakfast, 8:45am gathering and we all headed out to Sepi Island, one of the 5 islands of the Abdul Rahman Park, which is about 15 minutes via speed boat away from our hotel. This particular trip to Sepi Island had become one of our most memorable experiences for Melinda and I.

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Jetskiing with Alec

As soon as we’ve reached the island, we were greeted by a manager of some sort, who took orders from us for several kinds of water sports namely, para-sailing, jetskiing, banana boating, and seabed walking. Jetskiing was RM150 for 1/2 hour or RM250 for 1 hour. I had tried that over 20 years ago in Patiya, Thailand before, so I took Alec out for a 1/2 hour spin leaving Melinda by the picnic table thinking a 1/2 hour wait wasn’t too long for her. As it turned out, we had to take a boat almost 2/3 of the way back to the hotel, which was about a 15 min ride to the jetski depot. So the 1/2 hour run became a full hour wait for Melinda.

Just as I was worrying how to make it up to Melinda when we got back, the local tour guide came over and asked us if we wanted to go for a seabed walking, free of charge! A 25 min seabed walking costs RM250 each, which works out to about HKD$530, and that would be a HKD$1060 deal. But, what’s the catch? Apparently, there was a Korean TV crew there making a TV documentary about the sand of Sepi Island. It was then that I took the first notice of the sand there which was so fine that it felt like flour. The catch was for the two of us to be interviewed by the TV show director and for them to shoot us on a walk on the beach as well as a walk on the seabed.

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TV Crew Heading for Seabed Walking

The local guide promised to personally take care of Alec for us, who was now making sand castles on the beach. So off we went. The interview and the shooting was a breeze. The seabed walking was kinda exciting. Each of us had a very heavy helmet which was rested on our shoulders with a pipe pumping air into the helmet with an air pressure great enough to keep the water out of the helmet. We were to climb down a ladder to the seabed which was only about 5 meters deep, I was told. There was a crew there with one person holding the two of us at our backs on our waists to prevent us from falling down. There was another couple there going through the same deal as ours, and apparently they were shot candid by the TV crew, and was only told afterwards that if they’d let them air the shots, they’d get the seabed walking free of charge.

The walk itself was easy, with an occasional strong current that had me holding the guiding rope tight with one hand and holding Melinda’s hand on the rope with the other. A path was routed out with two other ropes about one foot above the seabed and about 3 feet apart. We were supposed to walk sideways like crabs do without stepping over the set path. The seabed was full of corals and there must have been hundreds of fishes around us waiting to be fed. The scuba diver showed us various types of sea creatures around. All this time, we couldn’t see our backs with the astronaut type helmets on, and that felt kinda of eerie for me. The entire walk took about 25 minutes and it was quite an experience. Unfortunately my camera, the Canon AS-1 underwater camera, could only go down to 3 meters at the most, and left me with no choice but the leave it on the surface.

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Alec Feeding Fishes

Back to the island and we couldn’t find Alec for about 10 minutes. I immediately regraded going away from Alec and had me worried. It turned out that Stanley had taken him for swim on the other side of the beach. We then did some snorkeling and headed back for lunch. Lunch as OK, nothing worth mentioning. After lunch, it was time to head back to the hotel.

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At the Street Market

After a shower and a short rest at the hotel, we charted a van with Stanley and his family to a local street market which is more or less like the “Women Street” Tung Choi St. in Kowloon, HK. I didn’t find anything interesting enough to buy there.

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At the Islamic Restaurant

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“Lai Cha”

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Naan

We strolled off the market and was wondering what to have for dinner. We decided to try out a couple of restaurants one after the other. We went in to this Islamic restaurant were they serve “Lai Cha” which is tea prepared by pouring from one container in one hand on to another container in there other hand with a maximum spread of the arms creating a “waterfall” like pour of the tea. Not sure if the preparation had anything to do with the taste and texture of the tea, but it tasted very good. We also had naan, plain curry, and curry mutton. The naan was exceptional. We then headed to another restaurant which serves both cantonese and malaysian cuisines. That was OK also. After dinner, we headed back the hotel.

Continue on to Day 3.

Trip to KK Day 1

Published by
James
at 10:52 HKT Aug 28, 2003 in Family and Arts&Crafts. 4 Comments

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Temple

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Dinner at the Seafood Restaurant

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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.