Goddess, I Am.

This morning, I woke up determined to write about our trip to Malaysian Borneo, as promised. But then I couldn’t figure out where to start, so I decided to just write a post for each of the three districts of Malaysia’s Sabah province that we were able to visit.

First Stop, Kota Kinabalu!

As always, we booked our Cebu Pacific tickets to KK on a seat sale months before the actual trip. Ironically, CEBU Pacific does not fly to Kota Kinabalu from – you guessed it! – CEBU. It’s annoying, I know, especially since KK is quite geographically close to Cebu! But for the love of travel, we decided to just go via Manila.

Incidentally, Malaysian Airlines flies from Cebu to KK direct, but it costs an arm and a leg. It might be worth looking in to, though, if you think it’s too tedious to have to go to Manila and deal with their more expensive (P200 more!) terminal fee.

Getting Around

Getting to KK ended up being a whole day affair because we had a layover in Manille for a few hours (it was worse coming back). We arrived in the capital of Sabah at about 8 in the evening, and we took a taxi straight to our guest house in the city center for RM30 (about P400), which we paid at the airport taxi counter.

FYI, KK taxis have meters but apparently, they never use them. Instead, they charge per zone. When I was in Pulau Penang in 2007, they had the same system. So it’s always best to negotiate with the driver before you even set foot in the cab.

There are, of course, buses that ply the city routes, and I’m sure they’re a cheaper way to get around. But if you ask me, Malaysian names are just too long and too confusing, so it’s definitely easier to either walk or take a taxi. We weren’t exactly penny-pinching, so we figured, if we can’t walk it, we’ll cab it. Thankfully, we did more walking than cabbing.

But I digress. The taxi ride to the guest house was rather pleasant. Before we knew it, we were already pulling up in front of our guest house.

The Lavender Lodge

Weeks before the trip, I was already looking for places to stay. Considering that the last couple of overseas trips that I took were to Singapore and Hong Kong where even the grubbiest hostels cost upwards of $20, I was quite delighted to find that KK hotels and guest houses do not go crazy on rates. There were plenty of options, but I finally decided on The Lavender Lodge because of all the great things I read about it. It did not disappoint.

I made a reservation for 3 nights (the 25th, 28th, and 29th of May) in a private room with en suite bathroom for RM75 (about P1,100) a night. We ended up staying in a different room for each of the 3 nights that we were there because they were rather overbooked. For our first night, we stayed in a room that had an en suite toilet but no shower, so we had to use the shared showers down the hall.

Now, if you know me, you probably have a good idea of how freaked out I am by bathrooms, especially shared ones. Well, I had absolutely no problem with the shared bathrooms of Lavender Lodge. They were huge and spotlessly clean, so to me, they were perfect. It also didn’t hurt that they provided rubber slippers for the guests, unlike the hostel in Singapore that my sister and I stayed in in March where we had to go barefoot, even in the bathroom. Ick. But that’s another story.

Moving on, for our second night in Lavender Lodge (which was our fourth night in Sabah, but more on that in the next post), we finally got our private room with the en suite bathroom. We had 2 more nights with them and we really would’ve preferred to stay in that room until we left, but unfortunately for us, someone already paid for the room for the next day. We had to move to another room the next morning – this time, the family room. It was absolutely massive and we had a surplus of 3 beds. However, it was back to the shared bathrooms for us by then, but hey, no biggie.

Normally, I would’ve gone ape-shit because I did specify that we wanted the private room with en suite bathroom for all 3 nights and I suppose they screwed that up somewhat by overbooking. But the staff was fantastic and the facilities were wonderfully clean (and I suppose I was quite in love with the place), so I really didn’t mind, not one bit. In fact, The Husband and I have already decided that we will stay there again when we go back to KK. But I’ll make sure to pre-pay our reservations then, for good measure.

The Lavender Lodge has free wifi and free breakfast. There’s a common room in the second floor with a pool table and a TV, which is usually overrun by backpackers. At least two of the receptionists were Filipinos – Bisaya, pa jud. They were really sweet, even when I bombarded them with questions every time I saw them. They can also book tours for you, if you don’t feel like DIY-ing.

The Food

We were starving by the time we finished checking in. Right across Lavender Lodge, there was a big food court type place that served fresh seafood. You know, the kind that keeps live lobsters and prawns and crabs in tanks, so you can pick and choose and be a party to murder. I don’t eat seafood, so that really didn’t do anything for me.

We walked to the east of our guest house that night to look for grub, but only found a KFC and some local restaurants that seemed to serve the same things – duck, chicken, and seafood in various kinds of curry and noodle combinations.

We ended up having a late dinner in the coffee shop right beside Lavender Lodge.

The Husband had lemon chicken and some sort of duck noodle thing:

I had roast chicken (which was a bit icky) and a very blah egg tart:

Even my favorite cold milo was bland:

To be honest, I was quite disappointed with the food in Sabah. It was always either curry this or curry that, and by the time we got back to KK after 3 days in a jungle camp (next post!), I only wanted a cheeseburger. I am embarrassed to say that I ate nothing but double cheeseburgers and chocolate milkshakes from McDonald’s the last couple of days we were there.

We also discovered fairly late in the trip that going west towards the harbor would take us to the, umm, happening part of town. On our last night, we ended up in an Irish pub where my date had a proper – and expensive! – Irish stew. Yep, we were definitely in tourist central.

Activities

As far as I know, there really isn’t a whole lot of things to do and see in KK. Well, obviously, you can shop and eat and enjoy the nightlife like in any city. There’s also the Tanjung Aru Beach, but if you’ve been to a lot of great beaches, this is nothing to write home about.

There’s a group of 5 islands within the Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park that’s just a stone’s throw away from the KK harbor where you can go snorkeling and stuff, but we decided to skip this. We heard that though it was okay for beginning snorkelers, it can be quite disappointing for those who have snorkeled in richer reefs in the past.

There are, of course, day trips to parks, wetlands, rivers, etc., but it takes several hours to get to most of these places. Suffice to say, you will really have to leave KK to make the most out of your trip (which we did).

Kota Kinabalu, In A Nutshell

KK is pretty diverse – quite modern in some areas, old-fashioned in some. It’s clean and quite orderly, so I couldn’t help but be pleased, especially coming from grubby, stressful Cebu.

The people are quite lovely, too. Just by looking at them, you already know that they all come from different backgrounds and religions, but they get along okay. It’s tolerance, at its best, and it kind of makes you wonder why people in other areas of the world can’t do the same.

There’s also a lot of Filipinos working not just in KK, but the whole of Sabah. It seemed to me that our countrymen have taken over most of the local jobs. There wasn’t a single establishment that we went to in KK alone that did not have one or two Filipinos working in it. Convenience stores even carried this:

Considering the island’s proximity to the Philippines, I suppose it’s completely logical. I just hope they’re legal. Although I did hear tell that most of the inhabitants of Pulau Gaya (one of the islands of the Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park) were illegal Filipinos. Sigh.

Tomorrow, I’ll be writing about the highlight of our whole trip! Stick around.

The Husband and I have some big travel plans for the next couple of years. Peanuts and walmart coupons won’t suffice for world travel, however, so we’ve had to seriously re-evaluate our finances. Not surprisingly, we both realized that we spend too much, mostly on food. This is because we eat out every day – a couple of times a day, even. Both of us are not particularly savvy cooks and we don’t have a maid, so this isn’t really a surprise. Still, too much is too much, and we’ve resolved to change this.

And so we’ve been making an effort to cook and eat in for the past few days. We hardly ever want to eat the same things, too, so we’ve had to cook our meals separately. I think we’re doing okay so far. Mum e-mailed me a load of easy recipes, and thankfully, I didn’t botch the first one I attempted. In fact, it was actually rather nice. It was only a very simple dish of fried ground pork and potatoes (which isn’t really rocket science), but if you only knew what happened the last time I tried to cook the same dish, you’ll understand why it’s such a big deal for me. And no, I’m not going into that story now . . . or ever.

But I digress.

The Husband is luckier. He’s quite happy to subsist on fried chicken breasts and pancit canton (the instant kind), so most of the time, he doesn’t have to bother with sauces and stuff. He did, however, make a mean cauliflower and cheese dish last night. I had the last of it for tonight’s dinner. I swear, I could go vegetarian for cauliflower and cheese. Yummer.

Now I have just finished marinating an entirely new dish, which I will cook for lunch tomorrow. Hopefully, this bistek will be edible at the very least. Mum’s recipe didn’t say anything about marinating the beef overnight, but I was so excited, I just had to prepare it on a whim. The marinade, at least, tastes good. With any luck, this will last me about 3 meals.

Economy is awesome.

UPDATE: The bistek was an epic failure. Thank you, my dear husband, for trying to eat it, anyway . . . before flushing the whole lot down the toilet.

I turned 29 two days before the Ides of March. ’29′ is such a scary, serious-sounding number, and the last thing I wanted was to make a big deal out of it. And so I ended up celebrating over Mexican food with The Sister and strawberry milkshakes and Chinese food with The Husband. As I said, no biggie.

Just because I turned 29, however, didn’t mean I was too old for cool presents. The Husband gave me this:

It’s a limited edition commemorative Blu-ray box set, too, so it’s got all sorts of goodies inside. My favorite is this music box that plays My Favorite Things. It makes me feel like a kid again.

I also managed to coerce him into getting me this:

I’ve just started working out then, and I really needed a portable music player. I couldn’t very well go to the gym with the iPad strapped to my back, could I? Hence, Cassius, the wee iPod Nano. I was going to get a wristwatch strap thingy, but I decided to just go for one of those cool ipod nano cases so I could wear it around my arm. It makes me look sporty, haha. And believe it or not, this little fella has been a real help in pushing me towards my workout goals. Nothing keeps me going like a killer workout playlist.

I also got these new babies:

The pink Forever 21 wedges are from The Sister. I picked it out when we went to Manila last week. The purple Schu lace-up booties and the patent Forever 21 penny loafers are from myself. Yes, at 29, I still find joy in shoes.

Really, 29 isn’t as bad as I expected. I just go around telling people I’m 25 a lot more often than I did when I was 28.

When I was younger, I hardly ever got pimples. This was back when I was going through puberty, mind you, when everyone was breaking out left, right and center. It was so cool that I didn’t have to go through that, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy a great deal of self-satisfaction back then.

Now, a good 15 years or so later, however, the tables seem to have been turned. I am the one breaking out like a hormonal 14-year-old. I’m now finding the need to change my cosmetics every few months or so, and these things don’t come cheap. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure if cosmetics are the culprit, or if it’s my food, my hormones, or what-not.

The strange thing is they always seem to congregate in one area. If I get a spot on my forehead, I’ll have half a dozen on its immediate vicinity by the next day. Right now, I’ve got about four on my right cheek. I look like a teenager, and not in a good way.

And as if things couldn’t get any worse, I’ve mysteriously grown a stye on my right eye. So today, not only am I trying to figure out how to get rid of pimples fast, I also need to know how to stop looking like a bug-eyed bug.

The right side of my face is all sorts of unpleasant right now, and I am indeed feeling sorry for myself. Worse, I have to go out today. So if you run into me and I’m looking distinctly woebegone, know that my face doesn’t normally look like a Cambodian minefield.

- Posted using BlogPress on Agrippa, the iPad

I downloaded Black Swan off torrent some months ago when people were still talking about it, but I never got around to watching it. When I saw that it was finally out in our local theaters today, I jumped at the chance to watch it with The Sister. Never mind that it’s a few months late.

I’m not going to write a review or anything since this movie has already been reviewed to death. The movie was sufficiently disturbing, however, so it behooves me to share my thoughts about it. (It seems that much of my blogging life has been spent looking for the perfect opportunity to use the word, ‘behoove’. This is one such opportunity. Yay, me!) Honestly, it wasn’t so much as a mindfuck; more like a mindrape. I actually felt violated!

And now, my thoughts:

1. Crazy mothers make crazier daughters. (I could name a couple, haha.)

2. No girl in her right mind would viciously bite Vincent Cassel while kissing. That scene was already quite telling of how Nina was just not quite right in the head, methinks.

3. Are ballerinas even allowed to sport tattoos, like Lily’s? I honestly have no clue.

4. As the credits rolled, I found myself wondering which scenes really happened and which ones didn’t. And I worried for my mental health.

5. The Sister thinks that the real cause of Nina’s loopiness must have been the lack of food and sex. I wholeheartedly agree.

The moral lesson of the story is: have a balanced diet, kids! It’s no use being one of those weight loss success stories if you’re just going to end up stark raving bonkers.

That, and frigidity will have you sprouting feathers. You have been warned.

- Posted using BlogPress on Agrippa, the iPad