theCollectiveUs

We were supposed to do these star jumps. Which were fun on most counts. Here’s a behind the scenes look. There’s one more here.

And then we got lazy. So hey, if you squint you’ll just think we’re really tiny people.

Oh yea, we did mention souvenirs. I’ve got a spare pair of pedals. Actually 2 pairs. ANYONE WANTS THEM?

And back to the program.

Here’s a family from China who was walking behind us. Mom tells her kids that she can unicycle so I turned around and said she can have a go.

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As part of the JetSaver Challenge, we had to come up with a list of 5 activities to go wild over in Kota Kinabalu for a total cost of RM120. For the record, my luggage consisted a 6kg unicycle, 1kg of clothes and necessities and 3kg of cameras, tripod and equipment to fix up my unicycle. It’s a blessing I naturally smell of roses and lavender.

Top of the list was a visit to the Central Market. In retrospect, it wasn’t a good idea visiting after the seafood dinner because the BBQ fish and wings were no longer enticing. Snake fruit was probably off season so we settled on the next best thing – rambutans which, if you squint, could look exotic. Well, more exotic than mangosteen in any case – what kind of a name is mangosteen anyway?? They cost RM3 for a kg and we felt happy about having more money to squander on useless pursuits.

Apparently there was an earthquake in the region that night except neither of us felt it.

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Alright. Let’s talk about Kota Kinabalu. Contrary to popular belief, it did involve more than our scampering around looking for bicycle shops. Yes, we had time to wander the streets too.

We were housed at the Imperial International Kota Kinabalu which was located smack in the heart of town. We thought hard about what to do on a glorious sunny afternoon before spending the next couple of hours playing with the stuffed Proboscis Monkey that comes in our welcome kit. Here he is spotting a combover.

I’ve actually seen one of these up close and I assure you, the nose is no exaggeration. No, I didn’t feel an unnatural urge to honk it.

Because we’re Singaporean, the next thing we did after getting our act together was to feel hungry. And because we’re Singaporean, we had to hunt down a Kentucky Fried Chicken to get our arteries clogged. The chicken was a little dry but it wasn’t too bad.

Click to read more. It does get better – I don’t talk about monkeys anymore!

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So in case you’ve just joined us (I mean me really. I’m writing with the collective ‘us’ only to make my opinions sound more justified.) and haven’t heard what’s happened, the story so far goes like this. Me and Kee headed to Kota Kinabalu courtesy of Jetstar Asia after winning a spot on the JetSaver Challenge.

The Challenge involved many big words which I don’t understand but my speed reading abilities tell me that it means a free trip with most expenses paid with the condition that we’re only allowed carry-on baggage.

I carry my unicycle a lot of places. So we brought a unicycle each to Kota Kinabalu. And that’s when the interesting bit begins.

We had an offroad unicycle and a pretty little thing meant for flat smooth grounds. Kee didn’t have a wrench so he couldn’t get the pedals off the offroad uni while I can’t get the pedals off the other unicycle because its owner has arm strength like that of a man with strong arms. He tells me he’s only hand-tightened the pedals. Incidentally, after Kee got the pedals off the offroad uni at the airport, I ended up doing this to the wrench on the hand-tightened one.

Between marvelling at said friend’s Hulk abilities at the hotel room on reaching Kota Kinabalu, we then find out that Kee’s left my pedals at the Singapore airport. Which meant we’ve got 1 offroad unicycle without pedals, 1 pretty dainty unicycle with unremoveable pedals and oh right, no wrench.

We started looking for a bike shop.

Yes, we were there. Thrice. Each time we asked someone, we were told there’s a bike shop there but we couldn’t find any for the next 2 hours. Then we found it.

We bought pedals, the only type they have. We went back to the hotel. They didn’t fit. I’ve never seen pedal screws of a different size in my life. It’s almost as fascinating as finding out one day that regular people have 5 toes on each foot when we all know that 6 is the magic number.

You all have 6 toes on each foot too right?

Good.

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Day 2. The amazingly helpful guide, Gin, told us about this shop that’s on the EXACT same street that we’ve combed twice before. In case you’ve forgotten, it’s here.

Yup.

Then we found it.

It’s right beside another bike shop which none of us saw the day before as well.

They didn’t have plastic platform ones so I got some pimpin’ magenta ones with spikes.

Here I am tightening the seat that Kee’s left loose so that I can roleplay a favorite food.

No, I don’t really like kebabs that much but it sounds more poetic that way.

Let’s not get into details like what the context of that statement is. Details, schmetails.

Greetings to all you people who’ve found this site by searching on Google for ‘monster anus’. I’m unfortunately not the biggest asshole around but hey, since you’re here…

Kee and I are back from Kota Kinabalu and I have to say that this is possibly the least tiring trip I’ve taken in the last 2 years. In between the tongkat ali drinks, I found time to levitate.

I’ll post more over the weekend I think. But for now, Fable II beckons.

I learnt that in one of those ‘How to Annoy Your Fellow Humankind’ classes they had back in university. If memory serves correctly, it was the class between lunch and the tutorial with know-it-all scholars. But I digress.

Kee and I got free trips to Kota Kinabalu next Tuesday courtesy of Jetstar and my promises of high adventure. We’d be flying on JetSaver Light tickets which means carry-on luggage only. My family has a grand history of being able to squeeze elephants into mouseholes though and I hope that genetics will pay off. In recent times, my mom had managed to squeeze my 29″ unicycle into a 24″ iMac box – I couldn’t put it back after – and here’s how my luggage looked like on that recent trip to Hong Kong where I had to lug all these things everywhere in Macau.

In the picture above, I had somehow managed to squeeze in my clothes, DSLR camera, a film cam, tools, an air pump and my slingbag (the black thing in the pic) in my backpack. This time I’d probably bring half of those clothes and ditch the DSLR and sling bag. We’ll see.

Accomodation will be paid for too and I’m hoping we’d get separate rooms so I can bring one less set of clothes.

You hope I’m joking.