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.
We woke up early (by our standards) the next morning for a day of sun, sand, sea, soil, mud and fallen trees. First up was a visit to Kampung Air to get our RM30 pedals fitted so we can zip around town faster by wheel. Our next destination was Gaya Street which was conveniently round the corner. On weekends, there’s a bazaar going on with crowds and throngs of people (so we hear). The street was chill and relaxed on that Wednesday morning. We did notice a distinct lack of bicycles and the twists and turns probably make the streets unconducive for bicycles. I guess the manuverability of unicycles is an asset in this case…
We held an impromptu class at a coffee shop where students had to share a wheel. After all, the saying goes ‘If there’s a wheel, there’s a way’ right? I was told that they actually do sell unicycles in Kota Kinabalu except it’s the really lousy ones that no one really wants to buy. We pranced around in joy and happiness and Kee embraced the warmth of the sunshine before we headed off to the shore.
We had 10 seconds to pose for this photo after setting the timer and running back. Despite looking like he’s about to fall in the water, Kee really didn’t fall in. Nope, he didn’t even though in later pictures, he can be seen drenched. That’s because we went snorkelling. *wink wink*
The Tunku Abdul Rahman Park is a misnomer because it’s really a group of 5 islands that you can island-hop for a pretty low price. We paid RM89 in total for our journey with snorkel and fins. That’s pretty worthwhile for a whole day of fun in the sun.
This is the pier for Pulau Manutik in case you can’t see the text too clearly. We didn’t visit that island but I thought I’d lead you on and create some well-intentioned suspense. We went to Manukan instead where we swam with the fish. Now if you’ve never seen me swim, there’s good reason why not. This is probably the first time I’ve swam in the sea in 15 years so I figured to go sans the fins which I kept tripping over. While the sea wasn’t exactly clear, the waters were shallow enough in parts. I tried to hug some fish without success. We didn’t find any star fish to star jump with either.
I find it incredibly suspicious that all the cool-looking star jumps I did are missing and all the cool-looking star jumps that Kee’s done are all intact and looking spectacular. I didn’t bring any swim gear as you can probably tell so I jumped in, t-shirt and all. My clothes would later dry on me as we sit in the sun. But meanwhile…
…we found a jogging trail to unicycle on.
Stay tuned.