How bad was the air in Kota Kinabalu? It literally felt that I was walking around in a giant ashtray. It was hot, much hotter than Singapore, and hazy. The jungles are on fire and no one’s doing a damned thing.
Novotel was a fantastic hotel, albeit with an awful location. It’s a long ways away from town, located in a massive mall. The good thing was that the hotel is brand spanking new, so the rooms were lovely. The bad thing was that the mall was also brand spanking new, so there were many empty shop-fronts. Truly, my only complaint about the Novotel was the location. It was inconvenient to get to town (25RM taxi one way, or free hourly shuttle bus… which was meant for tourists, but used by locals, thus almost impossible to get a seat) and the surrounding area was not yet developed, so I could not take my morning walks to look for good local fare.
View from the room. You can see it’s pretty much surrounded by nothing. Right next door is the University, and opposite is the land awaiting development into a housing estate. I’m guessing the area will be properly decent in a few years, but right now, you’re better off staying in town.
We flew Jetstar and the flight was delayed by an hour. Which meant we arrived an hour late, which meant by the time we got to town, it was almost 5pm(we had to wait an extra hour for a shuttle bus as the previous ones were full), missing the Sunday market and other Sunday afternoon festivities. We took the free shuttle bus to town, grabbed a map and tried to make our way to the other end. Found this fresh market next to the docks. Pretty much like every other fresh market in asia, cept this one did not sell meat.
There were plenty of fresh fish. You can see the fishing boats right behind, so everything was catch of the day.
No raw meat on sale, but plenty of stuff on the grill. Yummy bits of chicken. Sadly, they didn’t sell chicken hearts. I developed a taste for them in
Koh Samui
Look familiar? Ah. The good stuff. Live squid thrown on a hot grill. (
Surigao)
Fire fire burn so high..... heh. Sorry, I can’t explain it if you don’t get it
Lovely fresh seafood. Not as good as in the philipines when they cook to order. There were rows of shops with BBQs going, with seafood on the grill. All the stuff was pre-made, and they would heat it up for you when you made your order. I wasn’t impressed.
Narrow walkways of the Philippine Market (yes, that’s what the place is called. They sell crafts and souvenirs)
Pasar Kraftangan.
Down the street from the market, you can find lanes of street vendors setting up shop (we took our walk about dinner time). This was one of the more interesting places. I think it was Nasi Lemak, packed in clear plastic bags. I know I extort the virtues of street food, but I am hesitant to try stuff that’s left out (especially in our climate). I am all for the streetside noodle vendor, since there is cooking involved, but I usually draw the line at pre-made cooked food left out on display.
A very common sign in KK. “Serve No Pork”. KK being more malay than Kuching (which has a larger Chinese population). I missed pork for the first 3 days of the trip.
The Sabah Tourism building. Due to our late arrival, the place was closed by the time we got there. Twas a pity as it contained a wealth of information and brochures that would’ve made our trip much better (we did manage to go in on day 3)
KK town is not very big. We basically walked from one end to the other within 30mins. This was Jesselton point, basically the ‘end’ of town. We got there just in time to see the sun set over the mountains. JP is a beautiful place. I really liked it. Wonderfully romantic. Strangely, no budding entrepreneur had thought to set up a restaurant by the dock.
Public toilets are not free in Malaysia, and they sure know how to advertise.
This is called Bak Kut Teh in Hokkien, literally translated to ‘Pork Rib Tea’. It’s not really tea, but it has the colour of tea as its brewed with a bunch of herbs and spices. This was literally the 2nd best bowl of BKT I’ve had in my life (the best bowl belonging to an out-of-the-way shop in Ipoh). I would fly back to KK JUST to have this soup.
For those of you who happen to visit KK. The BKT shop is located along Jalan Gaya, directly opposite Jesselton Hotel. There are several coffeeshops selling BKT along this stretch, but I assure you, this is the best one.
How bad was the air in Kota Kinabalu? It literally felt that I was walking around in a giant ashtray. It was hot, much hotter than Singapore, and hazy. The jungles are on fire and no one’s doing a damned thing.
Novotel was a fantastic hotel, albeit with an awful location. It’s a long ways away from town, located in a massive mall. The good thing was that the hotel is brand spanking new, so the rooms were lovely. The bad thing was that the mall was also brand spanking new, so there were many empty shop-fronts. Truly, my only complaint about the Novotel was the location. It was inconvenient to get to town (25RM taxi one way, or free hourly shuttle bus… which was meant for tourists, but used by locals, thus almost impossible to get a seat) and the surrounding area was not yet developed, so I could not take my morning walks to look for good local fare.
View from the room. You can see it’s pretty much surrounded by nothing. Right next door is the University, and opposite is the land awaiting development into a housing estate. I’m guessing the area will be properly decent in a few years, but right now, you’re better off staying in town.
We flew Jetstar and the flight was delayed by an hour. Which meant we arrived an hour late, which meant by the time we got to town, it was almost 5pm(we had to wait an extra hour for a shuttle bus as the previous ones were full), missing the Sunday market and other Sunday afternoon festivities. We took the free shuttle bus to town, grabbed a map and tried to make our way to the other end. Found this fresh market next to the docks. Pretty much like every other fresh market in asia, cept this one did not sell meat.
There were plenty of fresh fish. You can see the fishing boats right behind, so everything was catch of the day.
No raw meat on sale, but plenty of stuff on the grill. Yummy bits of chicken. Sadly, they didn’t sell chicken hearts. I developed a taste for them in Koh Samui
Fire fire burn so high..... heh. Sorry, I can’t explain it if you don’t get it
Lovely fresh seafood. Not as good as in the philipines when they cook to order. There were rows of shops with BBQs going, with seafood on the grill. All the stuff was pre-made, and they would heat it up for you when you made your order. I wasn’t impressed.
Narrow walkways of the Philippine Market (yes, that’s what the place is called. They sell crafts and souvenirs)
Pasar Kraftangan.
Down the street from the market, you can find lanes of street vendors setting up shop (we took our walk about dinner time). This was one of the more interesting places. I think it was Nasi Lemak, packed in clear plastic bags. I know I extort the virtues of street food, but I am hesitant to try stuff that’s left out (especially in our climate). I am all for the streetside noodle vendor, since there is cooking involved, but I usually draw the line at pre-made cooked food left out on display.
A very common sign in KK. “Serve No Pork”. KK being more malay than Kuching (which has a larger Chinese population). I missed pork for the first 3 days of the trip.
The Sabah Tourism building. Due to our late arrival, the place was closed by the time we got there. Twas a pity as it contained a wealth of information and brochures that would’ve made our trip much better (we did manage to go in on day 3)
KK town is not very big. We basically walked from one end to the other within 30mins. This was Jesselton point, basically the ‘end’ of town. We got there just in time to see the sun set over the mountains. JP is a beautiful place. I really liked it. Wonderfully romantic. Strangely, no budding entrepreneur had thought to set up a restaurant by the dock.
Public toilets are not free in Malaysia, and they sure know how to advertise.
This is called Bak Kut Teh in Hokkien, literally translated to ‘Pork Rib Tea’. It’s not really tea, but it has the colour of tea as its brewed with a bunch of herbs and spices. This was literally the 2nd best bowl of BKT I’ve had in my life (the best bowl belonging to an out-of-the-way shop in Ipoh). I would fly back to KK JUST to have this soup.
For those of you who happen to visit KK. The BKT shop is located along Jalan Gaya, directly opposite Jesselton Hotel. There are several coffeeshops selling BKT along this stretch, but I assure you, this is the best one.
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