Today we returned to Kota Kinabalu, though our last visit was the brief one hour stop on our way to Sandakan. The Versly were en route by boat then taxi to the airport, whereas we had just a short cab ride. We got to the airport and who did we park right behind? The Versly! Ok, not as much as a coincidence as running into Kylie and Andrew throughout Southeast Asia in 1997, but pretty funny.
We celebrated our reunion with a round of Teh Tarik (basically a sweet milk tea with a touch of spice aftertaste), which is fast becoming the adults go-to after, before and in-between meal drink! I know, it's non alcoholic... Isn't that weird?
The predictable shot of our plane - our 14th flight of the trip I think....
We got to our apartment in KK, eventually figured out how to get up to the actual unit (it's a managed apartment unit, similar to the one we had in Kuching, but with no concierge or breakfast), and began to explore. The apartment is two floors, with five bedrooms, 9 beds, 3 full bathrooms, a huge kitchen, living and dining area... Perfect!
It was a rainy day, and we didn't really have anything planned (we didn't get settled until about 1pm). We headed across the road to a huge mall (this city is the second biggest city in Malaysia) in search of lunch. I won't say what some Preferred for the mId-day, Zany lunch in the Zoo like mAll, but let's just say tHe bUnch of parenTs were not proud.... You can read between the lines, or letters, I guess...
We proceeded to totally Mall-Out.... Kids in massage chairs....
Dads enjoying Starbucks....
Ladies shopping (ok, I missed taking a picture of their initial foray into regular sized, athletic looking stores, and tricked them into posing for this shot at this store....)...
We even gave the kids the opportunity to see and even race elephants....Eat your heart out Yankee-lion-killing-redneck-dentist...
Next up, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation of course (note: Probir, we peer pressured Beth to come, and she slept for about 45 minutes in the middle... Weird because it's present day, no flashbacks, no hobbits, no superheroes, no CGI... Weird).
After the movie, we went to the basement for our last two stops of the evening... Supplies and dinner. The grocery stores in Malaysia so far have been a bit odd.... Just the mix of products and where they are located doesn't seem to fit any of the 4P's of retail marketing at all.... We ended up getting half the stuff we wanted and headed to dinner. Here are the four musketeers following the biggest kid in our group:
We went to the place we saw across from the lunch spot mentioned in code above that we should have gone for lunch. It was a typical Indian-Malay place set out like a buffet. The owners were the typical Indians you seem to find at these places - really friendly and super helpful. We got a whack of biryani with roasted chicken, roti canai, baked curried fish, beef curry, baked tandoori chicken, cucumber vinegar salad and stir fried greens. So good. We took everything back to the apartment and the girls went out to round out our supplies (beer, beer and bread!).
The kids went down to the pool - it's huge! The whole apartment setup is so great.
We managed to get a beer or two in while closely supervising the kids, though when Abby slipped and fell on the pool deck, we felt we were too far away to prevent the accident (almost 4 feet away, with perhaps our backs turned to use the lamp light to more effectively take a beer selfie for the Norseman Project). Seriously though, after Matt and Robin slipped and fell on wet tiles at the airport and Abby slipped on the super slick tiles at the pool, I think I'm going to sell Alex as a safety consultant to these places - he was saying at the YMCA they would always use 1x1 tiles with grit on heavy traffic and potentially wet surface areas.... Come on Malaysia!
Dinner was predictably fantastic - we will be going back there. It completely followed the rules of eat at busy local places... Great food and super cheap.
So we don't have a firm schedule for our remaining five full days and the ladies have a "high level of energy and quasi-positive energy regarding the firmed up schedule or lack thereof".... If you know what I mean.... We've only booked a half day train ride on Wednesday, and a spa for the ladies last birthday present onTuesday afternoon (Kim, can Alex please please go to Antman with the other 5 kids while you're in the spa?), but we have a ton of other options and plenty of time to organize them. Alex and I are very confident that everything will work out.... Perhaps he and I should take a six month trip together some time! :-)
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