Abah and I were in Kota Kinabalu last weekend. The tickets were bought/redeemed back in November in an attempt to move on with life without Mummy. I had some Enrich points that would expire and decided to redeem those for Abah’s outbound ticket.
We took the Saturday noon flight out of KL and landed at a quarter to 3. It was an overcast afternoon when we landed. Check-in was a breeze and we had a room at the fifth floor at the Magellan Sutera Resort that overlooked the sea and islands beyond. Lovely, simply lovely. Mummy would have loved it there. In fact, we also stayed there on our first visit together.
We took the hotel shuttle to the city centre for dinner and dad returned back to the hotel alone. I stayed behind to explore Wisma Merdeka and Suria Sabah - and ended up spending... #*~#_)%! Oh well...
We took the morning shuttle to the city on Sunday morning (Mummy’s birthday) and I explored Gaya Street Market alone. Abah didn’t want to. Wise decision too as it was hot and humid there. Met up Aud at Wisma Merdeka. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a long chat as she had a working lunch (yes, on a Sunday!) and I didn’t want to keep Abah waiting. We returned back after 2 pm and had a nice nap.
We went out for dinner after 6 pm but returned back shortly after as dad forgot his wallet. For a while, I did wonder if he was pick-pocketed but I doubt the good people of KK would do anything like that. I once left my travel bracelet in the prayer room at KK International Airport and when I returned back to the prayer room a few days later, it was still there! And true enough, he left his wallet behind.
Two complaints about the hotel room/facility: 1. Why couldn’t they provide a nice huge flat-screen TV in the room?? All the better to watch TV with. Even a modest hotel in Vietnam provides this! 2. No ESPN channel. Simply unbelievable. Unforgivable.
We took the hotel shuttle again on Monday morning and went to the dried seafood market to buy some food stuff. We also popped into the Filipino market next door for oh perhaps 30 minutes tops to get some souvenirs. I then took the shuttle back to the hotel to deposit our purchases before returning to the city. We had lunch and dad went back to the hotel.
I was also toying with some other beauty services but finally decided I’d better go back before dad started getting worried.
Dinner was had at CentrePoint.
We went down for a late breakfast on Tuesday and stayed in the room after that, resting and reading. I spent the morning (and the day before too actually) reading about the takeover of Arsenal shares by Stan Kroenke. We left after prayers and checked out just before 1 pm. SK and Alice came to pick us up and send us to the airport. They waited at Pacific Sutera Hotel instead and only realised they were at the wrong hotel after waiting some time. Met up baby Irfan too, a new Gooner (because his dad is one!) born 2 February 2011.
Our Firefly flight from KL was late in arriving (yes, I bought Firefly tickets for the flight home. They cost only 1 sen each when I bought them!) so we only took off at 1610 (incidentally, this was the time on my ticket but not the time displayed at the airport). We landed at KLIA at 1845 and took the KLIA Transit train to Putrajaya where Akak waited for us.
I survived a trip with Abah! (Or is it the other way round: he survived a trip with fussy moody me?!)
Arsenal travelled to Bloomfield Road on Sunday. I was reduced to switching between Twitter, BBC Live Text and Arseblog to find out the score. Mad Jens ‘Abang Leman’ was in goal for Almunia (he told referee Lee Mason ‘You have to protect pensioners’). We scored two great goals in the first half. Early in the second half, we conceded a goal then RvP wrapped up the points for Arsenal. My baby (love his look!) didn’t let his accident earlier in the week affect him and put in a man-of-the match performance ;’) Our title hopes are still alive but only just.
He’s bad. He’s mad. And he’s back!
Theo van Nasregas. The way it should be. And how nicely appropriate it is that they were snapped in that order
I woke up at a quarter to 5 to watch the Malaysian GP. Lewis Hamilton was comfortably in second place until that blinking idiot made contact with his car. I was so pissed with the stupid bloated pompous asshole. Anyway, Jenson Button made second place so all was not lost to McLaren.
I was toying between a massage and blood cupping and finally opted for the latter. There is one centre in Wisma Merdeka that provides this, run by some Kadazan Dusun ladies. They told me they used needles instead of razors. It costs RM10 per bottle. The ladies were nice and went about their business quietly unlike my previous first experience. Y’know, I’m tempted to try out acupuncture one fine day. I just don’t see too many places offering that service at the moment.
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He’s bad. He’s mad. And he’s back! 
Theo van Nasregas. The way it should be. And how nicely appropriate it is that they were snapped in that order
So hopefully the grief borne over the past few weeks is gone now. But perhaps not. For Arsenal director, Danny Fiszman, passed away last night after losing in his battle against cancer, just three days after selling his stake in Arsenal to Stan Kroenke. Requiescat in pace.
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Anyway, I just discovered this today: my favourite King Arthur, Bradley James, is a Gooner!!! Fancy that!
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