Saturday, 29 May 2010
We had to change rooms at the hotel today as we initially only booked for two nights, but due to flight availability will end up staying in KK for three nights, and our room is required by someone else. We packed our stuff, then headed out for breakfast; even though breakfast is offered at the hotel, Tracy decided she need some mee soup for brekky, so we walked back to our favourite kopitiam. We had coffees, Tracy had soup and Scott had a steamed bun.
The other day when walking near the waterfront, we spotted a free shuttle service to 1Borneo, the “largest lifestyle hypermarket” in Malaysia. We went back to the shuttle stop and tried to obtain a ticket, but the man at the counter said, in between songs on his mobile phone and the SMS messages, the next shuttle was full and we would have to wait an hour. Tracy decided she would have to bite the global-multinational bullet some time and we went to Starbucks for a very average coffee and some free Wi-Fi (complete with annoying multimedia popup advertising – Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf didn’t resort to these tricks).
It was nearly time for the next free shuttle so we left Starbucks and went to wait at the bus stand. For the 10:30 bus, you had to have a ticket, but for the 11:30 shuttle the man was not issuing tickets. When the bus arrived, everyone piled onboard; we got a seat, but one couple who had also been waiting just as long as us did not get a seat and therefore could not ride the bus. Had the man issued tickets, the entire situation could have been avoided, but that sort of organisation does not happen too much around here.
The shopping complex is about 7km out of this part of KK. On the way there, we passed several new multistorey housing developments, a beautiful masjid and the local university, which looked very impressive with a uniform building style and manicured gardens.
The shopping mall was a typical western-styled fiasco with thousands of shops; missing were of the “big” names noticed Tracy (referring to Prada, Gucci etc) but there were Esprit, French Connection, Adidas, Nike etc. We found a branch of the outdoor shop we were looking for last night and was very disappointed at their range; they advertise that they supply diving equipment but had only one Mares BCD in stock, one shorty wetsuit and one long wetsuit – that was it for diving gear! There wasn’t much else to look at and all the prices here were comparable to back home, so we waited a while and took the next shuttle back to our part of KK.
We went back to the hotel and checked into our new room. It is a dorm style room with two sets of bunk beds and a single, but we will be the only people staying in here tonight (allegedly). Regardless of the room, we took our siesta, showered and headed out just after sunset for dinner.
We went to the night market again, promising ourselves not to make the same expensive mistake from the previous night. We chose a 5-legs and sat at a table and waited for our dinners; Tracy had mee goreng vegetable, Scott had mee goreng ayam. After a little confusion with her drink order Tracy also got a soda; the whole lot for just under RM10. During our dinner we spotted the first beggar since we have been in country; a short time later another two came passed, but these guys were organised – the guy missing an arm was singing into a radio microphone, the other guy with the gammy leg was pushing around a sound system on a trolley (read iPod plugged into an amp and speaker) The music sounded particularly Chinese and there seemed to be a lot of people handing over money so we guessed the music and singing sounded OK to the locals too, we normally don’t give to beggars, but we convinced ourselves these guys were buskers instead of beggars.
After dinner we headed over to the dessert section of the night market to try the KK version of the dessert we became fond of in Sandakan. Here, the dough is a little sweeter (if that were possible) but the filling was not nearly as sweet as the jam filling in Sandakan; the risk of instantaneous stoke, heart attack or diabetes from this version was slightly reduced!
It’s a long weekend here, so we decided to check out what was happening along the waterfront bars. Last night we were musing over whether to “push the boat out” and go to the cigar lounge, but tonight decided a beer on the waterfront would suffice. We walked up and back, eventually settling at “The Loft” where they were celebrating the Harvest Festival long weekend by giving away free beer, and cocktails/rice wine for those who don’t drink beer. Tracy declined the alcohol, convinced there had to be a catch to the offer. Scott had two free beers. The catch came when the bill arrived for the soda-lime which Tracy ordered, RM9 for a glass of bubbly water! Anyway, Scott’s tiger beer was cold and wet, so the costs balanced nicely. We were very surprised at the lack of others not taking up the offer either – if this was in Australia, the doors would have been bursting, but the waitresses seemed to be struggling to give away the free drinks! Although we could have stayed longer, we have to fly tomorrow, so headed back to the hotel for an early-ish night.
