Sabah : Here I Come

I've bought the ticket to Kota Kinabalu since last May during Air Asia vs. MAS air fare war. With RM0 fare for MAS, the deal was too good to be true, so i bought. We were separated into a few flights whereby mine was the earliest at 4.00 am, Saturday. Others with Air Asia at 6.00 am, 12.30 pm and the last was at 9.00 pm with MAS. The flight went smoothly with MAS with a lot of empty seats.. which my Sabahan friends called it the 'mercy' flight :) But i had a different mission which was to conquer the Mount Kinabalu.. with my brother only.

This is the newly launch pre-pack hot food from MAS. I chose this mee siam with chicken which was marvelous. The flight was very smooth and for your information, one of my favourite if i fly is taking the sky & clouds photos which i find very unique. As we flew towards the sunrise, the scene from the above was so magical.

Kota Kinabalu beach lines started to visible from the darkness.

And finally the best sunrise of Sabah with the Mount Kinabalu background. . marvelous.

We touched down around 6.30 am with the beautiful sunrise.

This is the still under construction Kota Kinabalu Airport which MAS uses. Air Asia has other terminal at the other end of the airport.




As this is a backpacking trip, i stayed at this Akinabalu Youth Hostel which is situated at Jalan Gaya, in the middle of KK town. The location is perfect for budget travellers like me who treasure the authenticity of a place. Everything is in the walking distance which also allows us to explore the town intimately through people daily activities.

A glimpse of KK town from a stranger :)

The backpackers' area around Jalan Gaya, KK.

KK has an interesting pedestrian bridge networking which inter-connecting buildings while also shades people from shine or rain.

The place that we stay is only 5-10 minutes walking distance to the main market which is by the sea. My brother and i went around the town looking for extra climbing gears and also had our lunch. What i cannot stand with KK was the heat. It was so hot that Saturday without cloud and it was very hard for us to jalan-jalan. The only choice was keep ourselves shaded and air-conditioned inside the shopping malls.


At 3.00 pm, we managed to get a boat to the nearby Island of Mamutik for RM17.00 per person for a snorkeling escapade. Sadly, the corals are dying.. nothing much left.


After Mamutik & a short rest at the hostel, i joined Shah, Yazeed and their KK friend for a dinner at the back of the handicraft market which also known as 'Pasar Filipino'.

The bigger than palm size prawns ready to be purchased and grilled.

The all-time favourite of chicken wings.

Our dinner, 2 nos. of grill fishes plus other 2 nos. of big squids for RM100 with rice, that seaweed and some sort of pickled non-dried anchovies.

Unfortunately, i turned down our next activity with Shah, Yazeed, Ham & Hairi later for a late nite outing as i need to sleep early for my early checked out for the Mount Kinabalu climb. An uneasy feeling settled in me thinking about the climb.. emm..

Archidex 2008

This is the first time i joined the Datum Conference during the annual Archidex exhibition organized by Pertubuhan Akitek Malaysia (PAM). I represented my company with 2 other colleagues and my boss (of course he joined coz he paid for it!!) This Datum is actually a talk by famous architects all over the world namely USA, The Netherlands, Korea, China, Japan etc and also malaysia over 2 days period. Mostly they were all about their current works which i found very2 interesting.. and i managed not to sleep over the full days talks :) And the 'makan-makan' was good, served by KL Convention Centre catering..

The famous architects answering questions from participants.

The building that changed colours from this..

to this...

and also into this..

This is the Mercedes Benz's Museum in Germany seen from above..

The museum's elevation with interlocking facade of glass & concrete..

the interior of the museum.. marvelous!

A scaled model from a local firm, mimicking the sailing ships..

Some of the work exhibition from the firms.. some very interesting but some still very2 ordinary..

Guess.. where's this building?!!!?

More work exhibition by others..

This is the building products' exhibition held concurrently during the Archidex.. Anyway, it was fun to join these kind of events once in a while and met other fellow architects especially my coursemates who some i never met since graduated. Many are preparing to sit for the exam.. some doing well in firms and others choose to settle down with government agencies all over Malaysia. The event ignited some core questions about what my next step... emm :)

Bukit Tabur

I haven't been to any climbing quite sometime, but last weekend after going through my monthly hated client's board meeting presentation.. i gave a go to a friend's invitation. I was quite sceptical about the climbing after hearing past incidents, the multi-obstacles etc from my office mate who had been there before. But who cares.. i think i need to do it as a preparation for my big climbing.. so i did.

There were a few of us with my friend, a.k.a. the guy who did it 38 times plus kinabalu etc lead the team. We met at a Taman Melawati petrol station around 8.30 am saturday (usually i never wake up yet :)) and convoyed to the Klang Gate Dam entrance. We parked our cars, did some stretching, double checked our water bottles, snacks etc and started our climbing.

The beginning of the trail was challenging enough to put my breath short and fast until reaching the first tier within 10 minutes. It was 75 degree earth slope climbing, went through trees and bushes. My friend told us that there was once, one of his friend passed out at the first tier because not fit enough.

The dam after 20 minutes climb started to visible.

Ulu Klang Gate Dam visible from 1/4 of the trail after passing through a few stops.

One of my friend and I just arrived. My body was sweating all over and it was feeling good!

We reached down hill around 1.30pm after went through a mix adventure of trekking, rock climbing, abseiling, crawling etc of slopes ranging from 45 - 90 degree with gratefulness, satisfaction and proud. The last trek was descending through a fruit orchard and a rubber estate before entering the compound of a low rise apartment facing the hill.

To me, the main tip is to be extra careful as people tend to misjudge the nature. Some unfortunate miscalculation proved fatal for some cases especially when people slipped and fell from several storeys high rock cliff, which i recently knew happened to my good friend's uncle 6 years ago at the same place.

Nevertheless, it never discourage me from exploring the nature as the best lesson is always from the mother nature itself. My adventure and passion will definitely continue.

Ipoh, Tepeng & KK

On the last 31st May, i went to Ipoh for an officemates' wedding... It was jam on the way to ipoh but fortunately my buddy drove. I just be a gud co-pilot.. never slept, but the journey was fun with talks.. mostly office stuffs.

We went to Tambun Lost World.. I never been to any theme park for the last 10 years..

One of our friend lost his sanity... he he. Dont mad buddy..

We were all mad with ridings... & posing sakan!

These 2 kids was enjoying themselves... indeed!

After Lost World, with hunger.. we attacked a famous mee rebus restaurant in IPoh.

Even dare to make an appearance into a karaoke of an ipoh mali hang-out place. (the guy in red)

Ohh.. one unidentified still object.. he he. We sang until 3 a.m. Went back continue borak2 until 5 a.m.

The next day, we attended the Wedding of Fakhrul in Tepeng after woke up around 10 a.m. Selamat Pengantin Baru!

Some of the office mates were there did their one day trip all the way from KL.

Me, Zedan & Kerel

Kerol, Keri & Zafan

Stopped by the famous Tepeng Lake Garden.. very scenic :)

There were an indie band group doing there photography session..

An alma mater.. Proud of U!

Last but not least, we stopped by at this beautiful Masjid Ubudiah, Kuala Kangsar before heading to Ipoh and then back to KL. The jam was bad again & we arrived in KL around 1 a.m. after had dinner in Sg Buloh. There's already cakap2 to organise this kind of trip again.. monthly basis.. we'll see. I was thrilled & refreshed..