The trip to Sabah

Like all my other Chinese New Year, I never take any time off besides the public hols. The reason? It’s the peak.

This time, luckily (An outstation engagement to East Malaysia! Yay!), or perhaps, unluckily (It’s Chinese New Year! =.=), I spent most of the Lunar New Year away from my family, and friends.
I had an engagement outstation, for 10 good days.

Started work on the 4th day of CNY, and flew off to Sabah that very evening.
We were checked into Cititel Express, and frankly, that was the first time I see ONE SINGLE bed room.
The room was really tiny, as big as a pigeon hole really, but it was clean, and had a contemporary look, which goes well with me, except when we had to work in the hotel.. I was getting back pain from that really.

Let me illustrate on the size of the room, which one could walk from one end to another in less than 10 steps:
Walk in, and this is what you see:

The erm…misc table and the tv.
That’s no make up table, for there were no mirror on the wall, and no study, because there’s no study lamp whatsoever.

The washroom on the left.
The washroom was surprisingly of decent size though.

Walk further in, and you get the tv…

….and the bed.The end.

That shows how big the room is really.

And everyday, we have our breakfast in some “kopitiam” style shop:

I had toast bread with kaya and butter almost everyday, that I SWEAR no more “Char Chan Teng” for me for the next 3 months!!

But really, the place doesn’t feel like Malaysia, for whatever reasons.
Perhaps the mix of cultures are slightly different there, or perhaps their Malay slang is slightly different.
But I liked the place. People were generally more relaxed and friendly, and soft-spoken.
Life was just at a slower pace, and of course, the downside is, less developed.
Sadly, that was not applicable to us. We still worked hard, due to the tight deadlines.
We worked even on the Saturday, 9am – 5pm.
But the client was nice enough to bring us around after that. Visited Sutera Harbour after that.

Taken with my colleague. Bleh, I feel so short standing next to him, really.
This poor lucky dude has been with me since he joined the firm, and we reckon we see each other more than we do with our parents, which is pretty sad, really.

Took Sunday off to walk around Kota Kinabalu a lil, and settled down for a good dinner at the Waterfront…
And I gotta say the ambience was very nice. Very relaxing.

Steamed prawns, the best way to cook fresh seafood, if anyone asks me.

And we even managed to see the sunset by the sea

But since then, it has been total madness.
Thank god, most things turned out alright in the end.

Finally came home yesterday, and slept for a good 12 hours last night to compensate my lack of sleep.

And now, I’m just savouring my mom’s cooking (I nearly fell sick from all the fried food), and the final 2 days of Chinese New Year.

Happy Chinese New Year (still) everyone.
Now let’s throw some Mandarin oranges!
=D