Kota Kinabalu, Sabah Borneo

Hello! Sorry for the delay in posting! I had written something about 3 days ago while we were still in KK, but it was on my itouch and as soon as I tried posting it, the internet went out and deleted everything! So now you may just get highlights from the last few days. We arrived in KK on Sunday and my big plan of attack was to find a diving outfitter and set up two dives for the following day, then ask them for recommendations on where to stay. Lonely Planet only had one recommended dive place, so we had our taxi driver head there. When we got to the building, we were told that because it was Sunday, the office was closed. I felt completely defeated and unsure as to what to do next. Brent, being the more level headed of the bunch, went next door to the cafe and started filling up his plate with breakfast (which in Malaysia is noodles, dim sum, and more noodles) and iced coffee. It was perfect. We sat down and tried figuring out what to do with the predicament at hand, but these guide books here are quite worthless. So, we started walking toward the jetty, figuring we should be able to find other diving outfitters near the water. We were in luck because Brent spotted a PADI sign a mile away and the people were open! We were talked into diving in the marine park, just 15 minutes away on boat from KK for three dives since it would take an incredible amount of time to get anywhere further. The lady at the dive shop, a Chinese woman named Peggy, was a very sarcastic yet amazingly knowledgeable woman. Brent made the mistake of asking her when Muslims came to Malaysia, which launched her into an hour long history lesson...most of it quite entertaining (and I think true). She then pointed us in the direction of some cheaper hotel options and gave us instructions on which islands to visit for snorkeling that day. After a bit of time on the internet due to the hotels being fully booked, we finally found one, dropped off our luggage and headed back towards the jetty. We were able to secure a boat to one of the islands and with all our snorkeling gear in hand...we were ready to get lost on the beach somewhere....until we landed on the island and found this we had the same idea as the rest of Asia (literally). The island was jam-packed with Asian tourists and there was barely any room on land or water. The best part about it was watching the people in the water snorkeling with life jackets on (the water was maybe 5 feet deep max). We still decided to go for it, found a nice plot of sand and got in the water. The snorkeling was less than ideal, what fish would want to hang around with so many people? But we saw a few monitor lizards and had a really great noodle dish while out there. We stayed until nearly sunset and then took the last ferry back into town. Once in town we headed for the waterfront esplanade and shared a cocktail while watching the sun set. It was still a nice, albeit crowded day! We decided to head to bed somewhat early that night since we had an early morning of diving, but I was woken up at 3am to a very bright light shining on me and no A/C...the power had gone out. Brent of course slept through the entire thing and didn't wake up until we had to leave for diving due to being just a little too hot. I couldn't sleep a wink. We went back to the cafe we had discovered the day before for breakfast because it was so delicious, just to find out that they didn't have power either! The whole city was operating on candles and making it seem effortless. Once we got to the dive shop Peggy told us these power outages used to happen every day and there was no telling when it would go back on, we were lucky because it went back on just a few minutes later :) The diving was pretty average and the coral reef feels as though it gets a lot of visitors. We were lucky enough to see two turtles and some smaller fish that Brent and I had never seen before. We aren't sure on their names, but we saw: 2 puffer fish, blue box fish, bat fish, swimming sea palms (?), spotted sweet lips fish (?), lion fish, parrot fish, clown fish etc. etc. We also met a German bloke about our age and an older Aussie gentleman. We decided to catch a beer with them after the dive and heard some great stories from the Aussie gentleman about his hitchiking days in Australia and nearly getting put in prison while in Indonesia! Once done with the beer we headed back towards our original hotel to pick up our bags...we had decided to upgrade to a nicer hotel for our second night, and walked with the German guy back towards the hotel since he was staying at a hostel near this new place. Although not exactly in town like they claimed, it was still a nice place and we ended up just hanging out by their pool the next day before we had to head out to Clark (Manila) later that evening. More to come later this evening about our trip to Manila and all the joys of the city (kidding). We are now in Bohol and I'll update after we eat, Brent is breathing down my neck to finish up so we can have dinner :)