Vacation Day Two: Kota Kinabalu

The second day we took it easy, having gone on something of a bender the night before. We decided it would be “Get organized for the mountain hike and relax” day; and that we did. It turns out that hiking up Mt. Kinabalu is a popular activity, and we were lucky that they allowed us to book accommodation even though they were full at the mountain. You need to have a room booked in order to get a climbing permit, and they sold us beds on the floor of the kitchen so that we could do the hike.

We went to the beach in KK, which is easily accessed by taxi and probably also on foot. It is a very long expanse of clean, white sand with hardly any people around. The water is a bit dirty- some garbage and grunge- but otherwise it was a great place to sleep off the previous night’s activities.
Ryan and Ryan are into dressing up; this trip was no exception. They brought along pirate swag (for whatever reason) and this ‘medallion’ became the trip mascot, christened Moby and treated with the utmost care.

That evening we went to Little Italy, an Italian restaurant that we enjoyed quite a bit (enough to return to later in our trip). The food was great: Alisa ordered a calzone and, in preparation for the long hike ahead, ate the whole thing. It was incredible.
We turned in earlier that night with dreams of mountains dancing in our heads…
Until next time,
Heather