precious.

so..
instead of wasting my time,
sitting and moping around,
while repeatedly listening to
'BREAKEVEN' by the script, or
'ALREADY GONE' by kelly clarkson,
and layan-ing my depressed soul,
.............
i actually
(with help of some very good buddies, god  bless them)
managed to haul my ass off to a 1-week vacation in SABAH.
(yep..after 19 years of living in malaysia, i finally set foot on the non-semenanjung part..!)


and i must say,
it did me a lot of good!
just the perfect remedy,
exactly what i needed to take my mind off stuff.
(thanx to GUNA and her sis, for planning and arranging everything, although it was kind of a last minute decision.. hehe.. but hey, evrything worked out just fine and we had an awesome time and that's what matters.)


anyways,
i certainly won't bore u with all the minute details of our time there.
but certain happenings i just wanna jot down here,
for the sake of having a good laugh while reminiscing my past history, later on in life.

- we went to a place called PORING, which consists of:
+ various pools. (which you have to fill up by yourself and actually wait for the water to fill up the pool... it's kinda like taking a bath in my grandma's "kolah air" kat kampung dulu...huhu)

+ hot water springs, which unfortunately were closed on the day we went.
+ a waterfall, with icy cold waterrrrrrrr....brrrrrr..
+ a picnic spot.
+ a canopy walkway.
i must say, the canopy walkway was the most eventful.
huhu.
firstly, we thought we were being so smart
when we decided to keep all our valuable stuff
(including our wallets) in the car.
and so we were confidently marching towards the waterfall,
and we passed the canopy walk counter on the way,
and someone pointed out that we had to actually buy tickets to enter.
everyone was so excited to reach the waterfall,
so we merely shrugged it off and
decided to deal with it later.
after freezing our butts off at the waterfall,
we approached the counter for the canopy walk.
i was busy chatting with an old school friend, ajai.
(whom i stumbled upon here, of all places!!)
so the rest went to take care of the tickets.
then i heard some commotion at the ticket counter,
which went sumthing like this.

"alamak pakcik,
kitorang tak bawak wallet la...

tertinggal dalam kereta.
tapi kitorang ade sket la duit.
ni ha ade 12 ringgit je,
tak cukup 3 ringgit la pakcik.
tolong la pakcik..
kitorang datang dari jauh ni.."

since things were getting interesting,
i hurriedly said bubbye to ajai
and joined the others.
so in the end,
we actually succeded in getting the tickets!!
hehe.
i guess their puppy faces worked la.
coz the pakcik finally agreed to let us
purchase 3 adult tickets and
2 children tickets.
hehe. gud work, gurls!!

then came the ticket collector at the entry site.

crap!

we were praying so hard

that he wouldn't check the tickets one by one and make a big fuss.

and again, luck was on our side.
so we happily trudged on through the canopy walkway.

while illegally snapping photos with full of caution.
(as i mentioned, we didn't even have money to pay for the tickets,

so how on earth were we gonna pay for the extra charge they had set for cameras???)

nway,
we arrived at the end of the walkway,
and again there was a guy there.
dammit!
he immediately asked for our tickets.
crapcrapcrap!!
i just knew rite then,
he must have caught us in the act while we
were too busy trying out various poses on the walkway!!
and i was rite.
he checked our tickets one by one,
and suddenly whipped out a booklet
(which reminded me of a policeman about to give us a saman):

"kamu ada bayar tak untuk camera tadi?"
".....(a moment of awkward silence)....."

"pakcik, maaf la, kitorang tak bawak duit!! tengok tu tiket tu, sebab tu kitorang terpaksa beli tiket kanak-kanak.."

the pakcik started smiling,
and replaced the 'saman' book in his pocket,
and said sumthing about letting us off this time blablablabla.
thank god he didn't decide to delete the photos we took!
OMG!!!
again we were lucky.
so malu-fying, though!
never have i ever had the experience of
begging for tickets on vacations before this!!
hahaha...gud and fun experience though.


------------


gosh.
we then realised sumthing.
it just seems that things are oweys happening here,
which repeatedly prove that
the people of sabah are really very nice!


------------


- another thing that got us all excited,
was of course island-hopping
and SNORKELLING!!!!

initially, after listening to the stories of our friends,
who we bumped into at the airport.
(each one of 'em looking well-tanned, and one even looked like a roasted lobster! hehehe)
we couldn't understand how they could spend hours doing nothing but snorkelling!!


but later, we totally understood and followed in their footsteps too.
i guess we were hyped coz it was a first-time experience,
plus we had a bunch of great teachers!!
- mr. joseph ( who actually dragged me out to sea without a life jacket just to prove that i could do it. plus, he said i have abnormal facial structure and my cheeks were too tembam, when i complained that water kept entering my goggles and nose-piece!!! hey, i can't help having high cheekbones and plump squeezable cheeks! muahahahahaha )
- adib ( who taught me a lot, and repeatedly teased me for not being able to float on my back )
- helmy ( who i found to be a really mysteriously intriguing guy! i guess i have a thing for mysterious guys. hoho. plus, he has a chain with a 'H' pendant on it, just like i do! sigh...it's been so long since i had silly little crushes like this. plus, gunavathy was layan-ing me!* crap. which reminds me of a snippet of a conversation we had in the car..

 

" weh fru...
ko boifren mlayu, cina, india sume dah pernah ade.
tanak add a sabah to your collection ke?"

nway,
i didn't even care that my skin was
looking more and more like a golliwog's.
the hours just seemed to fly by.
and suddenly it started to rain,
and we were forced to go back after visiting only 2 islands.

sigh.
that was sad.
plus we totally forgot about the water sports,
we were that engrossed in looking for fishies and coral reef.
well nvm,
i will definitely go snorkelling again in the future, that's for sure!!

 (p/s: we even had our own BAYWATCH moment, ockay! though that will not be discussed here, to avoid embarassment to a certain individual.)

----------------


- before i pen off,
i'd just like to mention a place totally worth visiting in sabah.
TIP OF BORNEO was damn awesome!
it definitely was worth the bumpy bumpy bumpy bumpy journey!!
such a gorgeously breathtaking view...
i daresay,
if given the opportunity,
i wouldn't mind just spreading out a rug and chilling there,
and just sit & stare at the view for a whole day.

-----------------

ockay,
i guess that's enuff babbling.
so, in a nutshell,
SABAH WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!


though i never thought i'd actually take a vacation there,
i'm certainly glad i did..
and i will definitely come again.

just to quote a famous phrase of a friend of mine,
DR. HISHAM,
(who we all declared as the most excited of the bunch of guys)
anyone who received an SMS from him would have this phrase in it:

"SABAH BEST WOOO!!!!!!"

i agree, hisham.
and i couldn't have put in any other better way!

(^_^)