Another perk of living in Japan is its proximity to other Asian countries. Growing up in CA, for a weekend trip, we would only really have the option to travel somewhere within the US, Canada or Mexico.
Last Wednesday was a public holiday in Japan and my boyfriend took a couple days off so we planned a quick 2 night trip to Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah, one of the 13 states in Malaysia. KK wasn't on our list of places to visit but after some research it seemed like a really interesting destination. They have beaches, jungles, animals, mountains, a city, and most importantly the food which is a mix of various Asian cuisines. What sealed the deal was a direct flight out of Haneda. SO convenient!
Will blog in detail but here is our trip in a nutshell...
Took a red eye and arrived around 6AM.
It's about a 5.5 hour flight there, 4.5 hour flight back. Not bad!
The city is about a 10-15 minute car ride from the airport, which is awesome.
Harbor adjacent to our hotel.
What we didn't know was that most of KK city is a landfill so they didn't have nice beaches that I'd envisioned. But, there are lots of islands nearby!
There is a large Muslim population so there were many mosques.
Went to Lok Kawi Wildlife Park.
Initially, we wanted to go to the Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary, and we knew it was on the Eastern side of Sabah but didn't realize that it was another flight or a 7.5 hour drive to get there. Definitely didn't have enough time for that but hopefully we can make another trip out to go there, Kinabalu National Park and Gomantong Caves.
Went to the Sabah State Museum & Heritage Village.
An enormous Bryde's Whale skeleton is displayed and it's impressive!
Day trip to Sapi Island.
Kota Kinabalu is famous for beautiful sunsets:
Day 1
This was after some rain so there were lots of clouds.
Day 2
Stunning!
We wrapped up our trip with food poisoning (both of us!) so although we had half a day before we flew out, we could barely move. Oh well, at least we were able to enjoy two full days there!
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