Swordie Bloggie

During my last week Journey Around Sabah, I stayed a night at Ranau… Kundasang to be exact. Kundasang has many resorts surrounding it since it is where National Park is… and Mount Kinabalu. As far as I know, there is only one hotel there… a good hotel with Stars I mean. It is the Perkasa Hotel… probably with 3 or 4 Stars. I stayed there before many many years back… and/but I’m dying to stay at Kinabalu Pine Resort… so Kinabalu Pine Resort we stayed on the night of 23 October 2008.

Hotel Perkasa and Kinabalu Pine Resort has the best view of Mount Kinabalu… One reason I choose Kinabalu Pine Resort this time. But unfortunately, it is raining season and the clouds are so thick till can’t see the face of Mount Kinabalu. I will review Pine Resort next time. But to tell you the truth, I was dissatisfied with the amount I paid to enjoy a 2 Stars Resort… it was too expensive compared to the quality of 2 Star they gave…

To start with, the room has no air-con but a standing fan (because it is next to the highest  mountain in South East Asia), no in-room phone (meaning you have to walk to the reception if you need anything or you can use your cell phone), 2 lousy TV channels, no comforter only blanket (I’m not asking for electric blanket OK, Kundasang is not cold anymore, I can walk around half naked without feeling cold there), small and thin towels… all for RM202… but every year they get awards, wonder how?

It’s so interesting how much plastic has changed our life… not only plastic but any type of plastic. Before, our water pipes are made from metal, but today they are made of plastic… or PVC to be exact and they are much flexible. Our plates are made of glassware or stoneware before, but today they are made of plastic and very durable… or even worse made from melamine! YES, melamine which become the hit news recently when thousands of babies in China contracted with kidney failure or kidney stone!… sad, sad sad… 🙁

OK that was bad news… but there is good news. Plastic also make our life easier and gave us maintenance free at some stage. Look at the fencing around your house… if you have any fencing lah… If you do, I’m sure they are either made of metals or woods or even bamboo, and they do look beautiful 😀 but can get rusty or rotten 🙁

And it’s hard to install and maintain these stuff right?… well it is true. But come plastic and they will turn our work simpler… ok lah… PVC to be exact… Do you know that there is pvc fence you can buy around? I’m sure you’ve seen the short decorative fencing made of pvc sold at the supermarket… IKEA or Carrefour perhaps… and pvc fence installation is much easier than installing metal or wood fence. They are durable and don’t get rusty or rotten. Well… our life are full of plastics… for good or bad… just hope we don’t get rotten or rusty too fast 😆

Ok lah… since sindut has tagged me, I oblige lah to continue with it voluntarily 😆

This tag is about Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Here are the rules…
1. First, you need to display the logo on your blog
2. Secondly, add a link to the person who shared it with you… sindut
3. Nominate at least 7 other bloggers… but since sindut only tag 2, I also tag 2 lah… 😆
4. Add links to these blogs on your blog.
5. Lastly, leave a message to your nominee on their blog that they’ve been tagged.

That’s it… but actually it supposed to be for ‘sisters’ only… but since sindut tag both ‘brothers’… I ‘belas dendam’ by tagging both guys lah.., ben & disney 😆

Are you the type who loves to show off but don’t have money? Yea money… the real money! It’s hard for me to understand why some people are willing to show off their ‘wealth’ while they do not have much real money. Most of these people must be working as conman I guess… because they like to use fake things on them so that they can con others.

Fakes or replicas are available everywhere. These replicas are sold openly in my place and anywhere else. While I was in Sandakan enjoying my tea at one of the coffee shop in town, our table was approached by not less then 3 PTI selling replica watches, leather belts, pens and many more. The replicas they are selling are Rolex watches, Montblanc pens, Gucci bags… you named it… they have it all… just name the big brand you want and they will bring it to you. The prices are very cheap too. You can get any replica watches of Rolex from RM30… and it shines like pure gold. If I buy and wear one of the golden Rolex replica, my friend will think I’ve strike the $20 million Mega Jackpot!

The hotel we stayed in Sandakan for 3 nights from 20 to 23 October 2008 is Kensington Hotel. According to its staff, the hotel is only about 3 months old. It is located at the new area called Bandar Maju, Sandakan.

The hotel is not on its own building but on shop lots. It occupied the ground, first and second floor and has 22 bedrooms. I believe the hotel is not rated with any Star. They do not have restaurant but there are restaurants around the blocks. We have our own transport so I’m not sure how good the public transport is. But there are bus stops at the main road.

The address is:
Hotel Kensington,
Lot 37, Block D, Bandar Maju,
Mile 1 1/2, Jalan Utara,
90000 Sandakan,
Sabah, Malaysia.
Telephone: +6089-203888 & +6089-208887
Fx: +6089-208885

The rates are:
Single Bedroom with 1 king size bed – RM78.00
Twin Bedroom with 2 single size beds – RM88.00
Family Room with 1 king size bed and 1 single size bed – RM120.00

My room number is 203 at the second floor… hotel has no lift, have to use the stairs. My experience with the hotel is when I returned to my room on the second day, they have not made my room. My colleague room at 205 was done… because they put the Make My Room sign on their door. But I don’t think they only make rooms when there is sign, they should make it no matter what since I’m staying there more than 1 night.

Overall inside the room is OK, clean and new. WiFi is available for free but I did not use it because I have my Celcom Broadband. No fridge but boiling water and making drink appliances are available. But there is one problem with the curtain. The curtain is only one layer. They do not have daylight curtain… I do need daylight curtain when I’m on my notebook to stop the glare while enjoying the natural light from outside… of course bamboo blinds will be good enough… just kidding. The chair is not suitable for surfing while on the desk… my but was arching because it just a wooden stool like the one you can find in Kopitiam… without any cushion.

Will be continued with pictures…

I guess I will try to make a habit to review the hotel I stayed. It’s not going to be profession review, but more on my experience with the hotel… nasty words might be used too 😀 I’ve stayed in many hotels and encounter many kinds of experience… good and bad. So, what I’m going to write can be negative or positive… it all going to depends on my experience with the hotel. The hotel don’t pay me to do it… but it is more like community help 😀 becoz I found that many people are googling information about hotel… I guess they are looking for hotel… Hopefully, the hotel will read my posting and the next time I stayed with them and they recognized me, they will give me special treatment to bribe me for a good review… LOL

OK, this news is good for obese people… only if you think you are obese… not fat OK… coz fat is not obese… lol

Recently Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) made a discovery that herbal extracts from pipersarmentosum or better known as ‘pokok kaduk’ can help tackle obesity.

This ‘pokok kaduk’ can be easily found in the wild locally… probably even at the back of your house growing happily. USM began researching the plant since 2005 to formulate an anti-obesity product. The extracts they discovered is a non-toxic extract which had passed all toxicity tests.

They said their formulated herbal extracts helps slow down the growth rate of blood vessels, which in turn causes less fat to build up in the body.

I’m sure you have heard many types of weight loss products in the market. For instant you can buy Phentermine which help to suppress appetite if you can’t stop eating… but with the economic slowdown tsunami today, I don’t know if I can eat more with the price escalating daily.

Yesterday, after we pass the Kundasang Tamu ground, we saw something quite interesting. Kundasang Tamu ground is located at the foot of Mount Kinabalu. But nowadays, Kundasang is not a cold place anymore like before… the hills surrounding it are all ‘bald’, not much more natural trees… one reason why this place is warmer. Driving along the Moyog is much cooler with the thick cloud surroundings the road. The picture on the right show how it looks like from the Kundasang Tamu ground… on the left should be the Mount Kinabalu (not in picture)

OK, back to what we saw… this ‘kancil’ is more than a ‘kancil’… it carries all kind of food products on top of it and some other stuff inside it… including trays of eggs. We believe they bought these goods at the town to be sold back at their village. Well here, most of the villages are very far from the town and transportation is not always available for the villagers to go to town to buy their groceries. Normally they, the merchant, will make a small area below their house… and turn it into a small shop… it is a home business.

And this one was captured at Telupid district, near Sandakan. This one is for sure a real home business… they do their business and sleep at their stall… probably live there too. Some of them have small room and kitchen at the back of their stall. Sometime it is their house… life far away from town is really interesting. In, near or far from town, everyone need to survive… need food. Tell me what you can see and find in the picture? 😆

My destination for this week Journey around Sabah is Sandakan Region. I will be visiting our offices at Sandakan, Telupid, Beluran and Ranau. The journey is very tiring and right now I’m in Kensington Hotel, Sandakan. This hotel is new… only about 3 months old. I don’t think it has many rooms since it only has 2 floors and located in shop lots. Environment is clean and quite… coz the area is still new 😀

And every time I go for travel, I carry few things with me. Other than travel insurance which is included in our service benefits, these few items are necessity… tooth brush, tooth paste, shaver… and of course soap… but soap normally provided by the hotel including some other stuff like shampoo.

Normally I just pack these things into a plastic bag. But this time is different… I bought a Darlie Travel Kit which I believe they just introduced. The kit includes a small tube of tooth paste and a tooth brush. The travel kit bag is big enough to fit my shaver into it which make my packing easier 😀

After the fireworks photo session in the previous night, I went back to 1Borneo for the Big Boyz Toys – Beauty & The Beast the next afternoon for car show. The cars are displayed at the LG and G floors.

At the LG floor, they put all the not so cool cars… MPV, mini, sedan etc.

At the G floor, they put all the so called Big Boyz Toys… Z4, Lotus, Lexus, Ferrari etc… Although they called it big boyz toys, I don’t think those cool cars have any PS3 on it like what the Pimp My Ride usually installs. They are all the standard kind of boyz toys… none with ICE.

There wasn’t much car on display too, but good enough for the big boyz toys model photo sessions 😀

They also have photography competition but I’m sure the organizer did not do a proper event plan for the photography competition… nobody knows what to do or how to enter the competition. I approach the MC and ask about it, but he also doesn’t know what’s going on… he asked me to talk to the ‘event manager’… I went to meet the ‘event manager’… he admitted everything are last minute… at the end I did not enter the competition because I only carried my Sony T200 with me although I manage to get some shots at the models 😀

I called my friends and told about it because there will be another session next day, Sunday… And they did go for the event… but I did not coz I was so tired.