September 14, 2025
This morning I snuck out of the bed I shared with both boys to go out in search of coffee and breakfast. I left my room key with Kyle and hoped the boys wouldn’t wake up and freak out that they were left alone. We were hoping for a few more egg custard tarts, but when i realized the escalator would still be going down the mountain for a few more hours and I’d have to then walk all the way back up, I knew I wouldn’t be venturing as far as our favorite bakery. Instead I stopped at a nearby coffee shop for coffees and mediocre pastries.
Back at the hotel, I heard that the boys were awake inside our room. Instead of freaking out that they were alone, they were giddily watching an iPad together in bed. I asked them to pause their show to get dressed and Ollie happily helped Len put his socks on so they could restart their show as soon as possible. Kyle and I folded laundry, organized and packed our luggage which again took way longer than we anticipated. Just as the last bag was packed, we called a car to head to the airport. Before leaving the hotel, the boys made wishes on the hotel’s Jubilee tree. Len’s wish was that dinosaurs would become real and Ollie’s wish was that everyone in the world would be peaceful. Ollie was happy to tell Len that birds were descendents from dinosaurs and so they were very much still real.
The check in and bag drop lines took longer than usual so we didn’t have much time at the gate before we boarded the plane. I thankfully had time to get a few new, fun snacks for the 3 hour ride which kept us all going as we missed lunch today.
Kyle and I hadn’t checked the weather for Kota Kinabalu and learned that rainy season had come early this year! It looks like it may rain most of our whole week here which is a bummer. We were surprised when our guide took us to the parking lot to get into the van to take us to the hotel— only it wasn’t a van but a full-size tourist bus just for our family.
The resort we’re staying at seems super kid-friendly with lots of pools, blow up slides, dunk tanks, a movie theatre, bowling alley and kids club. We had wanted lots of downtime coming off the rapid pace we kept in China and Hong Kong so we’re hoping we have a chill week here. Unlike the hotels in China and Hong Kong, we have adjoining rooms here and they’re much larger than our Beijing and HK shoeboxes.
We told Len that our time in Malaysia might be similar to the week we spent in Mauritius and he associated that week most with coconut hunting. He was thrilled to see huge coconut trees at the hotel when we arrived. He and Ollie worked on a bet with one another that involved finding the most coconuts. Whoever found the most coconuts over our week here would get $100. “You know, from our own bank accounts Mom, not your bank!”
