Wednesday 15th July
We’ve got a big day planned for tomorrow, so today was a day to just hang around in Kinabalu. We wandered the streets, visiting some places we’d seen two years ago as well as popping into a couple of shopping centres that were still under construction when we were here last.
The crazy thing about construction here is that companies will build a new shopping precinct, market the hell out of it, and when it’s ready for occupation, businesses will depart their current premises to take up a shopfront in the newly-opened centre. And then, the cycle starts all over again (or closer to the truth would be that the cycles actually overlap, because at this point, ANOTHER centre is halfway completed already). The next one opens, the businesses all move on. Why is it crazy? Because you end up with all these shopping centre buildings left sitting empty. They don’t seem to demolish them too often either…
And remember that episode of The Simpsons where every second shop was a Starbucks? Well, here it’s a mobile phone shop. You have dedicated brand shops (Samsung, Sony, Oppo, etc) and then you have all the third-party telco’s who sell all brands of handset.
Through the day, we managed to book our outing for tomorrow, which will be a fun way to finish our holiday.
This evening, we revisited a seafood restaurant we ate at 2 years ago. On that particular night, there was a power outtage, but they still knocked up a great feed. This time, the lights were on and the food was just as good.
