5/16/25

Hello from Kota Kinabalu. I won’t lie the 12-hour flight to Taiwan was a little brutal. Falling asleep right away only to be woken up at 3am to eat a full meal wasn’t a great start for me, but once we made it to Taiwan it was pretty much smooth sailing. The airport there was really cool, and we had a good meal in the food court. The 5-hour flight to Kuala Lumpur was easy, but that airport was confusing to us and the 1 hour layover there almost caused us to miss our flight, but we made it! The 2 hour flight to Kota Kinabalu turned into about three hours because there was some wind and rain preventing us from landing right away. Once we landed we were able to quickly get our bags and we were greeted by Mr. Paul Imbun from Sabah Parks.

Paul picked us up from the airport and took us to our hotel where we checked in, dropped our bags, then went to get a coffee with him.

Paul is really nice and easy to talk to. He made us feel welcome and gave us a good idea of what to expect for the upcoming weeks. After having coffee, we made plans to meet back up with Paul at 10 am for him to show us around a little bit.

Andy and I woke up around 7am this morning and then went down to have the hotel breakfast. It was by far the best hotel breakfast that I have ever had. They had everything. Eggs, sausage, pancakes, fruit, but also fried rice, noodles, chicken, and lots of veggies. It was pretty different to us, but Paul said that these types of foods are normal for breakfast here.

Once we finished breakfast and Paul arrived, we walked to a mall and exchanged some US Dollars for the local currency, Malaysian Ringgits. After that we walked to a fish market that is right on the water. It was pretty wild. The diversity of seafood that was being sold was crazy. I saw probably the largest shrimp and lobster that I have ever seen in my life, but also colorful parrotfish, some pretty large tuna, and a whole bunch of other things. After that we walked around some other nearby markets that had just about everything. I really enjoyed this, and it was cool to see all of the different products that people had to offer

After visiting the markets, we got in the truck with Paul and headed to the Sabah Parks Museum. The main part of the museum was closed for renovations, but we were able to meet with the curator and another worker who showed us their collection of specimens. The diversity of specimens that they had kind of blew my mind. They had everything. We spent probably an hour in that room looking at everything and they were kind enough to answer any questions that we had. I am so grateful to have had that experience.

After we left the museum, Paul drove Andy and I to go get some lunch. I do not know exactly how to explain the place other than a kind of large, outdoor food court, with a lot of different vendors. It was hard to know what to get, so Andy and I copied Paul’s order of a kind of Chinese soup with noodles, chicken, and egg. It was delicious. From there, Paul drove us back to hotel where Andy and I planned on taking a short nap, before heading to the supermarket to get our food for the upcoming week. Instead, we both accidentally slept for about 5 hours, and the supermarket was closed. But Paul had told us about a night market nearby, so went to check that out. It was massive! There was live music in probably 5 different places, hundreds of vendors, and luckily a 24-hour supermarket where we were able to do our shopping. Thank God.

Tomorrow, Paul is picking us up at 10am to head to Inobong Station, where we will be briefed and have a kind of orientation. I am looking forward to heading into the parks and getting started!