Kota Kinabalu

As you may have inferred from my previous post I’ve now left Japan.

I am also unemployed and pursuing a little dream of mine.

Travelling (and eating) the world.

First stop was Kota Kinabalu for my first family holiday in several years.

We stayed at the Shangri-la hotel too.  Its been quite a while since I’ve stayed in luxury such as this!

And it was just as pretty at night!  Although I did pick up alot of mosquito bites while enjoying the night vista.  Sad panda :(.

But one of my main goals at Kota Kinabalu was to get my diving license.

See, as part of my somewhat secret travel plan, in August I plan to go diving with the sharks in the Galapagos islands.  In order to do that you need an advanced open water license.  Probably so you don’t panic and get an arm or leg bitten off.  That might put a crimp in my future plans.

And this is the view from the dive centre.  Over 4 days I toiled along in 30 degree weather (and 30 degree water) completing both the PADI Open water and PADI Advanced open water licenses.  The chores you have to complete on holiday sometimes….

So I could get a picture of this.   This is not rock.

This is a fish.

This is also 15 meters down.  Water clarity was quite good that day!

I even brought along a new toy just for this.  A waterproof camera.  Unfortunately, as I soon learned, the gear doesn’t make the photos.  Out of my hundred of so underwater shots, this is the only one that I deem marginally acceptable to display.  And I am only displaying this to prove a point.

I suck at underwater photography.

Ah well, guess I’ll stick to dry land for my photos.

So after a week of holiday it was back to Hong Kong to prepare for the next stage of my world tour.  More to come!