Borneo part one

Chinese new year was quite a long time ago, but going back through the thousands of photos from our trip to Kota Kinabalu, Borneo brings me right back to that tropical paradise. We decided to do something different and fun for our second CNY and more importantly we decided we wanted to do some traveling together. We settled on Borneo in Malaysia, hoping to escape the chaos and rainy cold that had settled on Shanghai for winter. While we definitely escaped the cold, we were reminded of just how much the middle class has grown in China. We basically traveled with thousands of Chinese nationals to Borneo, which was for the most part fine, but the spitting by the pool in another country nearly sent me over the edge a few times! We had a really wonderful, laid back trip with a few activities here and there, but mainly a lot of lounging with the pool behind us and the South China sea in front of us. Malaysia is a truly a beautiful country, the people are kind, the food is delicious and the scenery is fantastic. We saw Mt. Kinabalu on a day trip and walked through the national park at the base of mountain. There was some fantastic snorkeling where we saw fish that were literally every color of the rainbow. Aside from the tiny nearly invisible until you're upon them jellyfish, I absolutely loved snorkeling in the ocean. Luckily, the jellyfish were mostly just pesky. Although, I may or may not have had a minor meltdown when one stung me on the neck and then another stung me on the lip. We took a short hiatus as a result of that scenario. On our last day we took a trip to see the Probiscus monkeys on a river cruise 3 hours away from our hotel. It was a really beautiful ride and we actually got to see the monkeys high up in the trees. We also took a short detour to go and the corpse flower. In this post you'll see our day trips to the neighboring islands, a bit around the resort and a bit of our trip to the rainforest. I've got a second post in the works with more from the rainforest and our several trips to the wet market on the waterfront that we visited and brought some delicious spices back from. These posts are my way of getting caught up before heading to the US tomorrow for a month long respite with friends and family in the fresh air and fresh water lakes of the Midwest!