Hi guys!
Welcome to Kota Kinabalu.
We’re in Malaysia on the island of Borneo
and I don’t know about you but Borneo sounds extremely exotic to me
so it’s kind of a dream to finally be here.
And we’re at this sculpture: I LOVE KK.
That’s how they call Kota Kinabalu here: KK.
So it seemed like the perfect place to start.
They put this up last year
to celebrate welcoming more people to this island.
There’s so much biodiversity here,
delicious food,
and lovely people that we’ve met so far so
this seemed like a really good place to start.
Also down here on the waterfront I can’t help but notice this giant marlin behind me.
This is important because it was put up in 2000 to celebrate when Kota Kinabalu got full city status
so they had something to celebrate
and fishing is a huge industry here like you’ll see.
Right at the water there are tons of fishing boats going in and out all the time,
lots of seafood at the market as we’ll see, and it’s a good symbol.
The marlin statue is also really close to the Handicraft Market
and the Central Market where you can find lots of food
and souvenirs and there are people all lined up along the street selling different things.
Look at your hair!
What’s wrong with my hair?
It looks like a toupee!
That’s what the Kota Kinabalu heat does to it.
We’re just waiting to cross the street which takes quite a while here.
Oh, of course, now it’s ready.
Oh here we go.
And I just wanted to say how friendly people are.
Like I’ve notice walking around that people smile at you,
they say hello, children will wave.
It’s very nice.
People are so friendly!
I love it.
We’ve walked over to this building, well, it used to be a building.
Now it’s more like the wreck of a building
and this was a British colonial era building,
one of only three that survived the bombings here in 1945
and then, sadly, it survived that and then decades later there was a fire here that basically levelled it
and left the shell that you see here now.
It was the Social Welfare Office
and there were no real plans to redevelop here and so
artists moved in and it's now this sort of unofficial street art gallery.
So it’s nice to see that a place that was more or less destroyed
is still standing here and now is drawing all the creative energy of the city.
So what do you think of this graffiti?
It’s cool.
It’s always fun to see graffiti in other parts of the world
because it sort of all originated back in the seventies and spread out from there
so it’s just…it’s neat to see a subculture in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
that’s obviously alive and doing very well.
It’s cool as well to see all the punk rock stuff, like the Cock Sparrer piece,
because I used to do a radio show where I’d play punk rock music
so it’s also very strange to see that kind of stuff here in Malaysia but cool.
I feel right at home.
So this building is right across from this mall across the street
and it’s interesting to see what was one of the city’s oldest buildings
across from what looks like one of the newer buildings.
Pretty nice little walkable city, isn’t it?
It’s very walkable.
I’m actually surprised ‘cause when we first looked at the map
I thought it might take more time to walk around but this is great.
I love being able to just get everywhere on foot.
I always feel like I see more that way.
As we’re walking around here, I’m realizing that the street art is not just confined to that one area
but it’s kind of all over the place
and it’s so nice because it adds so much vibrancy to the city.
We found the Sabah Tourism Board.
Sabah is the part of Malaysia that we’re in right now
and this is neat to see because this is one of the three buildings
that was not destroyed during the 1945 bombings
so it makes a lot of sense that they are right around the corner from each other
in this part of the city that must’ve been protected.
This is cool.
In front of the tourism department, there’s this 0 KM marker.
We are right in the middle of Kota Kinabalu.
Right behind me here you can see that’s the Signal Hit Observatory Tower.
I’m sure there’s a lovely view of the city and the water from up there
but Marc and I are feeling like we may not necessarily have enough gas in the tank
to get up there at the moment so I think we’ll let the drone go up for us and see the view that way.
Ooh Marc’s found something he likes.
I like.
I’m just imaginging the nice breeze that would be blowing on us as we’re riding this.
Oh it’d be so nice.
It’s cute.
It’s a Honda.
This is a massive seat.
We could totally both fit on here.
It’s looks like a …the equivalent of a banana seat on a bike.
Might be time for us to get another scooter.
Ok explain to me what just happened there.
Oh well we were filming a building and Marc yelled and I saw..
I was like, “Ahhh!’
And he jumped like
and I saw there were two huge rats in front of him
that like scurried away and they were probably, well, they were probably the biggest rats I’ve ever seen.
They were definitely the biggest rats we’ve ever seen.
So we just crossed the street.
That got the heart racing.
Yeah.
Let me show you an instant replay.
Ahh there’s rats!
Ahh!
We made it to the Atkinson Clock Tower.
You guys can tell that we love history because
this is building three of the three buildings that survived the 1945 bombings here.
It took two years to build
and this used to serve as a kind of lighthouse for sailors when they were out on the water.
So now we’ve seen all three of the oldest buildings in Kota Kinabalu.
And do you think you have any juice left in the tank to go up those stairs there?
Yes, I think I have enough.
All right, let’s do it.
Let’s go.
The sun is going down now here in Kota Kinabalu,
which is a good thing because honestly it’s been like forty degrees today and extremely humid
so I’m not sorry that it’s going to cool down a little bit.
But I hope that you guys have enjoyed walking around here.
I am so happy that we got to see all three of the oldest buildings
and some of that cool graffiti.
I’m still kind of pinching myself to be honest that we’re in Malaysia let alone on the island of Borneo
so I just love it.
It’s just kind of a dream come true so
like this video, if you enjoyed it, and make sure you subscribe for more travel adventures
and we’ll see you in our next video.
Right?
I think so.
Bye!