My First Port Call

Well I finally went to meet Hubby at port. Which one did I go to? Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. Yeah, I know, it doesn't sound that great. I had to pull out a map to find the place because I had never once heard of it. After visiting there I can see why. Seriously though, I had a lot of fun. My mom flew in to visit for two weeks on the 30th and we flew to Malaysia the 31st. She wasn't exactly thrilled at the prospect of another long flight (this one with a baby) the day after she flew to Japan. She had no choice though since she was acting "Nanny" on the trip. Crazy was an absolute angel on the flight though. I highly recommend Malaysia Airlines if you ever get the chance. They were wonderful, not to mention over 20 on-demand movies!

Crazy in a redneck highchair.

We arrived a day and a half before the ship because bad weather pushed their schedule back. So we walked around the area of our hotel. We stayed close to the hotel because it was pretty shady there. We drew a LOT of attention with Crazy. I swear every woman there had to touch him (visions of hand sanitizer danced through my head). We went to a few markets next to the hotel and had a lot of people stare us down. We later found out from the guys that the market was off limits to them because it is really dangerous for Americans, super!! However, the hotel treated us like movie stars. We were the one non-Asians there. On a totally random sidenote - I had the best tea ever while there. It's called Sabah Tea and is grown at the base of Mt. Kinabalu which is close to where we were. I'm not really a hot tea drinker but this tea was superb!

Part of a Chinese New Year celebration

Sapi Island

Once Hubby arrived we moved to a resort outside of town. It was fantastic. We took a boat ride to an outlying island for a day. There we enjoyed snorkeling while Crazy played on the beach with the nanny :) While there we even saw a huge lizard. The exact name of the lizard escapes me right now.

After two days at the resort we went back to our original hotel for the day. They remembered who we were the minute we walked in. Our flight wasn't until midnight but we needed a place for Crazy to nap and it was way too hot to spend the whole day walking around. We basically booked a room with the intention of checking out at 10pm but I talked Hubby into staying there for the night before going back to the ship for duty. So we took a redeye back home and arrived in Tokyo at 6:30am.

Overall I would say my first port visit was a success. I wasn't mugged, I didn't get lost, nothing was stolen, and thanks to my "nanny" I was able to have some fun with my husband.