The Tip of Borneo - Tanjung Simpang Mengayau

This morning, we took a day trip to The Tip of Borneo (Tanjung Simpang Mengayau). This was the northern-most point of Borneo Island.

We took a leisurely drive up towards Kudat, passing the Padi fields of Kota Belud at 7.15am this morning.

A farmer busy spraying pesticide (I am glad he was wearing a mask at least; Does OSHA require him to wear a plastic apron?).

After Kota Belud, there were some bad stretches of broken roads before Langkon. The roads must have been under constant repairs for the past 30 years or more!

When you see this on the overhead pedestrian bridge at Sikuati, the turn-off from the main road is not far away.

That turn-off led to a junction ...

... where the brown sign said "RIGHT" and the blue sign said "LEFT"!!!

I turned left (later, I realised that the signs meant you can go either left or right to get there).

The road to the left had one stretch, for a few kilometers, of gravelled road (probably it was a road within an oil palm estate; i.e. private land). The stretch was gravelled, graded and compacted; so posed no problems.

There was a very nice beach just before arriving at the car park of The Tip of Borneo.

The Borneo Tip Beach Lodge was under construction (Opening Soon! it said). I was intrigued by That Round Thing to the right!!!

Hey, It's Christmas Eve; and here were the Christmas Trees!

This hut (named Tomanggong Kurantud - A native warrior of the area in the 1880s) marked the highest point.

The "famous" Tong Sampah - this one had with a broken lid.

A brilliant walkway from the car park leading to the Flagpole and Globe.

The Flagpole and The Commemorative Globe ...

... The Front ...

... The Back (The yellow horizontal line was the Equator); "You are Here" pointed to the spot which had been either vandalised (!) or erased by the numerous visitors rubbing the spot!

A staircase led down towards the actual headland ...

... nearly there ...

... there; The Tip of Borneo.

Tanjung Simpang Mengayau had a lighthouse on an island just offshore ...

... the lighthouse (at full zoom); not very impressive as a structure (but functional I supposed).

Two RMAF Trainers did some fly-pasts (Not because I was there!).

There were many good photo opportunities of trees, drift wood, ...

... landscapes and seascapes. All together, a wonderful day out. It threatened to rain as we arrived, but cleared up to a very nice cloudy, windy and cool day.

On the way home, we had a late lunch at Salut ...

... the prawn-rearing ponds.

The restaurant was situated near the river-mouth, with the mangroves ...

... just a wooden functional building; serving fresh seafood.

Merry Christmas To All and
Peace on Earth

Canon "Trade-In" Day at Jesselton Point

I saw in the Papers there was a Canon "Trade-In" Day at Jesselton Point (11 and 12 December); which gave an opportunity to take some photos of Jesselton Point and the surrounding area.

My PC failed to start; so I couldn't process the photos and post to this blog. I was beginning to feel some disappointment with Acer quality (the PC had its power supply replaced in June). I bought another PC (a Compaq); better to be safe than sorry. With some seminars and meetings to attend, it took me a week to install all the various software in my new PC.

Anyway, back to Canon "Trade-In" Day. Jesselton Point was part of the old port area; you can see the Customs & Excise Building (still in use) next to the Jesselton Arch in the photo above.

Canon had set up five tents; offering camera trade-in valuation (I heard RM100 to RM300 over the loudspeakers), new Canon products, and dSLR cleaning. Since we already had enough cameras, I didn't go in.

The main purpose of Jesselton Point was taking the trips by boats across to all the islands offshore to Kota Kinabalu. You can pick from all the various boat owners. You could arrange to island-hop for the day or stay at one island.

After getting your ticket, the boats were just further down the pier.

Next door to the Ticketing Office were the futsal courts. What was interesting was that the match in progress was totally a family affair (an extended family with relatives all the way from Brunei).

More interesting was Nasi Padang Ibu across from the Ticketing Office; they served very nice indonesian style food (spicy).

Sitting at their verandah area gave a very nice sea-view of Kota Kinabalu ...

... all the folks boarding the boats ...

... a view of the pier.

I didn't know that we still had the Red Telephone Boxes in Kota Kinabalu! These red boxes are present throughout the British Colonies. Did you know that they were started by The British Post Office in 1924?

This said it all - Welcome To KK!

The Roundabout (near Wisma Perkasa) was the Hibiscus Roundabout (many roundabouts have unique features as displays).

Looking up, I saw "Habiba Suites" on Signal Hill. Wasn't that the old Government Officers' Quarters built in the early 1960s?

ICT Fiesta 2010

The Sabah Computer Society (SCS) is organising the ICT Fiesta on 26 November - 28 November 2010. If you visit their website, you will see that there is an additional contest for this weekend (Count The Number of ICT Fiesta banners in Kota Kinabalu).

The event was being held at The Likas Sport Complex - Multi Purpose Hall.

On the way in, I saw that Microsoft was trying to "reform" the pirates. Buying a GENUINE copy of Windows 7 will entitle you to a "Dip and Win" contest. Hoo Hoo.

Did you know that the stepped seating in the hall (used for watching the badminton games) could be re-stacked this way?

According to the SCS website, there were 91 booths.

Looking at the white lines on the floor (badminton court markings), I remembered, while playing badminton here a long, long, time ago, the hall personnel telling us off if we wore normal shoes onto the court surface (I supposed there was a danger of making black marks on the polished floor). So why was this fair allowed in the badminton hall without some kind of carpeting on the court floor?

I didn't really have anything I wanted to buy here, so I walked around looking for the slightly unusual. There was a chance to WIN A PS3!

The highest scorer at Guitar Hero 5 (I saw that FIFA soccer was the other contest) would win.

The highest score so far (noted at 2.50pm) was 1,394,664. So the button-mashers (who think they are guitarists) can all have a go.

I was pleased to see we had the Sabah Open Source Group. It seemed to be promoting Linux.

They seemed to be giving away free copies of Linux.