KK Day 3-4: Tanjung Aru Sunset, Flight Home & My Reflections

DAY 3 

As we didn't have to wake up early the next morning, we could have a leisurely breakfast at Cafe TATU.

I drink teh-C every day so when I'm travelling and there's no teh-C, I'd turn to the trusty teh tarik instead (life is a pain without both)!

We had chicken rice, tea egg and fishball noodles

Food I chose

After breakfast, we took a Grab to Suria Sabah, located about 10 minutes away at Kota Kinabalu city.

Suria Sabah

Although the mall was smaller than Imago Mall, we managed to shop at Kaison and many of the clothing shops. 

We returned to our hotel and headed to the pool for our final swim for this trip. With time to kill and my curiosity got the better of me, I persuaded the Eldest to explore Shangri-La Tanjung Aru's in-house Clown Fish Discovery Centre.

You can check out the various seasports at Star Marina

The Clown Fish Discovery Centre is located just behind the Star Marina

It is a small room full of different clown fish

Various species of clown fish in their tanks

Close-up of the cuties! 

We probably spent about 5 minutes watching the clown fish before returning to the pool.

Final swim in the adult-only pool

Tanjung Aru is famous for its beautiful sunset, which is apparently top 3 in the world! The sunset view from Shangri-La is much sort after and since we stayed here, we might as well take advantage of it!

View from Shangri-La Resort Tanjung Wing

Great view of the setting sun

Good spot for group photos (1)

Good spot for group photos (2)

Good spot for group photos (3)

Although we were supposed to wait until the sun reached the horizon for the perfect photo, we returned to our room because we were too hungry! We couldn't wait to dig into the local food we ordered via Grab Food!

Don't order when you're hungry as you're more likely to over order! 😅

We can still see the sunset from our balcony! 🌅

We ran out to the stairwell at the back of the building for these shots!
It turned out that the sky will turn purple-pink when the sun reaches the horizon! 😄

After dinner, we packed our luggage and got ready for bed. Can't believe it's the last night of our trip! 

DAY 4

To catch our 9am flight, we woke up at 5.30am and prepared to check out.

View from our balcony at 5.30am

Going to miss this view!

Thank God that Cafe TATU opened at 6am so we can have breakfast at 6.15am, after checking out and leaving our luggage at the concierge.

Our usual table

We're one of the earliest at the buffet!

Yummy kueh

My choice of breakfast

After a hearty breakfast, we called for a Grab at 7am and bade Tanjung Aru goodbye.

Group photo at the lobby in our matching outfits!

We arrived at Kota Kinabalu International Airport Terminal 1 and cleared customs quite smoothly.

Kota Kinabalu International Airport

Our plane was on time!

We were soon on the plane, which departed on schedule at 9.05am. The flight was very smooth and we arrived in Singapore at 11.05am, earlier than expected!

Welcome home!

My 2 girls, Mum and I took the complimentary shuttle bus from Terminal 4 to Jewel to meet my Dad, the Hubby and Boy for lunch.

Lunch at Wa-En

High quality beef!

Yummy BBQ!

It was a good lunch to end our wonderful girls' trip! 😁

My Reflections:

I've been wanting to visit Kota Kinabalu since I was 22 years old. My professor had asked whether I wanted to attend the conference held in Kota Kinabalu on behalf of the team to present our research poster. Despite being a poor, graduate student, I replied that I would! Although I didn't get to attend in the end (my friend did and I was happy for her!), I did a lot of research on the place and it had stuck in my mind for a long time. I'm glad that I finally fulfilled that desire, almost 2 decades later! 😆

Kota Kinabalu is great for short getaways! The flight duration is relatively short, things are affordable, beaches are beautiful and you can Grab everywhere! Definitely recommend it 😊

<< Back to KK Day 2: Kiulu River White Water Rafting & Imago Mall

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Visit MADPSYCHMUM TRAVELS for the rest of my posts on Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia 

as well as other travel itineraries! 

Do also check out my recommendations on kid-friendly activities in West Malaysia!

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