Malaysian Madness

I am sitting in a hostel (Mountain Rest HOuse) on the side of Kota Kinabalu, the  highest mountain peak in South East Asia with some friends who are currently hunting down all the cockroaches in the room and spraying them, int he process gassing ourselves.  I am supervising that they do a good job (sound familiar?). They are. I hate cockroaches. I never want to see one again. Oh wait, too late, another one just came in. Boy, do the girls squeal. I am not squealing because I am cooler than that, but mostly because I am sitting on the top bunk really far away from the whole thing.
Anyway, the adventure so far is as follows: Plane trips, Vancouver to SHanghai, Shanghai to Bangkok, one night in Bangkok, then Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur toKota Kinabalu. One night in Kota Kinabalu, then bussed to Gunung Kota Kinabalu the actual mountain. Crazy, crazy!
The flight from Vancouver to Shanghai was nothing like Cathay Pacific.  I flew with Chinese Eastern Airlines. They were way cheap, so I can't complain...well, not too much anyway. Let's just say an 11 hour flight with no in-flight entertainment is a painful anticipation....buuutttt, before we even took off, the guy next to me (we were two of us ina  row that was for four) and I started to chat.  We hit it off immediately. He was heading to Japan for school, and we were in the first leg of the journey together.  He had Jellybellies and I had otehr snacks (thank God because I would have starved otherwise. The first hour we spent making Jellybelly concoctions such as Chunky Monkey, consisting ot toasted marshmallow, chocolate, coconut and banana. It was amazing. Then we played 'guess what flavour' where we couldn't look at the colour the other person handed over. Then we piled all the blakets and pillows together and made a pyramid of them in the centre of our row and watched some shows on the computer. By the end of the flight Mitch and I were great friends:D
I spent the night in Bangkok, then the next morning I had to figure out how to get to Kota Kinabalu (KK) in Sabah, Malaysia. My friend Melody was waiting for me there. Melody and I met in January of this year on the WHitsundays cruise I did.  We chatted and found out we were from the same area of Canada. We chatted some more and then found out she knew my cousin's wife!  We hung out a bit more in Australia, then we parted ways. When I returned home to Canada, I went snowboarding at Hemlock, and lo and behold, guess who was there as well?! We were definitely destined to be friends!  Anyway, I did find flights,and got to KK that evening.  The hostel we stayed in, Akinabalu youth hostel, was 6$ a night. Not too shabby!!  Well, actually, it was a bit. Then today, we met Kerry, a med student from England and we three hopped on a mini bus, and here we are in  Gunung:D  We are staying at a pretty neat hostel (minus the cockroaches), it's a bit chilly, compared to off the mountain in the city anyway. I have layered all the clothing I brought with me, plus Kerry lent me a jacket as I didn't bring one!  But hopefully the rain will stop later as the view from the mountain is supposed to be incredible, not that i would know now as we are a socked in!
I am still jetlagging a bit, so I am off to beddy-bye now! xo