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So on 24th December morning, the whole family drove up to Kinabalu Park in two cars. I was in the second car, with Wei Chuen and bro, and I think they had forgotten about my terrible motion sickness problem, because I had to sit at the back seat! Argh!

I LOVE going up to Kundasang because of the cold weather and of course to see Mt.Kinabalu up close, but I just HATE the ride to go up there (or to any place that requires long distance driving for that matter, with all the long and windy road), and true enough, I got so sick halfway up there that bro had to stop the car and Wei Chuen and I changed seats. Urgh.. that was the only low point of my holiday!

Anyways, we arrived there in Kinabalu Park in the afternoon with cloudy and cold weather greeting us..

Our lodge, Nepenthes 2, with Mt. Kinabalu in the background

We had sternly requested Nepenthes 3 when we made our booking at the end of October, but guess what? We got Nepenthes 7 instead, with the reason that they didn’t get the message at all. Duh, it was stated at the receipt what..

But anyway, we moved out of Nepenthes 7 straight after we checked inside the lodge, because Nepenthes 7 has no hot water! And that is a big no-no for my family! So Nepenthes 2 we got instead.

The Nepenthes Lodges neighbourhood (with Rajah Lodge on the left)

The inside of the lodge is not bad.. quite simple, but not bad. It’s got basic Astro channels too; that sure came in handy for the kids when the adults were busy.

The inside of the lodge

But the best thing of the lodge to me is surely this:

I love fireplaces! It doesn’t matter if our clothes smells like smoke afterwards, but the heat and the fire sure is very calming to me..

See? Doesn’t it make you wanna sing the Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire song?

Anyway, right after we unloaded our stuff from the car to the lodge, we braved the coldness and took a walk to the nearby Liwagu Restaurant building..

The inside of the building..

We checked out the mini museum upstairs, then we headed to the restaurant itself to have some hot drinks. When we were done, we headed back and got ready for the Christmas Eve mass at St. Pius X at Bundu Tuhan..

It was my first time going to this church, and not I think this church is not bad. Quite clean and nice, not like the other kampung churches at all. Their Christmas decorations were sure creative, too! And even though it was very cold outside, luckily it was quite warm inside the church. So we had no problem in concentrating on the mass even though it was mostly held in Malay.

Also managed to capture their carolers in action in this church that night, singing We Wish You A Merry Christmas in 3 different languages: English, Malay, and Kadazandusun:

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After the mass, went back to the lodge, and enjoyed more of the heat coming from the fireplace, then soon after, I fell asleep. So that’s my day one of my holiday!