A few hours before we boarded our plane back to Clark in Pampanga, we took a final walk along the streets of Kota Kinabalu and came across the remnant of an old building covered with eye-popping graffiti. To say that it was Andy Warhol-esque is a bit of an understatement. I had always been fascinated by street art, especially graffiti which, if executed with fine taste, always presented a welcome appeasement to the eyes.

I was not much of a food adventurer, I must admit. You would find me most of the time ordering the usual dishes at the office cafeteria, the tortang talong at the nearby Jollijeep, and on rare occasions delighting in KFC, McDonald's, and Jollibee. During my travels, though, I tried to become more driven to sample cuisines that were popular in the places I visited. Sometimes I did get to try, but more than a few times, due to budget constraints, I let the opportunity pass me by. Not so during my recent trip to Kota Kinabalu. I figured the chances of coming back would be more expensive, considering travel taxes and the lack of airfare promos alike. I was already there, so I might as well try to let my taste buds say hello to the dishes that were widely served around the city.

The stone fish was staring out of his aquarium like a delirious sea creature high on helium when he spotted two travel bloggers—one a Chinese-looking dude and the other a semi-Chinese-looking dude with a flair of Spanish blood—walking inside the Old Village Seafood Restaurant in Kota Kinabalu. It was a strange window into the local dining scene, where the evening catch seemed to have developed a whimsical, satirical perspective on their own culinary fates.

Surrounded by a man-made lagoon, the City Mosque at Likas Bay in Kota Kinabalu pulled off a floating apparition when seen from a distance. As I trudged closer from where we had gotten off the bus, I could hear chants of worship spread out into the open air. In a place like that, with the bay fronting the opposite side and the mosque facing it against the lagoon, the chanting bemused the ears of even the most undaunted passersby. At that moment, I felt solemnity as I quickly cut the distance between myself and that architecturally gifted place of worship of our Muslim brothers. After gorging on street foods in Kota Kinabalu, I was finally experiencing the place in a new light and perspective.

Since I had taken my traveling desire a few notches higher over the past couple of years, I had learned to adjust myself when it came to choosing a place to stay. Gone were the days when I looked for comfort first; rather, I asked for the price first, and whatever convenience a place of accommodation presented was only considered a bonus. I had stayed in hostels where bed bugs and giant rats became your friends at the end of the night. Walls made of thin plywood meant you could hear headboards banging in the next room, caused by two lovers indulging in you-know-what. Mostly, those were the five-hundred-peso-and-below types of hostel rooms. Heading to Kota Kinabalu, a few friends who had been there had already told me that it was a different case there, because there were a lot of cheap hostels that were well taken care of and offered the kind of comfort a traveler needs when he or she is on the road.