Yearly Archives - 2012

KOTA KINABALU: Eighteen 15-year-old students from St Leonard’s College, Melbourne, Australia took part in a beach cleaning project at the Mamutik Island, near here yesterday. The group, which was accompanied by eight students from SM St Peter from Telipok collected over 100kg of mainly plastic wastes that had been washed ashore from the mainland. Retired teacher Graeme Parrot, who was accompanying the students along two other teachers Claudia Liebner and Caroline Lopez, told The Borneo Post yesterday that the trip was part of the school’s Community Urban and Environment programme, or CUE, for short. He explained that under CUE, the students spend the year working in the community by helping out in old folks’ home, or providing food for the hungry and homeless. Additionally, the students also involve themselves in environmental projects by clearing areas of weeds, and so on. “The trip here is a culmination of the whole year activities and is called the big experience. Some of our students go off to Fiji, some to Vietnam, China and Laos Cambodia and some come to Sabah. In the group we have here, we have four or five who had taken up Bahasa (Indonesia), so it is also partly a language trip,” he said. Since arriving at the state capital, the group has already been to Klias River to experience whiteWater rafting which, according to Graeme, is something the students thoroughly enjoyed. “They’ve also tried rubber tapping, making pottery and searching for cockles at Mengkabong (Tuaran). They managed to find a few (cockles), but they enjoyed playing with the mud and throwing mud at each other more,” he said. He added that the students had already tried several local fruits, namely tarap and rambutan. Durian, he said, would also be on the list but not at the start of their trip. “It is okay if you can hold your nose and eat it – it is an acquired taste, but I won’t rush and buy one. I have already tried it in my previous trip here,” he said. One of the highlights of their visit here will be to Sandakan, to visit the war memorial where so many Australian and British prisoners of war had perished. “Only six of them survived because they escaped. It is something gruesome and horrible but it is something they (the students) need to know. We don’t teach about World War II at school, which is a great shame, because my father and their grandfathers might have been involved and when you read about what they had to put up with, it makes us appreciate what we have today. Sandakan, in particular, was horrible,” he said. He added that some of the things that were done by the Japanese during the war were horrid. “There is a new book about Sandakan which I have begun to read…the students are also encouraged to read about Agnes Keith and her book, ‘Three Came Home’, but concentrates mainly on the women camp. But the men camp – they had to work all the time and were brutally mistreated. When they tried to escape, they were put in a box and left out in the sun for days. Some went mad. Many were beaten and tortured. It is important for kids to know about that.” After the Sandakan trip, the group will be going to Kundasang to visit the war memorial there before heading to the state capital and return home on Nov 29. Source : Borneo Post

Kota Kinabalu: Books can be a starting point for a particular place because it creates a first impression that triggers impact, according to Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun. "Books are the first thing that people pick up and it's a starting point of one's interest in a particular place which is very important because first impressions create a lasting impression," he said. Masidi said this during the launching of a book by Malaysian-based writer David Bowden titled 'Enchanting Borneo's special edition for Sutera Harbour Resort' held at the Pacific Sutera Harbour, here, Friday. "For us in the tourism industry, this is another chapter in our effort to promote Sabah and obviously when this book is sold overseas that will be the first impression of Sabah or even Borneo," he said. "Hopefully, with this book, more people especially foreigners will want to find where Sabah is because Sabah is a small State and some foreigners may have heard of Borneo but never heard of Sabah," he added. "As a Sabahan, I am very proud Bowden has taken interest to sell Sabah to the rest of the world," said Masidi on the 80-page book that portrays a kaleidoscope of colours reflecting the diversity of Borneo's lifestyle. "More importantly, I think all of us in Sabah are privileged to be living in what I term as living within the garden of God, and the garden of God is of course obviously Sabah," he added. Masidi also thanked John Beaufoy of John Beaufoy Publishing for publishing the travel photo book authored by Bowden, which he described as courageous because it could trigger curiosity among those who do not know Sabah. Also present were Sutera Harbour Resort President Datuk Edward Ong and his Chief Executive Officer Frank Liepmann. On another development, he said the arrival of Europeans in Sabah increased over the last 11 months but there has been a bit of difficulty in the domestic tourism because airlines are offering them cheaper travel out of the country. "In fact, there are offers which are way cheaper than going from Kuala Lumpur to Kota Kinabalu, so most have chosen to go overseas. But the other reason is because most of the seats from Kuala Lumpur to Kota Kinabalu have been taken over by foreigners who prefer to come over to Sabah for their holidays," he said. He cited the arrival of German travellers, which has gone up by 71 per cent over the last 10 months, with overall European arrivals going up by 41 per cent. "This is a good indicator for us in Sabah, travellers are more choosy and our strategy to get high yield travellers who are willing to spend, seem to be and appear to be working well but of course you can never beat the Chinese arrivals," he said. "By July the number of Chinese who have arrived in Sabah is somewhat equal to those who arrived during the entire 2011, thus, I believe that before the year is out we should be able to get about 150,000 Chinese travellers in Sabah," he added. On another note, he said Malaysia Airlines (MAS) would be re-launching the Kota Kinabalu-Perth sector next month. "It is only once a week but I think the fact that they have re-launched the flight is something to celebrate," he said, adding MAS might also re-launch the Tokyo-Kota Kinabalu route soon. "I think there is some negotiation on the time of the flights but it's going to be re-launched again soon and of course, so is the new route like Kota Kinabalu-Shanghai and AirAsia's daily flight from Guangzhou to Kota Kinabalu beginning the end of December," he added. "All this would mean that the industry is going to do well and obviously there are going to be challenges but if there are no challenges there is no reason for us to do better," he said. Source : Daily Express