From Thursday, January 25 to Sunday, January 28, I went to Penang, Malaysia with a group of 27 exchange students. We were split into rooms of 14, 8, and 5 people. We unknowingly all booked an Airbnb at the Sunrise Gurney Homestay. It cost only S$40-50 total per person for three nights for my unit of 8 students. The round trip flight from Singapore to Penang via AirAsia cost S$128. We ran into other students on the flight back to Singapore; more travelled to Penang that weekend than we had expected. 1 Malaysian ringgit = 0.26 US dollars. Everything was ridiculously cheap. With either Uber or Grab, trips roughly cost between RM5 for a 3-mile ride and RM18 for a 13-mile ride. If you get a chance to visit an ATM for local currency or figure out SIM cards or data plans, take it. It is almost always more troublesome to do so later. Use Splitwise to easily sort out expenses owed among your group members. Use Google Photos to collectively share memories post-trip. We exclusively ate at the hawker centers for their variety of cheap, flavorful, and authentic local foods. If you’re looking for a light snack, try curry puffs. In most of the smaller, local hawker centers in Penang, you would order your food at the stalls, sit down at your table, wait for the food, and then pay for it at the table. Don’t drink the tap water in Penang! It shouldn’t be difficult to find a 7-Eleven to stock up on bottled water. If you buy bottled water at a hawker center, double-check that the cap is unopened. On Friday, we explored George Town in the unrelenting heat. Temples, museums, murals, and quaint alleyways. We sought shelter from the sun in the picturesque coffee shops and enjoyed some white coffee. Later in the afternoon, we visited the Ghost Museum. It was like a haunted house designed for photo opps with mannequins instead of actors; I wouldn’t recommend it. Eventually, we ended up at Texas Chicken in the 1st Avenue Mall before meeting up with the group of 14 people for dinner and calling it a night. I’m still longing for some genuine Western food, like a hearty, medium rare steak. We kicked off Saturday with a short visit to Penang Hill for a grand view over Penang Island (and for the monkeys). Afterwards, half of us visited the Penang Botanic Gardens while the other half visited Kek Lok Si Temple, the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia. Our Grab driver recommended the famous laksa stand at the start of the road leading up to the temple. You can spend hours at Kek Lok Si exploring the statues and pagodas, but be prepared to sweat. Nearing sunset, we departed for Batu Ferringhi, a town with night markets and beaches with watersports and unusually coarse sand. Before heading back to the Airbnb, we made one last pit stop at the Old Green House Prawn Mee for the spicy noodle dish. Unfortunately, on the way there, our Grab driver recommended the alternative 888 Hokkien Mee for the best prawn mee in Penang. Nonetheless, Old Green House was delicious, albeit, a tad spicy. We took an early flight back to Singapore on Sunday morning. With classes only on Mondays and Tuesdays, I had more than enough time to travel. I did not know anyone from the Penang trip prior to meeting at the airport; it was interesting to travel with random people. There are already potential plans for other trips in the coming weeks: a trip to Bali, Indonesia or Bangkok, Thailand from February 8-11 and India or Nepal over recess week. However, this weekend is dedicated to coursework.
On Mondays and Tuesdays, I would take the D1 or D2 bus from UTown to BIZ2 (next to the School of Computing) or BIZ1 (aka Mochtar Riady Building) for classes. In the mornings, I would typically grab a sandwich and cup of black coffee on-the-go, and for dinner, I would eat with the other students. Tembusu College shares a dining hall with Cinnamon College with meals via ticket for breakfast (7:00am-10:30am) and dinner (5:30pm-9:30pm). You must bring your own container if you prefer take-out. Unfortunately, the quality of the dining hall food isn’t as good as the relatively cheap food in Fine Food or Flavours @UTown. In the evenings, I would frequent the gym in the Stephen Riady Centre. It is not as impressive as the Warrior Recreation Center as it is only one floor and frequently has “out of order” machines, misplaced weights, and grungy equipment. Regardless, it is still a convenient gym a minute walk away from Tembusu College. Comments are closed.
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ABOUT ME
Keng-Chia Chao BBA Candidate in Finance, Accounting, & Management Information Systems Shidler College of Business, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Archives
May 2018
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