[Travel] 5D4N Penang Free and Easy Itinerary

Dear all,

Finally back to share with you all my itinerary for my Penang trip in May 2017. Felt so blessed to have traveled 4 times before the year even ends. Went to Desaru in January, Penang in May, Japan in July, Melbourne in August. This makes me tempted to go solo traveling after graduation!

Will share with you guys my itinerary for Japan, Osaka in my upcoming posts!(: Now let me share with you on my planning for the Penang trip. Do note that I'm not sponsored for any of the food/ places I'm sharing! Frankly, I feel Penang is a really affordable and nice place to visit for Singaporeans who have short leave/ vacation! I booked 5D4N accommodation after much deliberation but honestly 4D3N was sufficient as Penang is a pretty small island. I simply wanted to make my air ticket worth and spent more days since accommodation there is really cheap! Read on to find out on the details!

By plane or coach?
I honestly wanted to, as usual, go on a budget trip. So taking a coach was initially my plan. This trip almost didn't happen cos my mother did not want to 'live' in a coach for 10 hours (time taken for the coach to reach Penang from SG) although it cost only about $35-40 per pax, the reviews for the coach didn't convince my mother to take it (passengers complained about rude drivers who didn't bother to ensure everyone was onboard before departing the customs, bed bugs on the seats, uncomfortable and dirty buses, etc.) and the flights were so expensive when I was planning for the trip in April.

But, thank god, 1 week before our scheduled trip, Jetstar was on sale, and guess how much I paid for the round trip tickets? 100 per pax? NOPE, it was only $65!

Do note I didn't purchase check-in luggage (so I only had a 7kg handcarry- think that's sufficient unless you intend to bring back liquid products?) (TIP: Rmb to not pack in your toiletries like shampoo and shower gel unless it's packed in 100ml bottles- otherwise you'll have to say goodbye to them even before boarding the plane)

Although it was ~$30 more than taking the coach, taking into account the amount of time you save (from taking plane VS coach), it is actually extremely worth it!! The flight was only 1h 30min (but it took shorter than expected, we arrived in about 1h 15min)

But do note, the timing for the flight isn't the most ideal as we arrived in Penang at 9pm. This meant, 1 day has been 'wasted' and you basically just head to the hotel to sleep after arriving.

Accommodation
There is a wide variety of hotels you can choose from but Armenian Street Heritage Hotel attracted me due to their attractive price and decent location!

I paid ~$35-38 per night stay and overall the hotel was super worth the price paid! The only downside is that you should pray you don't get a room with the air conditioning installed in the room. Felt that was such a major architectural flaw. The room that we first got had a mini room to house the compressor, so when we turned on the air conditioning, the whole room sounded like an enclosed helipad.

The staff were really kind when we requested for a change in room and kindly explained to us that the only room available for the night as a replacement room is a Double bed room (which was 3/4 the size of the previous room) instead of a Twin room which we booked. But since we value a comfortable sleep on our first night, we agreed to sleep there for that night (but we eventually switched back to a twin room on the 2nd night onwards).

The room comes with an ensuite bathroom, which had all the toiletries you needed, a cupboard to hang your clothes, luggage stand. I was just hoping there would be bathroom slippers (cos we only brought one pair of slippers so we had to take turns just to walk around the room to do whatever we needed to do)

The location was convenient as it was just a 5-10 minute walk to Chulia Street (which had the amazing night life every tired Singaporeans need- with amazing lok lok and other food options too). There was also a busstop directly opposite the hotel (but we didn't take the bus at all as most places are walkable distance from the hotel).

Itinerary

Do refer to the itinerary I have below. I did not follow it 100%, as I altered it based on weather conditions (it was raining crazy on one of the days). Some of these places are recommended by my friend who is a Penangite.

Day 1

6pm                       Arrive at Changi Airport for dinner

7.30pm                 Flight 3K677

9pm                       Arrival at Penang - Take Uber (RM15) (About 30 minute drive)

                               Check-in hotel (Armenian Street Heritage Hotel)

10.30pm                Explore and head to Chulia Street Night Hawker                

Day 2

7am                       Rise and Shine

7.30am                 Breakfast: Roti Canai @ Transfer Road (Business hours: 6am-2pm)

9am                       Lebuh Kimberly Duck Meat Koay Teow Th’ng (RM5) (Go early, lunch time) and       Kimberley Street Char Koay Kak (opens 7 - 11am)

10am                     Penang Wonderfood museum (RM20 per pax using discount coupon)

12pm                     Lunch at Joo Hooi Café (has all different food, outside has popular chendol)

1pm                       Explore all murals (use the map provided from airport)

3pm                       Prangin Mall, 1^st Avenue Mall, Komtar Mall, Gama Supermarket and                          departmental store (behind Komtar mall)

5pm                       888 Hokkien Mee (Lebuh Presgrave)

Day 3

6am                       Rise and Shine

6.30am                  Head to Penang Hill (Via bus 201 from Komtar or Uber)

11am                     Try Air Itam Assam Laksa (at foot of Kek Lok Si) and Lim Sisters Curry Mee            (opens until 1pm only)

12pm                     Head to Kek Lok Si Temple thereafter

1pm                       Travel back to George Town

2pm                       Ah Leng Char Kuay Teow (Dato Keramat) (8.30am to 2.30pm)

 3pm                      Head to Cecil Street Market and Hawker Centre (Behind Komtar) (Must try Duck    Kuay Teow Theng)

4pm                       Pinang Peranakan Museum (Church Street)

5pm                       Lebuh Macallum Pasar Malam

Day 4

7am                         Take pictures at Clan Jetties (Chew Jetty)

9am                         Cheong Fatt Sze Mansion (blue house)

                                Kimberly Street Duck Koay Chap (opens 6 – 11pm)

                                Tua Pui Curry Mee (Kimberley Street) (9am – 5.30pm) Closed on Wednesdays

 Ban Heang Bakery

 Ming Xiang Tai egg tarts (To buy back!)

 Reclining Buddha Wat Chaiyamangalaram and Dharmmikarama Burmese                             Temple

 Gurney Plaza

 Gurney Drive Hawker Centre for dinner

Day 5

8am                        Wake up

                                Final moments in Penang

                                Chowrasta Market

                                Try the famous Char Kway Teow (directly opposite hotel)

7pm                        Leave for Airport

7.45pm                   Need to reach airport

9.45pm                   Flight 3K678

11.10pm                 Arrival @ Changi Airport             

I'll upload some photos in my next post! So do keep a lookout!!(: Oh yes, if any of you is wondering, I did not purchase SIM card or Wifi. It was honestly a bit of a torture as we are all so reliant on internet these days. I still managed to get around Penang without much trouble (except when I had to book an Uber back to the hotel - had to search for Mcdonald's in the malls in order to book one)

Regards,

Rachel

[School] NUS Module Review AY16/17 Sem 1: SPH3104 Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Public Health

Dear readers,

I realised searching for module reviews on Public health modules are as rare as catching a rare Pokemon. Decided to do a review for SPH3104 as I would like to advise which group of students to take and module and which group of students to not take it.

Grading criteria
- Individual Assignment (30%)
Individual essay assignment, max 1500 words (given in week 2, due in week 3)

You will be given a topic to write an essay about, asking you to describe the problems, causes and some possible solutions to solve that problem related to Public Health. There are 4 different topics, whereby the class will be split into 4; those with the same topic will form a group to work on the group project which determines majority of your grade (besides the final exam)

My topic was barriers to the uptake of vaccination (both influenza and pneumococcal vaccines) in elderly. Pretty simple and straightforward, but make sure if you get references from other countries, justify how is it applicable to Singapore (some similarities and characteristics between SG and the countries)

- Group assignment (40%)
30%: Presentation (15minutes + 5 minutes Q&A by panel of judges)
10%: Peer assessment (basically to make sure you're not the slacker of the team)

SUPER DUPER TIME CONSUMING cos we had to coordinate with a doctor from the CDC and get him to understand what we wanted to do for our project, and it took awhile for him to help us liaise with potential CCs to interview their elderly for our project. Had several meetings with him to discuss and craft out our survey questions, and had to go down to several places to conduct 1 to 1 surveys with the elderly (plus communication problems wasn't of much help also). But for 40% of your total grade, it was ok? and was a pretty good experience which can value-add if you intend to go into the research route (whether in the public health field or not)


- Final exam (30%)
30 MCQs and 3 SAQs
I wasn't expecting such a tough paper as they tested content that they did not pay much attention on. The profs were telling us that they were testing on concepts rather than those medical terms, etc. But WHAT ON EARTH, the minute details of the infectious diseases were tested. And since I wasn't a life science student, I was at a huge disadvantage.

One of the questions required us to list down 4-5 antibiotic resistant bacteria, of which I could only recall Staphylococcus aureus. My groupmates were telling me after the paper that they didn't expect such questions but wrote down according to their life science knowledge. (I guess being a life science student gave my classmates an advantage over people like me lol)

I guess the prof was pretty sly, cos the MCQs had options where answers were very similar which made it hard to eliminate.

Overall comments:
Quite chill for a level 3k mod for lectures (50% of the class doesn't turn up for classes) but group project was time-consuming. Pray you have good group members that are proactive, and pray that the group members and yourself have similar timetables  (or else peer review scores will affect your overall grades- try to be present during meetings/ do all the saikang)

Final exams was horrible, was worried I would fail the module, but I guess if you're to take the mod, just study all the small details (some of which are not found in the lecture notes but were mentioned by the lecturers)

You have to remember which diseases are vector-borne diseases, which are zoonotic diseases. Not an easy feat for non-life science students unless you have taken biology in JC before.

Should you take this module?
Life science students- Yes
Non-life science students- Maybe
Depends on whether you have interest in biology/ enjoy memorizing medical terms/ names of bacteria

[School] NUS Module Review AY16/17 Sem 1: EC4394 Behavioural Economics

Hey friends,

Back with some module review (will start with those mods which I had trouble looking for reviews online, if necessary, I'll continue with the more popular mods reviews.

EC4394
Lecturer: Roy Chen
Style of lessons: 3-hour seminar once weekly, a short 5-10 minutes break in between
2 slots available for bidding
No tutorials (each seminar class is about 40 people)

Grading:
Majority on group work
- Group Project (30%)
Where you have to come up with a topic (for Roy's approval) and then you have to produce a written report to explain how your group is going to conduct the experiment (but you don't have to actually conduct the experiment)
- Group Presentation
Each group is assigned one week where you have a set of research paper to read and present its findings on (basically just a normal presentation)
- No Midterms
- Class participation (10% if I remembered correctly)
- Finals (40%)
Very simple, if you have practiced and have listened in class.

Personal views on module:
- Content wise: very manageable
- Little math involved. Basic math only (subbing in of values)
- Interesting content which allows you to understand why people make different decisions.
- Roy Chen was an amazing prof
- All the marks for various components (group assignments and presentations) amongst all groups were pretty close. Meaning determining factor on whether you get an A depends on your finals
- Finals was easy (tested the concepts rather than all the minute details)
- Roy Chen made the class more interactive by using Moblab (an online application to play payoff games aka dictator games with other classmates). PLUS, if you're chosen as the lucky pair, you get the payoff you get in the game. (Some people won $12- just by attending class;good money in my opinion)

Do leave a comment if you have further queries.

Cheers,
Rachel