Daily Life: Back from Penang

By the time I am finished with this posting, I should be fast asleep. I have no been sleeping since Sat night onwards as the hotel drives us to the start point around 10.45pm. The event is to start at 3am but register to start at 2am. Actually I don't know what to register about as the runners has already register earlier.

In any case, the second day dinner at Penang is some chicken parts, a slice of pizza, some grapes and yoghurt. All items are bought from the Giant supermarket inside Penang Plaza. Sat most stores are not open or close around 6pm so there is nothing much to eat around the hotel. I don't wish to spend any more money on food as budget is running low. I had to take a nap around 4pm and 8pm to get some sleep. Its tough but i managed to grab 1 hr sleep each.

The run was excellent and the air around the bridge is very refreshing. The winds are chilling and cold to the bones. We ran from Queensbay mall, around the residential area, towards the bridge, u-turn 3k after the bridge and back towards Penang, up the coastal highway and back to Queensbay mall. Mine is the 21K run while the 42K goes all the way to the toll plaza and back to Queensbay mall. All else the same. I did not stop during the run so think may get a better result. (hopefully)

As the bridge is closed, I only learnt on the same day that my bus trip back to Singapore is moved from Penang to Butterworth. So i rushed from the bus terminal to Butterworth, taking the jetty but to no avil. By the time i reached butterworth, its around 10.15am and the bus has already left. The picture on the left is taken from the ferry. The ferry is those that allow the first deck vehicles to go in/out and above is for human passengers. Its the first time i take such a ferry and its a eye opener. Since from then on, i have plenty of time from 11am all the way to 10pm. I also took the bus instead. No more money to take cab. With the intention of securing a seat for the night trip I have to make my way back to the bus terminal for a change in the night trip back to SG. The counter was closed and I only knew about the result around 3.50pm by asking around. One of the other counters' guy is kind to let me know that they are having a company event so they closed early but will open later for the night trip. With that, I took the risk of taking the RapidPenang bus 304 to Queensbay mall for movie. No point waiting at the bus terminal as cannot sleep and nothing to to do.

I spend RM11 for the 'Immortal' movie and bought dinner at Mac. From Queensbay mall, its another bus 308 to the bus stop outside the bus terminal and i was very lucky. It started raining heavily after i reached the bus terminal. The counter has re-open and i changed my ticket. To my surprise, the bus no is 2121, the same bus that took me from SG to Penang on friday. Its the same drivers as i found out later. The journey from Penang to SG was very fast around 9hrs I reached back to SG. I had some breakfast n fill in this blog posting.

Penang is a good place for the marathon but i do noticed that the bus stops do not have the journey planner of each bus so there is no way to know which bus no goes where. The cabs around are non-metered run so very ex to take. I will have to plan in more details next time i goes there, no more cabs and no more 10am bus ride back to SG from Penang. (bridge is closed until 10.30am) Can take bus to KL then from there back to SG. After all the KL bus stop at Berjaya Times square where there is a cinema there.