Living in Penang Part 1
Two days ago we finally completed the painful flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong to Singapore to Penang. To my incredible surprise, the place that my wife got us for less than $90/day US has been a great short-term spot while we look for longer-term housing: Park Royal Resort. I will add photos when I can, but the short of it is there’s a beautifully landscaped area where we can look out on the beach and then cool off in the pool with the kids.
But this will only be short-lived. Right now, I am focused on figuring out where to live longer-term.
Yesterday we did a tour of possible areas based on an excellent blog series from soultravelers3.com. The blog posts were:
- Penang Apartment or Condo Rental - Plenty of Choices
- How to Rent a Tropical Winter Home In Penang, Malaysia
- Finding a Vacation Rental Apartment in Penang -2
From the series of excellent posts, I distilled some key ideas to help us focus in an areas:
Top neighborhoods and condos
Her post was really helpful by actually recommending specific condos to look at by neighborhood, which we did. We took a taxi to all four from Park Royal and back for a total of 120RK. It’s normally 40RK each way from Park Royal to Georgetown, which was our final destination, so he added a 50% premium for stopping along the way. He got a good deal. Next time, we would make sure the concierge would ask and confirm the cost.
The places we checked out:
- Marina Green in Batu Ferringhi
- Alila in Tanjung Bungah
- The Brezza in Tanjon Tokong
- Time Square in Georgetown
Alila has the most lush, mountainous feel in the exterior. I was really tempted because part of my being in Penang was to experience something different from San Francisco, and the exterior surroundings is one factor. As is to be expected, being further from the city has both the pluses and minuses. But it’s been high on my list.
The Brezza is one we are investigating in more detail today with about four different viewings. From what I’ve gathered from some of these articles is that the views are most panoramic. My thinking is that in the days when it is hottest, we may want to just hang out at home and enjoy the view, then when the heat has subsided, go back out and enjoy the city delights. However, it is not right in Georgetown, just outside of Gurney Plaza.
Time Square is right in Georgeotown and seems to have a pretty nice pool area. There are probably many more other options there, as well, but we’re going off of the article and been focusing on Time Square for now. The question is whether we are able to just walk out to where we want to go, of if we have to take a cab, could we just do the same but from the Brezza?
I should have more details later as I think through where we want to live. The next task is to map out the areas we want to go. Hopefully I’ll be able to put that in the next post.