Showing posts with label Penang. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Penang. Show all posts

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Bar hopping @ Georgetown, Penang

The night before The Penang Bridge International Marathon (PBIM) run, TZ and friend went for a bar hopping in heritage site Penang downtown.

First stop, Traffic @ Beach Street, didn't managed to see any traffic police inside... Just saw two singers on the stage singing mandarin song... Quite a nice bistro for chatting, not so packed. Not sure it's too early~
Two singers was singing Chinese Song
2nd Stop: CAMEO - Come And Meet Each Others, not many people for us to meet. Maybe it's too early. The music is okay and it's actually a dancing club... 

Come And Meet Each Other (CAMEO)
Quite empty - DJ at the stage rolling upbeat music

We ordered a bottle of beer, stay about 45 mins and decided to move on to the next destination, THE BANK... don't worry we are not gonna rob the bank eh~ We might rob the drink only. LoL

The Bank - Anyone need money?
We ended up skipped The Bank and proceed to The Press due to the timing... 
Why the bar called THE PRESS? The building was hosted Kwang Wah Yit Poh press office. It has turned to one of the heritage building and the bar is named THE PRESS
The Press
To our surprise, there were a cover charge of RM50 each with a free bottle of beer or one bucket of beer / smirnoff vodka each. We told the front lady, we could not finished two buckets and she offered us to leave those for our next visit. Hey~ how long are you able to let us leave the bottles, ONE YEAR, TWO YEARS... WE ARE TOURIST LAH!!! In additional, TZ's friend was kind of pisse and a bit sarcastic... she quickly turned and agreed with our purchase of one bucket to enter THE PRESS. This was a surprise to TZ how they managed... 

Anyway, we kind of enjoy our time in THE PRESS. 
Inside THE PRESS
Compare to the rest of the bars, THE PRESS has the nicest interior and it has a mini skybar on the top floor which can oversee the ferry terminal and port weld. A cool place for chill over a bottle of beer or a glass of wine. 

After finished a bucket + 1 bottle of Smirnoff Vodka, we decided to head back to our hotel and got 2 hours of sleep before the PBIM run. It was a very enjoyable night out with friend. ;-)

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Penang Bridge International Marathon (PBIM) - Disappointed with Organizer

Previously... TZ and friend run on the bridge and gotten their medal. Rushing over to the bus stops to grab the shuttle back to Ferry terminal. But unfortunately, with the unorganized situation on the public transport (this is not day one issue in Malaysia when talk about Public Transport), most of the runners has stuck in the runner village. The bus was approaching and those aggressive runners have squeezed themselves to stay as close as the bus even though the bus is still moving...

Crowd out of control on bus - no one in charge
 Let's zoom in...

Aggressive crowd squeeze and touch the bus as bus still moving

It took TZ and friend to ask around and figure out how to know which bus going to where, guess what? by using the oldest method - ASK. yes can't you believe that an International even the bus that ferry people to three designated points has to ask the driver.... Reminds me of kids playing the game of asking...

"Driver Driver where is this bus going"
"Driver Driver where you want to take me to... "

After 1 hour of battle with the crowd and shouted with the driver, finally TZ and friend managed to hop into a bus which bring them to KOMTAR... And basically they need to be harsh and squeeze their way through. What a joke eh~

Squeeze into the bus
There are few improvement needed especially those safety issue with near missed
Participant Park their car anywhere
The organizer allowed the participant to park their car anywhere they liked that has slowed down the feeder bus to feed the participate in/out of the runner village. This has caused thousands participants not able to get to the runner village before flagged off.

Unorganized Feeder bus 
No one was assigned to orchestral the feeder bus even worst no signage on which bus went to which point. The participants have no choice but cloaked the road to ask the bus driver and some of them have no choice but pushed and squeezed into the crowd just to get into the bus. Luckily no one was under the wheel of the buses. (Extremely unsafe - BIG SAFETY ISSUE)

Timing Chip detector was not functioning
At the U-turn of 10km run, the timing chip detector was not functioning as expected due to too many participants. Not sure the detector has captured TZ's timing or not. YET to know. This has caused the runner stopped at the U-turn waiting to be detected.

Finish Line was a mess
Plenty of people standing at the finishing line to selfie, chit chatting, looking around for their friends. The participants were not able to run the last 100m to finish their run. There was no usher to control the crowd and the finishing line was not proper fenced to prevent those people whom already finished standing there to take pictures.

This is the worst marathon i haven't been, I thought WE RUN KL 2012 was bad but this is even worst, with lots of safety issues and lack of control on the crowd. Sigh~

Friday, November 21, 2014

Coffee Place : Coffee Affairs @ Bishop Street, Penang

I was at Penang for the Penang Bridge International Marathon Run... It was Saturday evening, my friend and I walked over to meet a friend of mine whom also went for PBIM run. After meeting the friend as we walked back to our hotel at Weld Quay, we came across this coffee place named Coffee Affairs.
Front entrance

Barista are busy making coffee behind the counter
 
I ordered a cafe Latte and my friend ordered a Hot Chocolate. We sat down and enjoyed the cafe decoration while chit chatting... It's quite unique and the whole place feel very homey.

Hot Chocolate and Cafe Latte

My Cafe Latte
The cafe latte is tasty and the temperature is just nice. Overall the experience in this cafe is nice and it's very near to our hotel that we stayed.

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Penang Bridge International Marathon (PBIM) - 10km run

TZ and friend went for the 1st PBIM on 2nd bridge. It's everyone first time running on the 2nd bridge and it's the world largest bridge run with 60,000 participants.

As early as 5am, TZ and friend has started to get ready and hit the Ferry Bus Terminal to hop on to the APBIM free shuttle that ferry people over to the PBIM runner village.

It was 6:20am in the morning, only 16 people on board waiting for the bus to leave for the bridge. Few minutes later, the crowd came in and the bus drivers has to reject some of the participant due to the bus has already full.

The bus was slowing down after Intel heading to the 2nd bridge due to heavy traffic. It took us 1 hour to reach the runner village and it was approaching 7:20am. 10 mins to the 10km flag off. TZ and friend were running towards the starting point and tried to squeeze in after the flag off. It wasn't a good idea but there was no other choice.

After the first 100m, there was the ramp up to the bridge. Everyone has slowed and walking up the ramp. TZ's friend has quoted this run as "Walkathon" instead of "Marathon". A mutual friend even quoted this run as "Running into so many lamp posts" (lamp posts = participant that walk in the middle of the runway)

After ramp up
Approaching the four pillars
After the turning back
TZ selfie with the 4 pillars
TZ and friend finished the run at around 9:30am. Managed to get the finisher medal and happily walked over to the shuttle bus station. Guess what? It was a disaster in the shuttle bus station.... [to be continue]

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Share the taste of Starbucks

Do you know inside this got a piece of paper stated "Share the taste of Starbucks" ?
Running Pack
There is a voucher stated Share the Taste of Starbucks, so you must be wondered what would I get from this voucher... Any guess?



The "Share the taste of Starbucks" is the voucher for Buy 1 Free 1 drinks on
  • Tiramisu Frappuccino or 
  • French Vanilla Latte/Frappuccino
Since two of my friends are staying in Singapore. So i have three vouchers which valid until December 15th 2014. Used one left two now...

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

On preparing for Penang Bridge International Marathon (PBIM) 2014

Another 5 days to one of the longest bridge run in the world... The 2014 Penang Bridge International Marathon (PBIM). This year run is on the 2nd bridge and I'm going to run 10km with three others friends of mine. We are leaving for Penang on Friday evening...

Penang Penang Here I come...


To PBIM runner, are you ready?