NeonHippy

Generally yes although many are Christian and will attend church on Sunday morning. They seem to work all hours and we have woken up to find messages suggesting properties to view that were sent after we went to bed.

bakedbean

Ditto. The agent I have used in the past works whenever and usually busiest at the weekends.

montakute

Hi all. Happy to report we are now in surprisingly cool Penang! Got here Nov 1. Walking all over the place and really loving all the inexpensive food we've had.

Two 11-hour flights from Toronto to KL which would have been grueling except we were in Business Class on points, with a lie-flat bed and on-board chef, so cannot complain. At customs/immigration, we were a little worried about some stuff we brought in our 4 large suitcases but the officer only asked one question: "Do you like my music?" .. when we smiled at the surfing music he was listening to.

Overnight at the Sama Sama International at KLIA (heartily recommend, great buggy ride which whisks you from the terminal thru the elevated walkways to the hotel).

Gave our heavy sweater jackets the next day to the Malaysian Airlines attendant at the gate for our flight to Penang, we were tired of carrying them around and she seemed to like them, then kinda regretted it later when we entered Sam's in Gurney Paragon which was freezing that day.

Took a taxi tout at Penang airport which they say you shouldn't, but we would have had to take the 89RM van due to our luggage and this guy saved us 20RM or so and he gave a very nice ride.

Very disappointed that none of you told me the side-by-side escalators at Tesco go the same direction, unlike at home - caught a couple smirks as we trudged UP the stopped DOWN escalator assuming it was an up escalator simply not working.

Looking for a furnished condo rental, ruling them all out as I kinda expected (we are very good at finding all the negatives about a place unfortunately). But all the ones we've seen are actually very clean and in better condition than we expected and what we experienced rental house-hunting in Toronto after we sold our house recently.

Looking at one unit that is unfurnished but agents say landlord will furnish (for higher rent of course). But we have to sign a lease soon and are skeptical that we'll get good quality furnishings, especially after the lease is signed. If anyone has experience with doing that, please share.

bakedbean

Welcome to Penang

It's a renter's market, as you probably already know. Most units seem to be furnished so I would keep looking. If your agent is not accommodating then just get another one.

NeonHippy

Ditto the welcome to Penang. I wish I had known you were giving away your heavy jackets as we have to go to Toronto in February for our son's wedding, bbrrr.

As BB said, most apartments here come 'fully furnished' but many have been furnished with reclaimed furniture from the dump IMHO. But keep looking there are some pearls out there. I have just vacated a nice apartment with stunning views and can put you in contact with the landlord if you are interested and PM me. The downside to that apartment is that it may only be available for around a year before the owner (a brit) moves out here and it's proximity to the floating mosque.

SushiFan

Funny story about the Tesco. Rest assured that they have escalators going up and escalators going down. They're just not side by side.

Using Uber would have been cheaper than the tout you used.

I hope that you will soon find a condo you like. There are so many empty condo's out there that surely there must be one which fits your requirements.

bakedbean

Ah but Uber will require one to have an internet connection while en route

Somewhat off topic but I got an ad popped up for Grab today. Wasn't aware that we had that in Malaysia. I tried Grab last week in Singapore...on somebody else's phone. Seems to work quite well.

montakute

Thanks for the Welcome.

Re UBER, we didn't have our SIM card when we arrived at the airport but have since used UBER and have found it a great way to get around. Clean cars, nice drivers and very inexpensive.

After just over a week of looking at many places, we put in a rental offer on a (furnished) unit last night. We don't know the exact terms of our offer i.e. date and price because our agent didn't tell us. She had suggested a price so we gave her a narrow price range and said we were flexible about the date. It's just a verbal offer so far. We think it will be too low though.

It is not located in our first area of choice around Gurney, as we seemed to find Gurney units are either too big, too expensive or too rough. Also we encountered a number of smelly drains in units there, which could even stink up the place, not sure why. Too bad because we did find one affordable & good unit for us on Gurney Drive, but on our second visit the unit smelled from a stinky bathroom drain even though the unit had been closed up for only one day.

owned

You could always go back to that unit and ask if the landlord will fit drains with built in traps. All you have to do is then make sure the traps contain some water and you won't have any odor problems again.

montakute

Thanks, owned. I didn't know there were add-on devices like this because I'm more familiar with those S pipes that store water to prevent smells.

Not sure yet where we'll end up but we're also looking at new condo's like the ones at Quayside built this year, now becoming available. We happened to be talking to a salesperson at Astro (we dunno if we'll get Astro but anyway).

He said that for the Fibre Broadband (which is TIME Fibre) used by Astro IPTV, the installer drills a hole in the front door of the condo unit to get the cable into the unit, and then they string the exposed cable along the floor or ceiling to where you want.

Is this is correct and how it would work at a new condo such as Quayside? I'm more used to the cabling running in central ducts/passageways inside the building somewhere and then the cable comes into the unit through an access 'hole' on a wall where a TV might be placed. Attached is a photo of a wall at the unit we looked at.

SushiFan

Getting fibre internet is a story in itself. It is in Penang not everywhere available. So if high speed internet is important to you you have to take this into consideration when looking for condos. Even new condos don't seem to have the necessary cables pre-installed. Those cables will only be installed after a condo owner (or tenant) decides to subscribe to it. In those cases will the cables be glued to the wall. There are no pre-installed pipes available for those cables. This also explains why the installer will have to drill a hole in the front door (or near to it) to get the cable into the condo. Beware: you need the approval of the condo owner in case you want such cables installed! And in some cases you also need approval of the building management as cables will have to go up to the floor where your condo is.
In some cases, as on your photo, is some cabling pre-installed within the condo. In that case does the installer only have to drill a hole in the front door to get to the location where all the electricity fuses are (usually next to the front door). There he needs to place the modem and connect to one of these cables (they only do one!) to make the signal available in your room of choice. Other rooms are only connected at an additional fee (see Astro and TIME websites for fee structure if you want multiple rooms to be connected).

I have an Astro IPTV subscription. Within one month after subscribing I figured out that it was a wrong choice for me. I don't use the Astro TV that comes with it, and only use the internet connection. Had I subscribed to TIME fibre I would have gotten higher internet speed at a somewhat lower cost. Cancelling the Astro subscription before the 2 year contract is over is very expensive, so I have to wait.

InVinoVeritas

I would just correct a couple of misconceptions concerning TIME fibre home broadband.

TIME will not commute the fibre optic cable in an electrical fusebox, they will run the fibre right up to the network terminal and this will then be connected to your home gateway via a standard ethernet cable. TIME supply both the network terminal and the home gateway (currently Huawei). The home gateway provides 4 ethernet connections, wi-fi and a USB port. Both units require power.

The fibre optic cable is very light, white in colour and measures just 2.5mm x 2mm but it cannot be bent like electrical cable (probably a minimum radius of 5cm is required).

I hope this helps explain the installation constraints.

bakedbean

And the High Speed internet slows down when there is a deluge of rain Well, it does at my place.

InVinoVeritas

That's because you have your PC on the balcony

SushiFan

You are correct about the network terminal, being provided by TIME. However, if you have signed up for an Astro IPTV plan this terminal is modified and only one Ethernet port is available for internet. And one Ethernet port is dedicated to the Astro TV (the USB port is disabled). If your condo already has cables to multiple rooms you only get to choose one room where the wired Internet comes available (and one room where the Astro TV comes available). In this room you place the provided home gateway, which gives you wireless Internet in other rooms. Astro makes you pay an extra fee if you want them to modify the network terminal to enable multiple Ethernet ports if you want wired internet to become available in multiple rooms. So you have to select carefully where you want the home gateway to be located to ensure that the wireless signal is strong enough in your other rooms where you want to have access to the Internet.