Trip to Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia

The next day after the Pittsburgh Marathon I had to fly to Asia for two weeks for work. I was still very sore after the race and had to get up "almost" every hour on the plane and stretch, walk, etc. Good thing I was sitting in the isle seat. I can imagine what would it be if I had to seat in the middle :-0.

My first stop was Malaysia and it took me over 26 hours to get there, including 3 flights (Pittsburgh -> NY -> Hong Kong -> Kuala Lumpur). Just about 22 hours flying time. Not a good thing after the marathon if you ask me. And this was not business class either.  The hotel in Malaysia was excellent - with nice 20 meter swimming pool and fitness center, so I got to swim every day and did some biking and towards the end of the week even running (up to 3 miles at a time). since this was my second time in Malaysia and I was so sore I did not do any touristic things (although I had great tour my first time around). The breakfast at hotel was simply awesome! Just take a look at these pictures :-). Fresh papaya, fresh squeezed juices, and more. Yum... Although I have spent there entire week, I simply worked in hotel room or in office or met with clients. Not much outside of work or food :-).

My second stop was Singapore. What a lovely city! Very clean and nice looking. It has amazing history - breaking up from Malaysia with no natural resources and prospering to the highest degree. The city is very expensive to live in, especially considering that to drive a car there you would pay almost two or three times of the cost of the car itself for the right to drive it. Such is the cost of a small space. The other thing I learned is that Singapore is buying soil, brings it on barges and dumps it into the sea to reclaim some space. They have expanded its size by 20% and plan to expand it by another 90 sq km. Wow... This was my fourth time here, but I have not been able to explore the city much and I had one free day (Tuesday was their public holiday) and I went to see the Botanical garden. Boy - was it something! I was told that estimated cost to build it was over $1B - and I think it is worth every penny. Beautiful place. Check out these photos I took - all with my Android Samsung Galaxy S3 phone (there are 103 pictures - click to see the full album):

My third stop was Thailand. This was my second time in Thailand and because of the government protests going on I decided not to do any tourism. However my first trip was very lovely from a touristic perspective when I took lots of pictures. This time I only had my Samsung phone with me a took a handful of photos. Compare the tw:

Photos from the first trip:

And photos from this trip :-)