So 2014 has been pretty busy for me so far and i haven’t had much free time to post about the rest of my 2013 travels. I wanted to create a separate post for each leg of our Asia journey, but instead I’ll just put it all together in one post.
After only three nights of rest back in Atlanta, we packed up our stuff once again and headed out to Singapore via Tokyo. We spent one night near Narita airport and arrived in Singapore the following day. It was ridiculously hot there and we spent three days sweating as we explored the city. We easily could have spent a week there and it still might not have been enough.
Our next stop was Phuket. I had always wanted to see the beaches of Thailand, so I was very pumped about this part of the trip. We stayed at the Twinpalms resort, which was absolutely stunning. The service was on par with the InterContinental Bora Bora, but the prices were only a fraction. Phuket was so nice and relaxing, and we even took a boat trip through the Phi Phi Islands to Maya Bay where “The Beach” was filmed. Lots of tourists, but still an amazing paradise.
After Phuket, we took a short flight over to Bangkok, where we stayed at the Sofitel So, another beautiful hotel with top-level service. I never knew Bangkok was such an insanely large city. And the traffic is absurd. Makes me never want to complain about Atlanta traffic ever again. We spent three nights in Bangkok and had a chance to visit the Damnoen Saduak floating market. Simply awesome. We also spent some time walking the grounds of the Grand Palace and exploring the incredible artwork and architecture.
Our final stop before heading back to Japan was Hong Kong. I remember my mom telling me stories about her visit to Hong Kong when I was little. Ever since, I wanted to see the city and I’m so glad I finally got the chance to do it. The food. The views. Such a kickass city. I definitely want to go back and dig deeper into the heart of Hong Kong.
So I finally got a chance to see Asia outside of Japan, and while I loved loved loved every single one of these cities, my heart will always live in Japan and after these two weeks I was so ready to get back to Tokyo. And because I love Japan so much (and because we spent two whole weeks there), I will put up a separate post just about our trip to Tokyo and Kyoto. Yes, I know I’m being biased.