Asia & Pacific Ocean

5 Random Things I Did This Weekend in Singapore

Phew – it’s been a whirlwind last 10 days! Flying to Australia for the Tour Down Under (with more posts to come, especially some cool behind the scenes bits on tech), and then now just getting back home this morning. … Read More Here

A Singapore Runaround

It’s been a while since my last official ‘runaround’ post in the long-standing series.  Not because I haven’t been running around all sorts of random cities, but rather, posting about it usually gets knocked down the totem pole of things … Read More Here

A Week On A Small Australian Tropical Island

After leaving Adelaide we headed north to Sydney.  We were only there about 72 hours, and I haven’t exactly written a post about it yet.  Partially because the weather was generally shiest.  And partially because I’m backlogged on everything.  Either … Read More Here

Spectating the 2017 Tour Down Under

It comes to an end – The Tour Down Under (at least for me, the race finishes later this Sunday – today in Australia).  I stayed for a week in Adelaide, overlapping all of the Women’s Tour Down Under, and … Read More Here

The North Huvadhoo Atoll (Maldives) Swimaround

The Girl and I have been taking a long awaited vacation to a place far away from the hustle and bustle of daily life (and our respective jobs).  For that, we burned a bunch of points and flew to the … Read More Here

Swimming in the Beijing Olympic Water Cube

After hearing that Beijing was on my work trip itinerary I immediately did a bunch of research to figure out if you could actually swim in the famous Water Cube from the 2008 Beijing Olympics (officially called the National Aquatics … Read More Here

The Xi’an China Runaround

It’s funny to think that prior to booking my airline ticket to this city, I’d never heard of it.  In fact, I can’t think of the last time I booked any travel to a place I didn’t know existed.  I’ve … Read More Here

A Wellington (New Zealand) Runaround

Yesterday I spent just a touch over 24 hours in Wellington, New Zealand. After landing into Auckland at 4:45AM from Perth (a miserable time for a redeye flight by the way), I then had a quick connection down to Wellington … Read More Here

A Rottnest Island Runaround (Western Australia)

I arrived here in Perth, Australia nearly a week ago – and things have been a wee bit busy since then.  As I noted what seems like ages ago, I’m in the midst of a two-week trip down here to … Read More Here

Singapore Brooks Run Happy 9K Race Report

Back a few months ago when we first realized we’d be going to Singapore (actually, for all the cities we’d be visiting), I looked up the race calendar for this past weekend.  Turns out, there were a number of races … Read More Here

A Kochi, India Runaround

Welcome to India, the land of a billion people, nearly as many bikes, and countless interesting places to run.  Despite having flown over India more times than I can remember in the past two years, it’s been almost exactly two … Read More Here

The Seoul Runaround

It’s roughly midnight, and I’ve been asleep for two hours.  Well, was asleep.  For reasons unclear to me, my body thinks it’s time to to wakeup.  Clearly, it’s confused.  Nonetheless, traffic continues to bustle outside – a never ending surge … Read More Here

An Auckland Runaround

(I wrote this up last month during our trip to the South Pacific, but the posting got busy with CES immediately following – so it never quite made it to the light of day.  I figured it’d be a fun … Read More Here

Bora Bora Part II: Sharks, Rays (the Manta kind), Paddle Boarding…and lots of rain.

(If you’re just joining me, start back at the first part of the two-part series) While Bora Bora is certainly about sun and sand, we did spend a fair bit of time doing lots of non-beach chair items.  Sometimes for … Read More Here

Bora Bora Part I: Getting here, sun, swim and run!

After our New Zealand trip it was time to head somewhere warm(er).  And no better place to do that than Tahiti.  Like the more familiar Hawaii, Tahiti is made up of a number of islands – though far more than … Read More Here

Friday Photo of the Day (or trip, as it may be)

I started writing a post for the first part of our Bora Bora trip, but then decided that I was tired.  After all, all this relaxing has made me…somehow more tired.  Maybe just lazy.  Well, not quite sure. Either way, … Read More Here

New Zealand Part III: Open cockpit vintage biplane flights, and canyoning (it’s like rappelling)

For our last couple of days in New Zealand we kept it busy, exploring the areas nearby Queenstown and Wanaka (both on the South Island).  On our last full day though, we really packed in it.  Of note were two … Read More Here

New Zealand Part II: Glaciers, peaks, long hikes…and a lot more sheep.

We continue our exploration of New Zealand roughly in the same southerly region that we left off at, departing from Queenstown. From there we drove a couple hours deeper into the mountains towards the Milford Sound region, staying in Te … Read More Here

New Zealand Part I: Caves, cows, sheep and mountain biking

Most conventional itineraries to New Zealand from the United States usually fly across the Pacific from either LA or San Francisco, with a relatively short 11-13 hour flight straight to Auckland.  But, as you’ve probably guessed by now, I usually … Read More Here

The India Runaround

With my work completed yesterday (Thursday), I had the morning in Delhi to do as I saw fit before my flight later this afternoon.  I initially thought I might go do some touristy stuff, but after it was found out … Read More Here

India Part II: Crouching Tiger

(Quick note: You can see the first half of my brief trip to India here in Part I) As a general rule of thumb, when you want to go see unique things in the wild, it takes a bit of … Read More Here

India Part I: “For some things, there are no explanations”

We arrived into Delhi, India – the country of 1.2 billion people – quite late Tuesday night…errr, rather Wednesday morning I guess.  We were supposed to be there Tuesday night – but because the coffee pot on the airplane wouldn’t … Read More Here

A very short stay in Bangkok

I can’t say I was able to spend much time really seeing much of Bangkok during my short stay in Thailand.  While I was initially scheduled to be there some 5 days, in the end, I’d only end up staying … Read More Here

A weekend in Vietnam

When I started this multi-week international work trip through Asia early last week, there was no plan to spend any time in Vietnam.  It simply wasn’t on my itinerary.  I was to work until Friday in Seoul, and then head … Read More Here

A moving bit of Seoul Food

I arrived into Seoul in a general state of confusion.  Usually I have a much better handle on travel logistics for cities I’m arriving in, but somehow things got busy and I didn’t quite have the time to ensure I … Read More Here

A weekend in Saipan

Over the last 8 weeks or so I’ve been jetting in and out of countries all over the place, mostly in Central America.  In the vast majority of the cases, I was there working for only 24 hours, sometimes up … Read More Here

Days 14…and 14 – Three countries, one 30+ hour day

On Friday it was time to depart the Maldives and begin our journey home.  So we packed up our little villa and then headed out to catch the seaplane.  But before leaving, The Girl lined up her complete collection of … Read More Here

A day with the Maldives Whale Shark Research Programme

Back a few months ago while following the Underwater Thrills blog, I saw a story about a Whale Shark research program in the Maldives.  After a bit of poking around, it turned out the program is partially supported by the … Read More Here

Days 11-13 – Maldivian water games, a night and day difference

Given the Maldives are a collection of tiny islands in a vast ocean, you spend the majority of your time in or around the water.  The good news is…I like the water.  The bad news is that there isn’t enough … Read More Here

Days 9-10 – Welcome to the Maldives

After a short hop through Singapore (again), and then a longer four hour hop, we arrived at a very small slim parcel of land in the Indian ocean where the Male Airport sits.  Of course, since I’m pretty sure only … Read More Here

Days 4-6 – A prelude to a Bali Triathlon

After arriving on the island of Bali from Singapore, we sought out our pre-booked rental car place at the airport.  However, despite booking with a major international car rental company via a major travel service (Travelocity), no car rental humans … Read More Here

Day 3 – The Singapore Sleepover

After a 6 hour flight from Beijing, China our Boeing 777 landed in Singapore, Singapore (the city with the same name as the country, sorta like New York, New York).  By time we cleared immigration, customs and everything else it … Read More Here

Day 2 – (A very cold) Beijing and some really big wall

For reasons only the time zone gods can explain, after just 5ish hours of sleep, we were both wide awake and ready to go. As soon as the hotel’s breakfast place opened up we headed on down to check it … Read More Here

Day 1 – The Tokyo shuffle and beyond

The first flight, on the first day.  Our trip started in Seattle just after noon where we jumped on a very empty United 777 headed nonstop to Tokyo. After departure we climbed out over Puget Sound under clear and sunny … Read More Here

Voted off the island!

Ha!  Awesome!  I was watching tonight’s Survivor – more out of interest after my trip to Palau over the holiday break than the show itself.  We had been told that the tribal council area was at a place near where … Read More Here