Asia Trip 2013 (Overview)

I just returned from a quickly planned, but long-anticipated trip to Asia!  I'll be posting pictures and write ups about each leg of the trip, but the overview is as follows: fourteen days, four cities (and one horrible, wheelchair-bound layover in Toronto). 

Riding an elephant.  Bareback.  No hands.
You can practically taste my terror/joy.

The trip started as a visit to see my grandmother in Hong Kong with the benefit of fulfilling some residency requirements, but I quickly realized that I could choose flights with long layovers to maximize my adventure (under 24 hours is free, over 24 hours becomes an official paid stopover).  

With this in mind, I decided to visit a long lost friend during my a 17 hour layover in San Francisco.  I had to rejigger the dates of my flight, but it was totally worth it to see an oldie but goodie.  [Hi Keith!]  Sixty-five thousand airline miles and a hundred bucks later, my round trip to HK (with a jaunt in SF) was booked.

The dates during which I was supposed to be in Hong Kong coincided with Matt and Paul's trip to Thailand, so I figured I'd hit the beach with them for a few days while I was in that relative neck of the woods.  I found a flight to Thailand (25k miles and $125) with a layover in Singapore, and a side side trip to visit my buddy Dan P. (and the Singapore Grand Prix!) was in the works.

So there you have it.  Fourteen days, four cities, 95k miles, and under $250!