Business Trip to Malaysia 2010
Sean Reddy on left and John Cahill on right
Each year Sean Reddy my business partner & I visit the furniture shows in Malaysia and Singapore and this is us on our trip in March 2010 at one of our suppliers factories. At that time we were primarily furniture wholesalers and we still are, trading under the name ComfortZone, but due to the downturn and collapse of turnover in wholesaling BEDSITE.ie was born in mid 2010.
As we are cramming a business trip into about 6 days we want to see as many suppliers at the shows and visit as many factories as possible, so when we arrive in Singapore at 7am after a 13 hour flight from London, it's straight to work. And at about midday John looks worse for wear as you can see in the picture and as we say in Ireland "would you look at the head of him")! This is us at a supplier's factory about an hour from Kuala Lumpur.
The shows are located in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore which are easily accessible from where we are staying...
We usually stay at Le Meridien in KL Sentral, a fantastic hotel that we have been staying in since it opened in 2003. It's a 5 star hotel, but when we first stayed here it was only €53 per night, last year about €78, so inexpensive and superb quality. By the way the leisure centre is on the 6th floor and the outside swimming pool is shared between Le Meridien and it's sister hotel the Hilton.
Oh what luxury, but very affordable - that's why we go there! and it's 33c all year round!
View of KL from my hotel room
Photo I took of the KL twin towers from street level. I have been in the twin towers twice over the last 15 years since I have been going to Malaysia.
The year of the 9/11 attacks in New York, I was in flight to Shanghai from London and learned about the planes crashing into the twin towers in NY on 12th Sept. I was in China for only 3 days, but the security that they put in place was incredible, all the mobile networks were down and unbelievable extreme security at the airport. We then flew from Shanghai to Kuala Lumpur and as expected the KL twin towers were closed to visitors that time.
View from the sky bridge in the twin towers KL in 2010
View of the twin towers KL
Back to work.
Here we are at the Malaysia International Furniture Fair in the World Trade Centre Kuala Lumpur.
On left Yeepin of Wasaniaga
Centre John Cahill with the beady eyes suffering from jetlag
Right Sean Reddy
and later off for a swim in Le Meredien hotel pool
Thanks for taking the time to to look at all this.
I haven't been to Malaysia this year simply because of the way business has callapsed over the last 2 years, it's the first time I have not been in the far east in 15 years.
Hopefully we will see business picking up and then start packing the bags again.
They say the Irish are nomads and we were born to travel, I just love travelling from country to country and it is certainly in the blood, and by the way there are lots of Irish bars in Malaysia, Singapore and Shanghai!
Kind regards
