Piece by piece, Malaysia builds a new metropolis by Singapore

During my internship at Thomson Reuters, I was sent on a media tour to Legoland. Upon return, I wrote a story on Iskandar Malaysia, and it was used as a sidebar to a special report, Malaysia's Dilemma, written by my editor, Bill Tarrant.

The sidebar in PDF:

I took some pictures during the media trip too...

With no trees to take shelter under, workers take a break under concrete pieces in Nusajaya, a district in Johor, Malaysia. An area of  mostly  rubber trees and plantations are slowly being transformed into a new metropolis north of Singapore. 

A worker examines large Lego models of landmarks in Malaysia. Painstakingly built, these lego models are no child's play. 

Good team work is required to build entire buildings in Lego. 

Some parts of the Lego modelling factory even resemble a lab. 

Do they look the same? Famous models attract people, but because some buildings are so well known,  the public can spot mistakes easily.

Iskandar Malaysia started developing in 2006 but progress had been slow. But as 2012 approach, some of its first theme parks and universities would be up and running soon.