  We calculate the QCD equation of state for temperatures corresponding to the
transition region with physical mass values for two degenerate light quark
flavors and a strange quark using an improved staggered fermion action
(p4-action) on lattices with temporal extent N_tau=8. We compare our results
with previous calculations performed at twice larger values of the light quark
masses as well as with results obtained from a resonance gas model calculation.
We also discuss the deconfining and chiral aspects of the QCD transition in
terms of renormalized Polyakov loop, strangeness fluctuations and subtracted
chiral condensate. We show that compared to the calculations performed at twice
larger value of the light quark mass the transition region shifts by about 5
MeV toward smaller temperatures
