A few days ago, I announced the big news on my other blog: We bought a piece of land on Samal Island, which is in the Gulf of Davao. We plan to build a house there and semi-retire there in the future. Our plan is to be there 10 years from now. Why 10 years? Because our youngest child will graduate from high school at that time, and it makes it more practical to live in a somewhat remote place at that time. I don't like to really duplicate content between my various blogs, and that is not what I intend to do here either. But, the process of buying land and building a house has many different angles. Firstly, since I am buying land … [Read more...]
Dream Travel on a shoestring!
February 22, 2007 By Leave a Comment
As I reported here a few days ago, I recently took a trip to Zamboanga City, Tawi Tawi and Basilan. I want to tell you more today. Not about my trip or the places I went to, you can read that on my other blog. What I want to tell you about is that you can do a lot of great travel around the Philippines on a shoestring budget. A while back I reported about using the Philippines as a home base to explore other parts of Southeast Asia. Today, let's talk a little about domestic travel! Let's look at my trip. I went with a couple friends, but my wife did not travel with me on this trip, so costs would have been even less per person if she had … [Read more...]
Having Massage
February 22, 2007 By 17 Comments
I'm not sure ladies if you're like me, I really like to have facial massage at least twice a month. Have foot massage once in awhile. Facial massage here cost ranges from $5 to $15, foot massage cost $5, whole body massage cost $5. It so cheap here you could almost have it everyday. My mom's here with us for quite a while now. She had stroke 3 years ago. She can't hardly walk. If she stands up she has to get a hold on something. So I hired a physical therapist for her, the therapist works with my mom everyday for one to two hours and she just charges me $5 every visit. I can't go wrong with that. By the way, all of the facial, foot and body massage … [Read more...]
What’s today?
February 20, 2007 By Leave a Comment
Quiet... don't tell anybody this, it's just between you and I, but today is my birthday (Feb. 20). I'm not going to say how old I am today, because I'm certainly getting older. Oh, well... I guess I will. I'm 45 today. I moved to the Philippines when I was 38, and have been living a good life. Since today is my birthday, I thought that would be the subject for the day. Birthdays in the Philippines. Here, birthdays are really a big deal! They have big parties and such. It would be almost unthinkable to not have a birthday party here, it seems! Back in the States, having a birthday is just not really a big deal, but it's not like that here. … [Read more...]
Back home, ready to blog again!
February 19, 2007 By Leave a Comment
Sorry for my absence last week. I just went on sort of a "whirlwind" trip to a new area that I had never visited before. I visited Zamboanga City, Tawi Tawi and Basilan. It was a great trip, very interesting, fun and also educational! Because of my absence, I was unable to post anything here for the last week! I am really sorry about that, but I hope you understand. So, this week, I hope to blog about some important subjects that interest you! By the way, if you ever have a subject that you want information about, just e-mail me and let me know! I'll be happy to do my best. Have a good week, everybody, and come back to enjoy … [Read more...]
Travel Around Mindanao
February 16, 2007 By 2 Comments
I think this is really the dilemma of a filipina wife before moving here. Worried so much about the safety of the husband and kids. I can understand the fear because I did experienced that before moving back here. I was also worried before because in the news they always said it's so bad here in Mindanao. Don't believe on what you hear on the news sometimes. Before moving back here Bob and I decided that we go places that we want to go without anybody escorting us. When we arrived here, my family always want Bob to have somebody when he travels around town. Just like bodyguard. We don't like that. We want privacy and freedom. I saw lots of expats … [Read more...]
Adjusting Here In The Philippines
February 10, 2007 By 11 Comments
When Bob and I plan on moving here in the late 90's, I was the one that's leery about it beeing Bob and the kids never experience the lifestyle of living here in the Philippines. When I confided our plans on moving here to my Filipina friends they immediately say "Are you guys crazy" or "Are you guys out of your mind". Most of my friends are fearful too upon knowing that we are moving back to Mindanao. As they say the war zone place. Hearing them say those lines, I was so scared for my family again. When our moved finally happened in 2000. I felt emotionally mixed with excitement and fear. I was so excited to be here to be with my family and … [Read more...]
How will you choose where to live?
February 8, 2007 By Leave a Comment
As you can imagine, through this blog and my other blogs, I get a lot of e-mails from people who are thinking of moving here. I also talk to a lot of other ex-pats who live here. Often times, if you are in the mall or whatever, you see other foreigners. Sometimes I strike up a conversation with the other foreigners, and some of the things you learn are fascinating. One topic that is always a little fun is to ask a person where they decided to live when they moved to the Philippines, and why. If you ask a guy who still has not moved to the Philippines, but intends to move, where he plans to live, almost all the time, the answer is "My wife … [Read more...]
How much is it to buy ____?
February 7, 2007 By Leave a Comment
Let's face it, a lot of the people who come from abroad to live here in the Philippines do so because the cost of living here is very low! Even knowing that things are inexpensive, I get a lot of people asking me for prices of certain products. Because of this, I want to list prices of various products here on this post, and you can compare them to prices in your locale. Yesterday, I got a sale circular delivered to my house from Macro. Macro is sort of the equivilant to a Costco or Sam's Club type of operation. Let's look at some of their sale prices this week: Produce Cabbage: P25/Kilogram = $0.23 per pound Cucumbers … [Read more...]
Welcome to our new writer!
February 6, 2007 By Leave a Comment
I want to take a moment to welcome a new writer on this blog - my wife, Feyma! I mentioned (in a comment, I think) a week or two ago that I was trying to get Feyma to join me in writing on this blog. She agreed, and I believe she posted her first blog post last night. It's my feeling that having Feyma here on the blog will add a lot to what we have here. What I write is fine, but it is only my perspective that is displayed. Let's face it, no matter how much any one person knows (or thinks he knows!), a second opinion always adds flavor and credibility to any discussion. If Feyma disagrees with something I write, I encourage her to speak … [Read more...]
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