Don’t like hot weather? We have cold weather too!

My Mom recently arrived here in the Philippines.  She spent Thanksgiving here, and will spend Christmas with us too.  She has actually visited us in the Philippines three times now, and she enjoys it here, I think.  Funny, because she always swore that she would never come here.  She said it was too hot here for her to handle.  I had to get seriously ill before she decided to make a visit!

Anyway, as I said, my Mom is very sensitive to extreme heat, and thus feared visiting the Philippines.  It is indeed very hot here!  I had a little surprise for her over the weekend, though.  We took her for a drive up into the mountains in Bukidnon.  It’s quite cool up there!  It gets pretty foggy sometimes, I have even been told that there has been ice on the road at times in the past,  but I don’t know for certain.  Anyway, we stopped at a place called Seagull Mountain Resort and had lunch there.  This place has beautiful grounds with lots of different kinds of plants and flowers growing around the place.  At this time of year, their poinsettias were absolutely spectacular in full bloom.  These aren’t potted poinsettias either, they are large bushes planted in the ground.  With the cool weather they really thrive up there!

Anyway, my point here is that the Philippines has more than just hot weather.  There are various types of climates in the country.  If you like cool weather, try Baguio City or Bukidnon Province, which is here in  Mindanao.  In a place like Bukidnon, you are within a couple hours from the beaches, yet still in a relatively cook climate!  The best of both worlds.

Thanksgiving - Philippine Style

It’s Thanksgiving day still in the United States, but already Friday here in the Philippines.  Of course, there is no Thanksgiving here in the Philippines, it is a uniquely American Holiday (yes, I know there is also a Thanksgiving in Canada celebrated in October).  However, for American ex-pats like me who live in the Philippines, most of us do celebrate holidays like Thanksgiving, Fourth of July and such.

For Thanksgiving, there are many restaurants that offer Thanksgiving meals, mostly restaurants that specifically cater to foreigners.  For instance, here in Davao there are a number of places to choose from if you want to eat out and enjoy the traditional Turkey meal:

• Claude’s - A french restaurant which is owned an operated by Claude, a frenchman.
• O’Flannagan’s - An Irish Pub which is owned and operated by Maurice, an Irish-American.
• Swiss Deli - A small European restaurant and deli, which is owned and operated by a group of European guys.
• Marco Polo Hotel - The nicest hotel in Davao, which tends to cater to foreigners.

So, as you can see, most of these places are owned and operated by foreigners from one part of the world or another.  Actually, I would say that most ex-pats tend to kind of “stick together”.  If there is a German Holiday, all the ex-pat places tend to celebrate it.  If a few days later it’s a French Holiday, again, the same places are celebrating!  It just works that way, I guess.

If you are like me, and you prefer the more traditional type of Thanksgiving where you do all the cooking at home, you can do that too!  Butterball Turkeys are readily available in several grocery stores in Davao.  The turkeys that you can get here are smaller than what you find in US stores, but they still taste the same!  We bought two turkeys for yesterday, each about 10 pounds.  We have a number of people that visited the house and ate Thanksgiving Dinner, though.  We cooked on Turkey in the oven, as we always did in the States, and the second turkey was cooked on a spit, over a bed of charcoal.  The decision was unanimous, the turkey cooked on the spit was far superior!  From now on, all of our turkeys will be cooked this way.

We also got most of the other traditional Thanksgiving items that we wanted: cranberry sauce, yams, etc.

Happy Thanksgiving to everybody!

Homesickness

In the past 2 to 3 days, I have had discussions with two different people about homesickness.  In the first instance, a Filipina who is living in the USA left a comment on one of my blogs saying how she was very homesick for her previous life in the Philippines.  I told her that I certainly understood her feelings, because when my Filipina wife first came to live in the States, she often experienced homesickness.  As a matter of fact, for about 3 years or so, she had regular bouts of homesickness.  For the other 7 years she lived in the States, she had occasional homesickness problems, but not nearly as often.

Earlier today, a fellow asked me if I got homesick, since I am living so far from my family and the things that I grew up with in the States.  Well, it is true, I do get homesick from time to time, but it is not often enough that I consider it a problem.  I have lived here for almost 7 years now, and I would say that I have been homesick only about 4 or 5 times or so.  When I got homesick, it generally lasted from a couple hours up to a full day at the most.  It certainly doesn’t happen often.

Another question that he asked is if I miss my family back in the States.  I don’t mean to sound callous or uncaring, but I don’t really miss them.  I guess the reason is probably because I have Vonage VOIP telephone service, so I can call and talk to my Mom whenever I want to, and she can call me.  We normally talk daily, and sometimes several times per day.  Because of that, we are still in touch and keep our connection going.  Also, my Mom has been here to visit us twice, and will be here a third time soon.  So, I am able to maintain good contact with my family, and that feels good.  I believe that it also helps me from getting homesick.

So, will you get homesick when you move here?  Of course you will from time to time.  I don’t believe there is any way around that!  But, you can also take steps to minimize the homesickness, keep in close contact with your family and friends, and generally have the best of both worlds!

Looking to rent for a shorter term?

On a blog comment that was left yesterday, the commenter (Jerry) said that he is looking to rent a place in Davao and only needs it for around 6 months or so.  However, everyplace where he goes wants a one year lease.  He needs a place, but doesn’t plan to be in the country for a year!  What can he do.

Well, actually, he can do something fairly simple, and not too expensive either, and his problem will be solved.

It is true, most landlords here in Davao require that you sign a lease for one year.  No way around that, unless you are just able to negotiate that away.  However, every lease contract that I have seen in the Philippines states that if you decide to leave before the lease expires, you lose your deposit.  Nothing else.  So, let’s say that you are paying P10,000 per month for the rent.  Normally, landlords ask for 2 months deposit, so you put P20,000 down as a deposit.  If you leave after 6 months, you just forfeit the P20,000 and you are free to walk.  No hard feelings.  The landlord will probably even be happy, because he can rent the place again, and gets to keep the deposit free and clear.

Sometimes the landlord will ask for more than 2 months deposit.  If he does, negotiate!  I have always been able to get them down to two months deposit, no more.  Some landlords will also as for twelve post-dated checks for the rent.  Just tell him that you are a foreigner and don’t have a Philippine bank account, so you can’t issue him checks, in every case where I have tried this, the post dated checks have been waived.  And, yes… by the way, post dated checks are legal (and standard) here.  In a lot of cases, if you buy something on time, they will demand that you pay all the payments with post dated checks.  Be careful… if one of those checks is deposited, and you don’t have funds in the bank to cover the cost, you can go to jail for that.  It’s called “estafa”.

Keep another thing in mind when renting - as a foreigner, you are much sought after!  I have had many landlords tell me that they really prefer to rent to foreigners, because they generally take better care of the place, and also, they generally have enough money to pay the rent without hassles.  Use the fact that you are a foreigner as a bargaining chip!

Good luck on finding the dream rental that you have been looking for!

How is the Internet here?

A regular reader of this blog left a comment on another post asking about Internet availability and quality here in the Philippines. I thought I’d answer that question on a new post.

When I first moved here in 2000, the quality of Internet connections was terrible… dialup only! Being an Internet Professional, it is hard for me to do business with only a slow connection. However, I am happy to report that things are much better today! As long as you live in a town of decent size up to a City, you can expect that DSL will be available. In large cities you have even more choices with multiple DSL providers and also Cable Internet coming into play. Cable has been available in Manila for a few years already, but it will be available in Davao by next month too.

Cost of the Internet varies depending on the speed that you desire. The lowest end DSL plans are 512Kbps download speed and cost P999 (about $20). They have several plans to choose from. Next up is 1.2Mbps download speed which is P1995 per month (about $40). The next plan is the one I have, which is 2.2Mbps download speed for P3000 per month (about $60). There is a new plan coming which is 5Mbps download speed for P5,000 per month (about $100). All of these prices are for PLDT (Philippine Long Distance Telephone) as the provider, as they are the most widely available in the country. I have used PLDT as my provider for about 4 years now, and have been pretty happy with their service.