GeoffH

21 inch iMac can be bought from any PowerMac shop for about 65,000 peso and there is one in Subic. Harbor Point, Rizal Avenue Extension, Subic Bay Freeport Zone, Olongapo, 2200 Zambales

Never seen one here, they were periodically a problem in Australia.

Congratulations :)

Balikbayan box maybe?

We had a Mercedes Benz branded CD at my work (before I retired), came with the vehicle engine code analyser box. Only cost $15999

Pocket wifi devices (Globe or Smart) aren’t intended for home use, they’re for light use on wifi tablets and similar when you’re away from your residence. It only costs about 1300 monthly here in CDO for unli ADSL broadband or a bit more for faster fibre, we pay (from memory) 2799 monthly for unli cable at (up to) 20Mbps with 130 (ish) cable TV (HD and SD) channels for example. There are even basic cable SD TV packages with free unli 1Mbps Internet included for as little as 499 to 799 per month.

There is a garbage truck here that drives through our subdivision but you have to be there when they do and take out the bags of trash, they don’t pick it up if you just leave it out. From what I’ve seen they only do a few pick ups in our street each time, not sure what the other neighbours do with their trash but our phase of the subdivision is pretty much clear of rubbish and it’s common to see neighbours gardening the outside plants along the front of their houses and generally tidying up. Yes there are some run down looking places but even they seem to be cleaning up outside. But there are areas not too far where trash is much more noticible.

Even CDO is subject to traffic jams and it’s a lot smaller than Cebu, at least here there are quieter times during the day so we try and pick those ‘non peak’ periods to go into the city. To minimize traffic jams you really have to get down to 3rd class cities in size and then you start compromising on availability and/or accessibility of services IMHO.

I have to agree, we reserve the car for wet days and/or trips where we intend to be out for several hours or more, for shorter trips I've used the Mio 125 (or more recently the Honda 125. Having said that I've been riding motorbikes of one sort or another since I was a teenager. Starting riding a motorbike from scratch in your 50s, 60s or even older is something to be done very cautiously and there isn't going to be an ambulance 5 minutes away if you make a 'beginners mistake'. It takes time, lots of time, before reactions become automatic and before that you're slowly training yourself and at increased risk.

But it is also true that Poles will move and work for wages that western European country workers will not. This is is a difficult issue, on one hand both the Filipino and Polish workers are better off but on the other hand the effect is to reduce wages and decrease full time jobs in first world countries.

We found a locally made bamboo furniture set, I’m not sure it’s as nice as the ones earlier in the topic but it’s solid enough to hold my weight without flexing and it fits on our L shaped 2nd floor balcony ok which is the main thing. Thank you for the idea Queenie O. :)

Welcome :) It’s good to see another AFL fan on here (Carlton FC member here). I’m back in Oz every 3 months so I get to see an occasional game ( not that my team is winning many). I have found the people here to be a good mob in my short time here.

I’m not sure I would claim to ‘know the provinces’ but I have made the trek to visit some of the family who live in a village 30 kilometres from the nearest small town (no malls, just a small market, some shops, a church and a small gas station). The nearest medical care is in the next nearest (larger) town but it’s not a hospital. To get to the village meant a very slow drive along a road that was more potholes and ridges than road for an hour, then another 30 minutes of narrow dirt track and then a walk up and down hills an through a valley to a small collection of bamboo huts. The house was bamboo and I could feel the whole structure flexing as I walked in it. They had electricity but most in the village did not and they had a small second hand fans and an old box TV that just got 1 channel given to them by SWMBO when I first started dating SWMBO. They cooked over wood, ate outside on a hand made bamboo bench and relied on the income from the husband of a daughter who is a security guard with help from SWMBO. We took adult diapers and milk formula for the very frail and elderly great grandmother who was blind and who could no longer walk by herself. There are family in Ozamiz who also have little but the ones in the village seem more self sufficient and much more content, maybe because most people there live a similar life I am not sure. But the difference in attitude between rural poor and city poor is real.

Yes that one makes me wonder also, in my case I might ride the mio of SWMBO and she has decided she is trying to learn how to ride my semi auto Honda. Or yesterday we went to the beach but the vios only seats 5 (better with 4) and mama and papa were there so we let the sister and husband of SWMBO use the mio to follow us in the car. I cannot understand what they will do when there is legitimate use of a legal registered motorbike.

Yes I got one of the new arrival ‘cards’ (nb they’re paper not card stock) when I flew into Cebu early this week. It seemed to have a lot of the questions that the white paper arrival declaration had (yes I had to fill in both handing them both back, one at immigration and the other at exit from the terminal). For me this time arrival at the new Cebu terminal was quick and easy and there is a free transfer bus to the old terminal which is domestic only now (so with reduced people there that was also quick).