Hey You! , What You Doing Here?

[P.S.]

In summary, it all comes down to the economics and the women.

Only to make my point clear.Of course I love my lady.But the reason why we choose Cebu are the People here.Also the Isle it self.My lady is no follow up or something like this and we don't live the "golden rule".I want to make it clear for my person.

[Dzighnman]

I am in Cebu after meeting my now wife while I was working a contract with Lexmark on Mactan island. When we completed the first part of our project, we hosted a dinner and night out for our Filipino engineers and she was a "tag along" friend of one of the engineers. We hit it off, had great chemistry and basically started dating that night... I was based in SE Asia and traveled extensively throughout the region... after a short time, I invited her to accompany me as the best way for us to get to know one another and thought she hated flying, she was a trooper and in the next couple years, she loggged over 100,000 miles. She still hates flying. We decided to get married in Cebu, and she and her son arrived into the USA at the end of one of my SE Asia contracts. We did the USA thing for a few years, she was not as happy as she had thought she would be and I was missing Asia.. .so we relocated to Carcar in 2010 and are working towards being back there full time in a couple months time. Life has never been better for me, she is as happy as ever, her son is now our son, both are US Citizens and they have more options later in life. When we arrive back into Carcar we are starting construction of our home and new resto location so plenty to keep myself occupied with for a long time to come. :)

[i am bob]

Though I'm not there yet, this is what has played out in life so that I so want to be there!!!As I've mentioned numerous times, I am retired from the military here in Canada... Lived my life of adventure and met a lot of great people - not to mention being around the world a few times... And after I retired at the young age of 36, my life started to go down hill... Started a business that was a great success but things weren't going well in my marriage. When my marriage ended, so did any money I had. Not that I was at fault... I have a daughter who has a lot of medical issues (wheelchair, special education program, etc) and twin boys (might as well have had 4 or 5 boys for what twins will cost you!) so I gave my ex everything we had along with the business and moved 1200 kilometers (800 miles) back to my hometown of NIagara Falls. If anyone has ever spent any time there you will notice that it has strictly tourism for employment. And owning a business will cost a small fortune. So now here I am broke and no chance of a decent income. Sure I found a few things but they don't last. Worked a couple call centers (both had lousy management above me that I could not put up with -even though I was management myself), managed a couple small stores (same problem - either they close because of inept senior management in the chain or they get rid of you so they can hire somebody else for less rather than give you a cost of living pay raise) and I even drove taxi (lost a tooth when I was hit in the face with a bottle when somebody decided to try and rob me)... As you can see, things aren't really going great here.I have come to realize that the last time I was truly happy was when I was somewhere warm... Oh how I hate being cold all winter long!!! I thought long and hard and decided to find someplace that I could afford to live off my pension and be warm... Costa Rica was my first choice - till I went for a visit again and found out that 1) it's harder to move there now; 2) the government is making restrictions now on where and who can buy certain lands; and 3) the people who have moved there - the ex-pats - that I have met are all turning out to be snobs or wanted by the law in their home countries. Next was Belize but I was starting to find the same things there... I had a 4 year relationship with a young lady who was from Taiwan and thought that maybe I would move there to see if things would work out again... but then I realized that, if one of us had the relationship the way we wanted it, the other would not be happy... So I decided to go somewhere by myself... And while I had first been looking at Taiwan, I kept getting these dating sites for Taiwan and China and the Philippines and a few other places coming across my computer... Darn spam! One night after a few beers I decided to check one of these dating sites out - just to see what it was all about... Are all the women there any different than I have met so far in life? Isn't there anyone who I could be happy with? I googled to see if I could find a free dating site and one in the Philippines - actually in Cebu - came up... A Christian penpal site it was calling itself... Well, I started looking at the girls though none really interested me that night... But I was looking at their information listed and then googling their locations... Checking this place out... How could I ever have missed the Philippines in my search for a great place to live? Started pulling up photos and maps and information on all the towns and cities!!! Wow!!! I fell in love with these islands that night! And spent the next few weeks (months?) learning all I could!!! Now in my military days I had been all around this area but never to the Philippines... And what was missing for me from all the places I had been to before I was finding here!!! But could I afford to move here? I still have my pension to fall back on though it's not really much. More than the amount people are saying is the minimum you should have to live on yet I'm not in the neighbourhood of senior government officials in Manila... Hehe! So, yeah! Get rid of all the debts I have now and I will be able to live very well!!!Now you're probably wondering... Did I ever try to meet any of the girls on that dating site? Yup! I had about 10 girls I was talking to that seemed to be very interesting and beautiful and wondering if one of them might be the one for me... There was one other who I found who was really more beautiful than all the rest... More inteligent than the rest... More everything than all the rest! If only she was a little older? I decided that I would be penpals only with this one... Now I am faced with 10 women who I had to decide if one - if any - would be worth pursuing in life... But none could compare to the one who was too young... Simple enough... Try another 10 or so... Same thing... Try another 10? Forget it! By this time my too young penpal had turned into a good friendship... then a great friendship... And then we both discovered that we had feelings for each other... Deep feelings... True feelings... She may be too young for me in Canada but what the hey! This is the Philippines, right? So I'm just one more Kano who will be looked upon as preying on the young girls... If they only knew the truth!So this is the story of why - in a few more short months - I will be heading to the Philippines for the rest of my life... I could have said for the warmth, because I can live on my pension and because I found the greatest woman on earth... But would that really explain why?

[Mike S]

Wow Mike S, that's really deep. To reveal the personal side of you in an open forum....wait a minute, I need to get a sanitary napkin to wipe my tears away.......

:) :tiphat: :hystery: :hystery: :hystery: no problem there for me Jake .... only one regular poster here knows what I look like and 2 others who visit occasionally ...... and nobody here knows where I live (except to say in Cebu) .... so I am relatively safe from the paparazzi ...... or the groupies ...... :hystery: :hystery: :hystery: :hystery:

[Jim Sibbick]

Excerpt from a book that is taking me a very long time to writeI had a very racist upbringing! Captain cook discovered Australia and Ferdinand Magellan discovered the Philippines. The fact that people were already living in both places didn’t matter a at all to the history makers.My world growing up was just white people. I knew there were aboriginals in Australia but I didn’t get to see any, except on television. There were no Asians. Well maybe there were some Asians but they weren’t part of my world and they certainly weren’t part of what we saw on TV either. So, actually meeting Asian people came as a shock in my teens. All Asians looked alike! Well at first all Asians looked alike! Before I turned thirty, I had been engaged to be married 3 times. Each time to Australians of English descent. I lived my whole life until my early thirties without ever thinking there might be a possibility of getting married to an Asian woman. At age 31, everything changed.In 1993, I was living in Robinvale.Robinvale is a small town that would best be described as a food bowl where just about anything that Australians eat is grown or raised. So, Robinvale has a large transient population that floats in and out depending on what labour is required for picking, packing or pruning. My very first Asian girlfriend was Pongchompoo from Thailand. Happily, she just called herself Thim!She was petite. About 5’ 2”, pretty and slim.My friend Pat came and collected me one time. He was always doing that for one reason or other. Pat was single but engaged to be married. His friend Joe wanted to introduce a girl to him but he wasn’t interested. I wasn’t interested either but we both went along to be polite, Of course there was also an expectation of free beer or free something.Mostly we were hoping for free beer. Pat and I both liked our beer. So much so that we made our own. There was always beer in some stage of production at my house and always an eager bunch of friends ready to consume it, so long as they had earned the right by helping out with production. So, you could say we were more interested in beer than having a relationship.Anyway, we got our free beer. The beer came first then the introduction. You have to get your priorities right!Joe introduced us to Thim. Sorry we’re not interested, thanks for the beer, time to go. Bye!I presumed that was the last time I would see Thim. I was wrong !At the time, I was working in a bank in Robinvale. My office was glass from about waist high, on 3 sides. All the customers could see me as they did their banking and often my customers would just knock on the glass instead of arranging an appointment. A few days after the meeting with Thim, she was knocking on the glass. I let her in of course. I would always be polite like that and let people in who were knocking on the glass. Thim asked me if I wanted to go out. Shock! No girl had ever asked me to go out, that I could remember. I always did the asking.! Well I didn’t really want to go out. As I was in saving mode. I would soon be heading off to Europe for a couple of months and I wanted all the available cash I could get. So, party time was over, temporarily, while I saved the cash.Instead of going out, we agreed to have dinner at my place. So, several of my friends were invited and several of her friends were invited. My place of course was a bachelor’s house so I had to do some scrubbing up first to make it presentable. There were always friends around playing pool, drinking beer and making a mess.During dinner, Thim’s friends are saying what a nice girlfriend Thim would make. Never been touched, never been kissed. At the end of the night, one of Thim’s friends said Thim needs a place to stay and could she stay with me. I didn’t believe she needed a place to stay but I agreed anyway. Including my bed, there were 3 beds in the house. I asked Thim where she wanted to sleep. She said with me, of course!Well things got off to a riotous start! I grabbed Thim and dragged her with me as I jumped onto the bed. This was obviously too much for my poor bed and it collapsed under the pressure. Oh well, two other beds to choose from, so we changed beds. Supposedly I am in bed now with a girl who has never been touched and never been kissed. That’s what they said at dinner, anyway!. A Virgin? No, stupid me! What is that scar on your abdomen, I asked. Oh that, I was sick and they had to operate, was her explanation. Yeah, you mean operate to take out the baby. It’s a Cesarean scar! At this point she gave in. Yes, she had a baby already. Thim was in, temporarily until I could work out a way to get her out. It was fine having someone around to look after my needs but limiting otherwise. Thim was always complaining that I wouldn’t spend money. Yeah well I’m going to Europe, get used to it. She would cook the food but I couldn’t eat it until she compromised. She would split the food in two. The spices went in her food but not in mine. She was used to eating very spicy food but it just burned my mouth and then I couldn’t taste anything because my mouth was numb. Over the course of the next few weeks she let out a little bit of information at a time. Eventually she told me that she had two boys. Yes, she was married previously but she was now divorced. She wanted to live in Australia and she wanted to bring her boys here to live too. She showed me a picture of her looking much fatter with two little boys The final question came when she thought the time was right. She wanted to marry me so she could stay in Australia. I declined her generous offer!---------------------------------After I returned from Europe, Joe had another try. His wife Imelda had a sister Anita who was interested in marrying a foreigner and Joe asked if I was interested. Not even a free beer this time! Joe had discovered the banging on the glass trick too so came to see me at my office. I told Joe that I wasn’t interested but knew someone who might. I took Joe to meet my friend Gaddo. Gaddo was in his late 30’s, never married and owned 12,000 acres of land, with a family home he lived in by himself. Gaddo could feel time slipping away so he decided that he would try with Anita. Anita’s photo helped with the decision! Anita was very pretty! Gaddo knew all about growing wheat but was not much at letter writing. This was 1993 and the internet had not quite caught on where we lived so of course we were still using snail mail. I helped Gaddo write a letter and we had some photos taken and sent them to Anita. The letter writing back and forth continued for a few months then Joe decided he was going to the Philippines in September of 1994 Joe asked Gaddo to go with him to meet Anita. I was asked to go too!I had been around the world a couple of times but never stopped over in an Asian country. Unless you count the airport. So I was interested to go to the Philippines and experience something new. Joe had very limited video footage of the Philippines which included his wedding to Imelda. He also had a copy of Filipina Dream Girls starring “Greengrass”. Yes I know his name is Bill Maynard but he will always be “Greengrass” to me. Anyway, that was our only real preparation for the Philippines. Nobody told us about terrorists or anything else that would be helpful for a first time visitor to know. There was a bikini bar scene in the Filipina Dreamgirls but without context, it meant nothing to me. So even for me who had travelled the world, I was expecting it to be different but not much different from what I had already seen. I think I imagined that Filipino people lived in a world like mine but they were Asian instead of European. I was in for a shock!September soon rolled around and it was time for us to go. We had a travel plan for the Philippines. Anita was 19 and still attending high school in Manila. She would still be attending school for our first week in the Philippines but would travel with us for our second week in the Philippines. After that, Anita would return to Manila and we would tour on our own.5 of us set out for the Philippines. There was Joe, his wife Imelda, his daughter Joanne, Gaddo and myself.We landed in Manila. The first meeting in person for Gaddo and Anita. Aaaand…. Nothing! Instant unattraction is how I interpret the meeting. No kissing, hugging or anything. Just hello and lets get in the multicab.We had arranged for the family of Imelda to meet us at the airport in a multicab. So the family came to the airport in a multicab full of people and not much room for us. The price agreed in advance for the multicab was P1,000. When we arrived at the house of Imelda’s aunt, the driver wanted an extra p500 because he had to wait so long. Well it was split 3 ways and seemed quite reasonable to me so we just paid. I didn’t know at the time but we could have caught 2 taxis for less than a combined P200 to our accommodation. A couple of days later, we hired a multicab for the whole day to tour around Manila. It only cost P500 for the whole day. That was when I really became aware that we were ripped off when we arrived. The multicab had been arranged by an uncle of Imelda. What a cunning stunt!The house we were staying in for the first week was very large. It was built over the top of a garage workshop. It had 5 actual bedrooms but someone had also cut the bathroom in half and made a bedroom in there. They had also turned a vacant area in the stairs into a sleeping area. So in effect, there were 7 bedrooms. People also slept on the sofas in the living room. The complex also had 10 apartments at the rear. They were rented out by Imelda’s aunt for P1,000 each per month. P10,000 month was a decent income at the time, so Imelda’s aunt was doing well for herself. You could go out the back door of the house, climb up on top of the apartments and look out over Manila’s Sta Ana race track.Imelda, Joe, Joanne and Anita slept in one bedroom. Joe later told me he was in lust after seeing Anita’s breasts. Gaddo and I slept in another bedroom. Our bedroom was situated right where they hung the clothes to dry so our view of the Philippines for the first week was of drying clothes.Our first night in Manila was a Sunday. We had arranged a roast pig in advance and it was waiting when we got there. In fact it was a huge feast, Just as well because there were a huge amount of people hanging around waiting to eat it. It was my first roast pig and it was delicious. We all thought so and decided that Sunday would be roast pig day. So every Sunday for the rest of our trip, we had roast pig.We all had air beds with us. In Cebu City, we were told we would be staying in a brand new house with no furniture so we had airbeds to sleep on. Joe decided he would use the airbed in Manila. It was the first time to blow it up. The salesman who sold Joe the airbed told him to blow it up with a vacuum cleaner. Unfortunately that was no help as there were no vacuum cleaners in sight. So I started blowing it up by mouth. It was a huge thing. Queen size and about 1 foot thick and took forever. Staying at the house were several of Imelda’s aunts, several uncles and many cousins. Of Imelda’s cousins, there were at least 10 single girls between 16 and 26 staying at the house. On about day 2, one of Imelda’s aunts came to me and said my niece is interested in you. I said which one. She said all of them! I enquired if there was one in particular and there was. Her name was Christine. She was 18 years old and studying journalism in college. She sat down on the sofa and I sat down next to her so we could have our photo taken. Just as the photo was about to be taken, she moved away from me. I immediately thought she has no interest in me and I never spoke to her again.When it was obvious that I wasn’t immediately going to accept an offer from Christine or any other girl staying in the house, the same uncle who took advantage of our arrival came to me and said he had a cousin and would I like to meet her. To be polite, I said yes. He also said he knew some girls who worked in a club and would we like to meet them too. We being Gaddo and Myself. Coming from Australia, to me a club was a Golf Club, RSL Club (Returned Serviceman’s League) or Bowling Club where you went to drink and play the poker machines (slot machines) at night and play golf or bowls in the day time. The girls who work in those places just serve drinks and food, so of course, we said yes.The uncle took us to a factory where about 100 girls were making clothes. The girls from the club were introduced to us and we were told it was P1,000 each for the day. For what?, is what I wanted to know and then we were told!. Gaddo was supposed to be spending time with Anita so I was perplexed as to why her uncle would be introducing us to prostitutes. In any case we refused. I suspect the uncle missed out on making more money from us.. Shortly after, we were introduced to “the cousin” at which time I had my own instant unattraction episode.The uncle seeing that nothing was going to happen decided to try something else. He took me to a door where I could see the girls making the clothes and said……….“TAKE YOUR PICK“. I didn’t pick any…..I wasn’t interested! But at that point, I became very aware that there are many Filipinas hoping for a ticket out of the Philippines and they saw me as their great white hope.---------------------------------In the meantime, nothing was happening with Anita. We toured around Manila in the daytime. At night, Anita would come back to the house and would not even acknowledge Gaddo.After a week had gone by, it was time to move on to Cebu City. Again we were stupid enough to arrange for Imelda’s family to meet us and again they came with a van full of people. This time there was no room for us at all and we had to catch a taxi.. So, in effect, we paid for a van for no other purpose than have Imelda’s family come to the airport to greet us. However, this time the cost was only a couple of hundred pesos so we weren’t too perturbed. Cebu City was another period of time with no interaction between Gaddo and Anita. Gaddo would try to pick up Anita’s bags to carry her bags and she would grab them back off him. If Gaddo sat down beside her, she would get up and walk away. This wasn’t going well. Gaddo was very patient and trying to communicate whereas Anita was making no effort at all. She was there because her sister told her to be there and that was it. The first opportunity to get away, she would take it.In the meantime, we enjoyed ourself. We spent a few days touring around and doing other things then Imelda announced she wanted to go to Palompon to see her mother. Palompon was a 5 hour trip on a ship. It was Our Lady of Mount Carmel and was my first trip on any boat in the Philippines. The trip was in the daytime so I was expecting we would have seats to sit on but nooo! No seats, just bunks. Bunks everywhere, as many as they could squeeze on. We could sit on our bunks but I found that too uncomfortable so, like all the Filipinos around me, I lay down on the bunk too. What an uncomfortable ride! The bunks were just perfect for your average Filipino but I found that the bunk was shorter and thinner than me. -------------------------------Palompon!A seemingly small town by the sea which turned out to have a population of about 50,000 people. However 50,000 people was still not enough to support a single supermarket let alone a department store. There were many small shops and several of what I would call mini marts but most of the shopping took place in the open markets. They had a fish market, chicken market, pig market and vegetable market. Nothing was refrigerated but they did have ice on the fish. The time to buy pig meat was obviously in the morning before the flies had time to do their work. The afternoon shoppers probably had some surprise protein with their pig meat. When I say pig meat, I don’t mean they had choice cuts like pork chops. The meat was hacked off and charged the same amount per kilogramme no matter how much fat or bone was in the selection. In the fish market, every imaginable type of seafood was on sale, including seaweed. Prawns (shrimp) were very cheap, about $1 per kilogramme. So cheap that they fried them up and ate them like potato chips. At night, they had TV in the park. Not movies but just ordinary TV. There were hundreds of people in the park watching TV. Obviously they were from families too poor to own their own. If there were a similar number of people in a park in a western country there would be vendors trying to sell food and drinks but not here. Not a single vendor. Probably, no one had money to buy anything anyway.We were staying with another of Imelda’s aunts. They had beds for some of us but we had to get the queen size airbed out again. Joe was hopeless at blowing up the airbed so I volunteered to blow it up, again. We were in the living room. Everyone knew it would take a long time to blow up so most people just wandered off. The only people left in the living room by the time I was finished blowing up the airbed were Anita and myself. I lay down on the airbed to check if it was blown up enough….and Anita lay down beside me.I was off the bed and standing up very quick. What was I supposed to do. Anita and Gaddo were supposed to be together and I was not going to be part of a threesome. Anita didn’t say anything to me and I didn’t say anything to Anita. In fact, I don’t believe I ever spoke to her again. I never said anything to Gaddo either. That day, Anita went off to stay with her mother and we took to eating at the best restaurant in town, Ambrosias. Ambrosias was a pleasant break for us. We had enough of eating Filipino food and Ambrosias were happy to feed us all the western style food we could eat. There were a couple of bonuses too. The beer was only about 30 cents. The other bonus was the waitresses. They wore short skirts and seemed hardly able to keep their legs together while they sat down waiting for customers. They would also lean over the tables more than seemed necessary to take our order. From now on, we were eating at Ambrosias.We decided we should visit Imelda’s mother too and decided the best time to visit was when it was time to collect Anita for her boat back home. We only travelled 10 kilometres in the car but the whole trip was on a dirt road and took about 30 minutes. The house of Imelda’s mother was very small. There was one small bedroom, about the size of a queen size mattress. Not that there was a mattress. Imelda’s mother slept on a mat on the floor. The rest of the house was a combined kitchen and family room not much bigger than the bedroom. We were the centre of attention. It seemed as if the whole village turned out to see the 3 white guys. Obviously no white people came to this village very often. We were obviously so important, we received an invitation to visit the Barangay Captain, something like a village chief. His house was much nicer.When the excitement of our visit died down, we decided to go back to the main town. The boat back to Manila was already waiting at the pier so we went straight to the boat. Anita, Imelda, Joe, Gaddo and myself all went on board. We made sure that Anita was comfortably settled then left Gaddo and Anita to say goodbye. Gaddo walked over to Anita to do or say who knows what. Whatever it was, he didn’t get the chance. As soon as Anita saw Gaddo advancing she just screamed out something. We had no idea what she was screaming out but it just sounded bad. Gaddo gave up, never said anything and we walked off the boat together. On the pier, I asked Imelda what Anita had said. Anita had said, Don’t leave me here with him.That was it for Anita. It should have been over long before but that really was the end right then.It was Saturday night and half way through our Philippines adventure. After we left the pier, it was time for Ambrosias. It was commiseration time for Gaddo but laugh time for us! Joe and I thought it was very funny and we kept teasing Gaddo about what had happened with him and Anita. After a few beers, our laughter turned into a new plan. Plan B! What a waste of a trip if he went home without a pen pal so we decided to see if any of the waitresses were interested. There were 3 waitresses working that night and we decided to ask the prettiest one, Dana. Of course that was thinking with the wrong head because the prettiest one was also the stupidest one. Dana always got the order wrong. I don’t mean now and then, she got our order wrong every time. Anyway we asked Dana. Dana this is Gaddo, Gaddo is looking for a new pen pal, are you interested?……..No! She wasn’t interested. That was a shock to my system,. Everyday we seemed to be in a situation set up to meet potential pen pals and the first time we ask a girl for ourselves, she said no. I found out later it was a cultural thing. The girls in Palompon were more traditional than city girls and had to be introduced first.Later on in the evening, Imelda’s uncle, Dodong, came into Ambrosias. We told him about our little problem. He already knew about Anita. It would probably be front page news, if they had a local newspaper. Anyway, the grapevine had been working well and he was having a laugh too. Dodong said he knew all the waitresses and he would choose out a girl for Gaddo. The girl he chose was Margie. He asked Margie to come over and said, Margie this is Gaddo, Gaddo this is Margie, Gaddo is looking for a new pen pal, are you interested?.... And she was! The next day was Sunday so it was roast pig day. We arranged to have roast pig on the beach in Palompon. Imelda had many relatives and it seemed that they were all interested in our roast pig. Margie came and she bought Dana with her. In fact we saw a lot of Dana away from Ambrosias over the next couple of weeks It seemed to me that she was hoping to be asked again. If she got the opportunity again, this time the answer would definitely be yes! The day at the beach was a complete contrast to two weeks with Anita. Gaddo and Margie were walking up and down the beach hand in hand, they were swinging on the swing together. Margie had her hand on Gaddo's knee. Marvellous! No more of Anita’s nonsense. Margie was all over Gaddo. Things were going so well, we decided that we would go back to Margie’s house and meet her parents.The night before, we had asked Margie how old she was and she had said she was 19. During the day she admitted she was only 17. This didn’t change Gaddo’s mind. Joe said Imelda had done the same thing. When he had met Imelda, she had said she was 19 but was only 17. So we thought nothing of it. That was the way Filipinas are. Of course it was a perfect opportunity to opt out of any relationship but Gaddo was thinking with the wrong head. Margie was very pretty.We came to the house and it was in the poorest part of town. The house was built in the squatter area and was built from bamboo. It had a bamboo floor and walls and a nipa roof. I could see through the floor to the ground underneath and there were pools of water there. I found out later that during typhoons and large storms, the storm surge forced so much water under the house that it came up through the floor. I was never there for such an event but apparently it was common. I also found out later that this was their in town house. They had a house 9km out of town built of hollow blocks but due to the expense of bringing 2 adults and 6 kids in to town for work and school then back home again each day, they decided to build in the squatter area to save money. The combined daily income of Margie’s parents at the time was about P200 (about usd $7 at the time) and the cost of transporting the family in and out was P60 per day, so it made good financial sense. Margie’s father was home and most of her sisters but Margie’s mother was working at her stall in the fish market. Working in a restaurant at 17 meant that Margie wasn’t overly educated so English wasn’t one of her strong points. So, her sister, Nide, translated for us. Nide had gone to college for a year but had to stop after some financial disaster had struck the family. Because of her college education, Nide had quite a good grasp of English. Nide was introduced to me as Ate Nide, which means older sister but also is a term of respect for any older Filipina. I took this as Auntie Nide and for some reason, Nide looked to me to be about 35 years old. As I was only 32 at the time, I wasn’t particularly interested in Nide. I asked if I could film the house and did so while Gaddo got acquainted with the family.philippines-experience.com/videos/newpenpal_long.wmv-------------------------After the introductions, Gaddo and Margie spent a lot of time together. Margie stopped working at the restaurant and everyday, Gaddo and Margie would go out somewhere different. Every time Margie came by she would say, Nide sends her regards. After a few days, I thought I would be polite and invite Nide out for dinner. I don’t know what it was but at dinner, she seemed much more beautiful than at our first meeting and also turned out to be only 20 years old. Anyway, Nide seemed interested in me and I was interested in Nide, so we started dating.I had not gone to the Philippines to find a bride but after more than 100 offers, I succumbed. On one of our visits to the local freshwater spring, I asked Nide to marry me and she said yes. Gaddo asked Margie to marry him and she said yes too.Next came the grilling! I was invited to meet Nide’s father but at the meeting were also Nide’s 2 grandfathers and several of her uncles. They all had questions for me. They wanted to know about my intentions. They wanted to know about my situation. They wanted to know about previous relationships. In short, they wanted to know everything. The grandfathers spoke quite good English and were easy to understand. They were educated under the American system. When the Americans were in charge and for a long time after, English was a high priority in schools. It is not such a priority now, which is why older Filipinos can often speak better English than young Filipinos. So after the grilling, it was agreed by all that I was good sort of person and they were happy for me to marry Nide. About a year later, Gaddo and I travelled to the Philippines again. This time to get married. We weren’t alone. A whole bunch of people wanted to share the occasion with us so there were friends and relatives from Australia. All having there own little culture shocks.My mother was very happy with all the attention she was getting. However when we landed in Palompon, the only public transport was a Pot Pot. A Pot Pot is a bicycle with a side car. If you ask how many Filipinos can fit on a Pot Pot the answer is always..one more! But for us fat foreigners, it was one to a Pot Pot. So of course we all got separated. As each driver was going at a different pace depending on his load. My mother reached our accommodation first. We hadn’t told her how much it should cost but when we arrived she was beaming. The ride had only cost P20 she was exclaiming… about 70 cents. Well that is great mum but you know the ride is only supposed to cost P2. Anyway, we honeymooned on Boracay and the rest as they say, is history!

Edited March 25, 2012 by Jollygoodfellow
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[i am bob]

Excerpt from a book that is taking me a very long time to write

Excellent presentation! When do you think the book will be ready for publication?

[yosho]

Reading through this thread, I can't help but think that, young or old, from wherever we might be, it seems the thing that brings us all to the Phils - or keeps us here, at least - is the women! I'm not really sure what to think of that! It might have been something I would have looked down on previously, equating it with exploitation or something, except that I find myself in the same situation, so doing so would be extremely hypocritical! :)For me, I had graduated with my B.Sc. and was looking for work, but this was 2009 and the economy was still terrible, so I couldn't find anything for nearly six months, during which time I simply entertained myself with video games and wondered what my life had become. Then one day I got an email through my inbox from one of the mailing lists I subscribe to for work-related topics saying they needed someone ASAP for an NGO position in the Philippines. I had barely ever heard of the Philippines before - and I was from multicultural Vancouver! - but decided to give it a go. A month later I was on the ground in San Fernando, LU, alongside this other crazy young expat from Harvard and we were interning in the City government's Environment office for six months! It was an absolutely amazing time, but I figured that, once it was done, I would just travel Asia for a bit and head back home. While I had certainly noticed the beautiful girls all around me, our contracts with the Canadian government expressly prohibited us from having anything to do with the sex industry (even though our local colleagues tried many times to get us to go!), plus me and the other guy were sharing a 1 bedroom apartment (our beds were literally 2 feet apart), so I didn't bother attempting to think too much about romance or sex with any of these beauties. But then, right as our 6 month contract was coming to an end, I was walking down the street one day, and my future girlfriend called out to me (having seen me around before) and we chatted a bit, exchanged numbers, and, before I knew it, I had wrangled myself a date, which conveniently happened just as my male friend had left for a week to Manila for a conference! Hehe :thumbsup:After that, though, I still had to leave, as I had booked all my plans already for travelling Asia! It was total heart-break to leave my new love behind, so that gave me ample reason to return 5 months later after the trip was done. I then found myself another job in Manila and we lived amazingly happily together for 6 months. Unfortunately, again, I had to leave, this time to be where I am now, doing a Masters degree, so that I can hopefully go back again in May and find an actual paid job to support us. Leaving her again, though, was even worse than the first time, and it's been utter agony to be away from her for nearly a year. :(Don't get me wrong, I love the country too - It's relatively easy to travel/live in, I love the food, the scenery, the 'pakikisama' (congeniality) of the people, and can speak Tagalog pretty well, but, let's face it, I wouldn't be doing any of it if it weren't for the fact that my girlfriend (soon to be wife I hope!) has been the most amazing partner compared with anything I experienced in North America. The kind of unconditional love she's showed me simply doesn't exist in North American women, so I can see why we all have the same story in the end!! :)Cheers,J

[Old55]

J;"The kind of unconditional love she's showed me simply doesn't exist in North American women, so I can see why we all have the same story in the end!! :mocking:"So true, very well said!

[Jack Peterson]

:mocking: Home is where the Heart is! The PI is where my Girls are, That's my honest and easy Answer.The Rest is called Life.Jack P. :cheers:

[Jim Sibbick]

Excerpt from a book that is taking me a very long time to write

Excellent presentation! When do you think the book will be ready for publication?

At the current rate of progress, I may have to wait until I stop working full time.Regards: Jim