Why live in the Philippines?

[Old55]

8 minutes ago, Mike J said:

Did the piss end up in your imported cheerios? 

Mike, I think you should show some respect to a member willing to speak out honestly. Let's give him space to share how he really feels from his own experiences living in da Philippines. 

[RBM]

9 hours ago, Ozapriliaguy said:

Like what???....like every kind of real cheese, real ham, real bacon, sugar free bread, wine, spirits, butter, steak, salmon....ad infinitum ad nauseam.

Appears your bitterness is based solely on your experience, wonder how much of an effort has been made to obtain the foods of your taste. Not being in CDO for many years I am unable to comment how ever years ago there ere some good Italian restos with lots of cheeses.

We all experience different situations, here in Bacolod where we reside there are none of the nasties your complaining about. My partner bakes our bread as many posters here also do, with some effort we have found tiny hole in the wall Indian suppliers plus some delis selling  a variety of cheeses. Water and and power outages are pretty much non existent.  Imported wines salmon all available.

Instead of grizzling about your situation and bad mouthing why not find another location, there are heaps of karaoke free places (maybe not close to Jim) available, barking dogs free and so on. Honestly your bad mouthing does not sit well with many ex pats here whom call this home and enjoy life.

Please do not post one can live cheaper in Oz as I know its not true, even paying the excess for quite a lot of imported foods we still spend far less than a similar live style would be in OZ or NZ.

 

[frosty (chris)]

12 hours ago, Jollygoodfellow said:

Imported? like what as most is available locally.

Best Laugh of the day you can't be serious,

[manofthecoldland]

Where ever you choose to live, there are going to be sets of trade-offs. The question for you is, what sort of a problem set will you settle for and adapt to, and what set of positives makes it more worth staying there despite the shortcomings than your other options.  

Complain all you want but the  country or world isn't going to change for you. You either accept things and do what you can, or else strike camp and move on in search of a better fit.

A good percentage of expats do just that. No sense in living here in a continual state of dissatisfaction and unhappiness if you don't have to.  Many do have to however, since their wives don't want to leave. One of the drawbacks  for men here is that they often cannot relocate easily (e.g. owning a house) to another part of the Philippines, their island or even to another part of their city or town...... where conditions my well be much more to their liking. 

Different provinces and parts of cities have problems providing steady and dependable electricity, water continuity and adequate pressure, access to luxury items or expat preferred foods, etc. That's why the common advice it always to rent awhile, before building to see if the place measures up to your needs and wants. Many of us live in places that DO provide what we need, and we are relatively content.

If you don't do your homework and try before you buy..... you may well end up with 'buyer's remorse'. Applies to locations and sometimes the women we choose to live with.

Good luck with finding live-able solutions to whats making you unhappy.  The thing I like about Filipinos is that they are not a whinging lot. Practically all of us have lived through trying times in our lives, and find the problems we encounter here to be truly small potatoes compared to other times and places we have lived through.

 

 

[GeoffH]

10 hours ago, Ozapriliaguy said:

Like what???....like every kind of real cheese, real ham, real bacon, sugar free bread, wine, spirits, butter, steak, salmon....ad infinitum ad nauseam.

Robinsons have KRAFT cheddar and Mozarella, that's the only cheese I need and they have sliced ham to go with the cheddar cheese to make ham and cheese toasties.

Bacon is available but not in the same style as Aussie, I don't need sugar free bread, there is a reasonable choice of wine and some spirits (but mostly I just have a Tanduay if I want spirits), don't really eat steak, salmon is only one fish and there are plenty available fresh at the markets.

It sounds like you've moved to the Philippines but want everything you had in Australia... that's just not going to happen but there are alternatives if you're willing to adapt and be flexible.

 

Edited July 18, 2020 by GeoffH

[insite]

On 7/17/2020 at 12:14 AM, Ozapriliaguy said:

My wife makes an awesome chicken Lumpia and I use sweet chili sauce as the dip - try it. As for the rest of your list - hey, it's all personal taste, and none of it is to my taste, except that the only rice I will eat is Basmati rice - not available here.

Basmati rice can be bought in Davao at a few of the Indian stores

[Ozapriliaguy]

13 minutes ago, insite said:

Basmati rice can be bought in Davao at a few of the Indian stores

Thanks for that mate. I actually just found that there is a large supply of different brands on Shopee. 5kg is 1100p delivered - pretty reasonable price.

[Ozapriliaguy]

11 hours ago, Jollygoodfellow said:

I guess if you dont get out much you would not know where to find good things.

Sure it does but you joined here in 2018 with a CDO IP but your IP now says USA as posting so just asking.

 

Sounds like a troll, smells like a troll so probably is a troll. Your attitude belongs in the trash basket. 

Well, at least I haven't been moaning and bitching publicly for the last 4 YEARS about being so stupid as to allow myself to get ripped off.

[Ozapriliaguy]

1 hour ago, GeoffH said:

Robinsons have KRAFT cheddar and Mozarella, that's the only cheese I need and they have sliced ham to go with the cheddar cheese to make ham and cheese toasties.

Bacon is available but not in the same style as Aussie, I don't need sugar free bread, there is a reasonable choice of wine and some spirits (but mostly I just have a Tanduay if I want spirits), don't really eat steak, salmon is only one fish and there are plenty available fresh at the markets.

It sounds like you've moved to the Philippines but want everything you had in Australia... that's just not going to happen but there are alternatives if you're willing to adapt and be flexible.

 

Thanks for the reply. Still in lockdown here and just venting I guess - especially when people rave about how good it is here. Yeah, I do miss Oz but can't go back, too financially committed here now - I've been here so long that I don't even qualifiy for the Oz aged pension anymore.

Things are slowly improving with imported goods, but it takes months before they restock here, and sometimes they will only have a product once and never stock it again. For example - five years ago Robinsons had Vegemite - it was all gone in a week, never to be stocked since. Frustrating.

Also, there has been a ban here in CDO since Sept '19 on all pig/pork products - local and imported, only chicken and the local baka available. That gets a bit ordinary after a while. However, just last week I found a local online store selling Salmon (which I eat around 3 times a week) and it was reasonably priced and freshly cryovaced - so that was a good discovery. Have also just recently been buying Ostrich meat, which is a pretty good replacement for steak - so I am attempting to be adaptable/flexible. Have a great weekend.

[Old55]

China has pig virus going on at the moment. That may explain the shortages you see in CDO. They (ccp) have bought several larger US pig processing plants so recently the price of pork has gone up in the US.