The latest pictures of our house construction in the Philippines will show you what is going on inside our house. As you can see we have picked the cabinets and they are almost done. The counter and sink are in and we are almost ready for appliances. That is something I really look forward to as I actually have some ideas that my wife will agree with. Visit our Facebook album of the house construction by clicking on the following link: Our House Construction in the Philippines

On another note there is a video making the rounds of the internet, news stations, and social websites. It is the video of Flight Attendants for Cebu Pacific Airlines performing a choreographed routine aboard a Cebu Pacific flight to demonstrate safety procedures. The video received more than 7.3 million hits in less than a week. Cebu Pacific based out of Manila decided to use this way to “draw more passenger attention to its in-flight safety reminders”. If you haven’t seen it yet I’ve provided the video on this website. It is very good and shows how Filipinos have found a way of mixing their love of music and dancing with something many of us travelers ignore.

Some resources in planning your next flight to the Philippines or anywhere else


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I’ll start off by saying our house construction in the Philippines is getting recognizable as what we envisioned when this all began. if you are interested in how it looked before and what the home has progressed to, feel free to visit the photo album I have been keeping. Just click on the following link: Our House Construction in the Philippines

I just wanted to pass along a blog I have been following which I may have mentioned before but I’m not sure. You see when my wife moved to the United States she moved from Israel, although she is a filipina.
She was working there when we met and had worked various places around the world as an OFW. Generally she lived in areas of big cities so when we moved to Virginia Beach it wasn’t that big of an adjustment. When I retired we moved to West Virginia into a smaller city but still a city with not all the comforts of other places we had both been over the years. It took us a little while adjusting to the advantages and disadvantages of being close to everybody and basically being in a place where you were no longer just a face in a crowd. With this new arena we were exposed to other things such as becoming the topic of people’s Sunday dinner conversations, and everyone knowing our every move. Now that may appeal to some people but for me it’s too Mayberryish (made up that word). I appreciate the closeness to family and such, but I am more of a face in the crowd person and enjoy my anonymity.

What this is leading to is the author of the blog I was referring to and his wife, a filipina, seem to live in even a smaller town than we do with all the advantages and disadvantages. Ben and MaryAnn seem to enjoy it where they live and that is fine but as I read I can recognize some of the things that are driving me to get back to the larger cities where I feel I belong. Anyway, the name of Ben’s blog is My2Pesos and you should read this blog to see how an American and Filipina have made their marriage work in small town USA. That’s all I have until next time Salamat Po!

For all you interested readers I have updated my photo album of pics of our house construction in the Philippines. Looking at the weather news in the Philippines it looks like a good chance of rain for the next few days so I would say the outside should be complete soon and they will be moving inside. For all you Americans living in the Philippines and experiencing rainy season for the first time, I know how you feel because I’ve been through it and I actually like the rainy time of the year there.

I’m still here in the U.S. for football season but soon I’ll be back in the Philippines and working on furnishing the house and getting the kitchen appliances installed. I’m really homesick for the Philippines right now and look forward to getting on that airplane and returning. Until next time………

As you can see from this and the other pictures in the album our house construction in the Philippines is in the latter stages. It’s a good thing because in our phone conversation with family it was raining so hard in Laguna that we could hear it through the headphones. I’ve posted one of the pics from the album at the beginning of this post and the rest can be found in our Moving to Philippines photo album. Click on the link to see them.

In other news, I have been contacted from a tourism student at a University in Manila to be interviewed for her thesis entitled “The Philippines as a retirement destination for foreign tourists” If our schedules match up I may accept her offer and get together with her and her group for a sit down. I’ll post more on this later.

Well thats all I have right other than to say I’m counting the days until my return back to the Philippines. As soon as the college football season is over I will be on my way. See you all soon!

This August 23rd was a little eventful for Filipinos and the Philippines in general. One of the events was on the good side and ended less than good and the second event was bad all the way around.

The first event I’m referring to was the Miss Universe pageant where Venus Raj, the Miss Philippines, had a misstep in answering the question at the end. IMHO she could have answered much better, but I still think she wouldn’t have beat out the winner, Miss Mexico, anyway and probably would have made first runner up. The good part of the night was that Miss Philippines reached the final five runner ups and that the Filipinos in attendance were definitely the loudest cheering section which shows how Filipinos will rally behind each other and show their pride.

Also on August 23rd there was a tragic event where hostages were taken and a few were either killed or injured. This event may have hurt the tourist industry slightly but you can only look at London and New York to see how they have recovered after even larger terrorist events happened in their cities. Look, it could happen anywhere, and it does quite often. If people are afraid to visit places and see the world because of  isolated incidents such as this they will be living in a bubble and will never experience what this world has to offer. As for me it doesn’t change a thing about how safe I feel in moving to the Philippines.

Having been in the U.S. for the last Presidential election and then the Philippines for the recent Presidential election I would like to offer a couple of observations about the differences I saw. Now I must warn you that I watched news programs during both elections but my English is better than my Tagalog so in the latter case I might have missed a little bit in translation, bear with me. Also, I’m only making observations of what I saw and not choosing one country over another or one candidate over another, just my opinion.

The main difference I noticed was the television coverage of the two different countries. In the U.S. I witnessed many ads that were not much more than smear campaigns not focusing on what a candidate would do if elected but what his opponent had done or would do wrong. In the Philippines of course there was a little bit of that but on a less personal case. The Philippine candidates promised to rid the country of corruption and help the needy while the U.S. candidates focused on what would happen if the opponent got elected.

Secondly, since I am a history buff and enjoy the little sayings that go along with a campaign I was disappointed not to see any in the last campaign or the ones in recent history. I’ve read about “Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too” the 1840 U.S. presidential slogan of William Henry Harrison and his Vice President, John Tyler and “Give ‘Em Hell, Harry!”1948 U.S. presidential campaign slogan of Harry Truman, among others. These just aren’t present in American politics anymore.

In the Philippines there were political slogans along with catchy nicknames there was “Noynoy” “Gibo” and “Erap” along with Aquino’s catchy politcal slogan “If there were no corrupt, there would be no poor.” among others. And everywhere you went it was a festive mood with shouts from the children of Noynoy! Nonynoy! completely different from what I experienced in the 2008 U.S. election.

Now a catchy slogan or phrase or shouting a nickname may not make a difference in election results but I wonder how many people went to the polls undecided and all they have heard in their heads were little kids yelling Noynoy or Gibo. It makes you wonder!

Now that we’ve got the political commentary out of the way I’m going to post that latest two pics I have of our home construction so those following along can see how it is going. You can see all of those pics by visiting my Facebook album just click here

Well the worst part for doing outdoor house construction in the Philippines is beginning so I think by now most of the outside work is done and we can work on getting the inside complete. I’ve added some more pics to the album and one of my favorite pictures is the planter and calamansi tree that my wife made sure everyone knows is staying. If you are interested in the progress check out the latest at Our Home Construction in the Philippines

Having much experience flying on international flights, especially from the United States to the Philippines, I can tell you there are not many airlines better than Philippine Airlines (PAL). So it was sad to see that many of their pilots are leaving for jobs with other airlines.

When I fly I don’t have much interaction with the pilots on these flights but I do talk to and observe other members of the crew and I can tell you that PAL people are there to assist you in any way they can. All of the attendants are neat and friendly and smile all the time even on the long 15-20 hour flights. Try taking one of these long flights with a U.S. airline and you can tell the difference.

With the U.S. crews it is not unusual for an attendant to be rude and ignore passengers when they need something. One thing I think contributes to that is the U.S. airlines people look tired like they are overworked which could be the case. Maybe someone thinking of leaving for greener pastures should consider that. Secondly, the PAL and other foreign airlines employees seem younger and fresher, not burnt out. Maybe airline jobs are more coveted in these countries with a fresh batch of young people ready to work, I’m not sure.

The last difference I have observed between the airlines is the ability to keep on schedule. My last two flights from the U.S. were delayed significantly on the legs that involved U.S. airlines while the foreign flights were perfectly on schedule. Not sure why it was this way, but it has shaped my view of how I want to fly possibly taking the foreign airlines all the way.

There are other differences that I won’t go into here including food and comfort items but it is true that Philippine Airlines and other foreign airlines have beaten out the U.S. guys.

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For any of the interested readers of my blog on my Move to the Philippines I am including a link to some of the interior pictures of our house construction in the Philippines. This project is coming along very well and we are pushing it as quick as possible due to rainy season but since it is a very big project we are also watching the quality of work. Thanks to all of our neighbors and relatives in Binan Laguna for what you are doing in our absence, that is what I like most about the Philippines.

Here is a link to the Facebook album of the remaining pictures Our House Construction in the Philippines

Terrace Under Construction

Just received some updated pictures of work done on our house construction in the Philippines one of which is at the beginning of this post. Suddenly it’s shaping up to looking like we want it even though there is still a ways to go. I promised I would keep updating as it progressed not to show off but to let people see what goes on with house construction in the the Philippines. I will entertain any comments or questions concerning what we are going through. If you’d like to see the all the pictures just click on my Facebook button to the right.