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Seven December 2005 Well here it is December and so much has happened. Time to fill in the blanks. As I previously mentioned I returned to the Philippines in mid-October. I came to Dumaguete, a large town on the island of Negros in early November to see if it was a place I would like to settle in. Turns out it was perfect. Dumaguete has an airport and sea terminal with regular daily flights and ferries to Manila and other parts of the Philippines. There are also 5 Colleges and Universities in Dumaguete which attracts many young people. Through a real estate friend of Lynnette's we went to visit a couple of houses and found one close to the beach. We liked it alot and was going to take it but everyone said the owner was ripping us off. At $350 a month I found that amusing. Nevertheless, it was true and the fact is many people here and in general all over the Philippines think all foreigners are rich and therefore try and take advantage. In any event we passed on this house. I returned back to Manila and Lynn to Davao. We agreed Lynnette would return to Dumaguete the following week to look again for another more fairly priced house. Well we got lucky and lynn found a perfect house for us. I came to Dumaguete for good on December 14. I took a Ferry from Manila that I loaded with my Truck, scooter and all my personal effects. It was such a nice trip as I passed by many beautiful islands with gorgeous beaches. Most of them very remote and not condusive for full-time living.
Lynnette took care of most of our household needs before my arrival. I arrived to find a house all set up with all my needs (especially the Internet) met. BTW, the house Lynn found is in a compound of three other houses all being rented to expats. Expats is a term givcen to people who work in a foreign dountry. Here in the Philippines foreigners are typically referred to as white people or foreigner by the locals. We have a black guy renting one of the houses in the comound. He is referred to as "A Black". Our house is the fartherst one in the compund from the beach at say 200 feet. It has 3 bedrooms upstairs and a balcony. I told her to go ahead and rent it. Are you sitting down. The rent is only $120 per month. She also took care of installing the Satellite TV that has my much needed CNBC station. This cost $200.00 prepaid for the year. She also had Internet installed as well. This cost about $65.00 per month. Much higher than what you'd pay in the states but remember this is a 3rd world country. Funny thing is, to give us our Internet service they had to install a huge antenna (picture below).
Even though the bedrooms are a bit small they are actually perfect size for our needs. I decided to use one of the bedrooms for an office and the second bedroom for guests or Lynn's 12 years old son when he comes here possibly in April. Oh one other funny thing, the three bedrooms are upstairs and there is only one bathroom and it is downstairs. So, in the night I use one of those plastic hospital containers to leak in while Lynnette uses a bucket. We'd probably kill ourselves going down the stairs in our sleep.
Houses here generally come unfurnished which means you have to buy everything including appliances like refrigerators and stoves. So we bought a small refrigerator, 2 burners, Toaster Oven style stove and of course furniture. I like bamboo furniture but had no idea how much it cost so we went shopping. Most bamboo stuffs are sold by the side of the road. Make a long story short, we found two couches, two chairs and a coffee table for a whopping $28.00. It cost about $50.00 for the foam cushions and fabric so $78.00 in total.
A typical day is as follows: MORNING
7:00 - Wake up and Check Emails
8:00 - 11:45 Work in Office updating MLM Insider Website AFTERNOON 12:00 - Lunch varies each day around a salad, soup, noodles, fish or meat
12:45 - 4:00 - Get on scooter and head to El Dorado or one of the other beach resorts. We normally pay a nominal $3.00 consummable entry fee which means we can use the $3.00 to drink and eat with. Most all of the resorts have nice pools to swim in and great restaurants to eat. So, we spend most of the afternoon lounging in the pool, napping, and drinking ice tea or whatever. It is such a great way to spend the afternoon. We also take nice walks on the beach.
EVENING 4:30
- 6:45 - Back to the office
Of course there are many abberations to our usual day. Sometimes we may geton the scooter and just explore
or we may go into town in the morning to shop, see the doctor or whatever, We also like to take a coffee at "Why Not" a Restaurant/Bar establishment that serves really good food and is located on the seaside blvd in Dumaguete. There are many foreigners or White people as they are called by the locals. Many of them hang out at the Why Not or some of the other Blvd bars. Most that I see are in their late 50's, 60's and older and look in my opinion like derilects. And they seem to always be surrounded again in my opinion by some really ugly girls about 30 - 40 years younger. Hey as long as they're happy what business is it of mine.
Some afternoons when it is raining we don't go out and instead watch a DVD, talk, laugh and just hang out. And I don't always work even though Lynn is accusing me of alway seeing my mistress (computer) LOL
But Lynn is really cool and understanding and gives me all the space I need with no nagging. She's great. 2005
Home,
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