Ceres Bus Fire, Visa Changes, Age-Gap & Crypto Coins


Christian Filipina Asian Ladies Dating 700x100 wide animated banner 1

Author: Reekay V.

Since 2012 I’ve been traveling through various islands of the Philippines as a full-time Expat and spent 1999 living in Vietnam.

Share with me my ongoing adventures of life in the Philippines. Hopefully you find my observations helpful in your own adventures.
— Reekay

40 comments

    1. just this week, governor gwen opened up travel to the provinces of cebu. but i don’t think that includes travel to cebu-city, mandaue or mactan.

      in order to get to those areas you might need a travel-authority letter first. getting that, the process begins with your local barangay office. (if your filipina needs to travel as an LSI, locally-stranded-individual, same process begins with the barangay office.)

  1. Henry, good content however I don’t agree that 90 % local women would rather date older expats than younger foreign guys. Most young handsome foreign guys do just fine if not better at the dating scence than men in their 50s+. I was just over there pre covid and got more attention than men more than twice my age. There are not many tall young handsome foreign guys. The only neg is some women think you will be a player because they think you are popular with the ladies.

    1. the distinction is in the purpose of the relationship. yes, filipinas tell me they will ‘date’ a younger expat, for fun. but when they are looking for a husband, the older man is their preference.

      again, it’s the perception that he is less likely to cheat and that is a huge-ticket item for filipinas. add to that his established income and maturity and the younger guys are mostly for fun and short-term.

  2. My daughter is 37 and has a new boyfriend who is 26 and she gets some flak from my family and friends, they know that she really wants to have children so time is a major factor involved as well as a biological constraint, my family and his are all from the UK living in London, so it’s a fairly unusual situation, but hopefully the longer they are together people will become more accepting, see how it goes!

  3. Reekay you had me busting up, Mail Delivery, Paper plane out the window delivery, Bamboo House steak knife break in.

  4. Hey there Reekay, and thanks for all the help first off!
    If I wanna be within 1 hr ambulance ride of a decent hospital/health care facility where they will nurse me back to health from Dengue, a traffic accident or any other serious ailment or illness w/o giving me HIV by mistake or in any other way jeopardize my health & life, where could I travel safely from March-April 2021? Ozamis City, Dipolog City, Zamboanga etc or only central Manila and Cebu?
    Please any1 with experience answer me!! Super thanks in advance!

    1. Nobody will give you HIV at a hospital in the Philippines. You’ll probably get to a hospital faster in those medium sized cities than being stuck in Manilla traffic. As with most places, your greatest risk is from a traffic accident. If you want something actionable that reduces your risk of dying, avoid motorcycles and use Grab.

  5. Google saves and records all of your information. All gmails are saved…forever even if you delete them. All calls on android are saved. Stay away from Google. Very evil company that will ensure your identity is stolen.

  6. Fiat currencies and gold/silver backed currencies are mutually exclusive. The US dollar is fiat, backed by government promises, and not backed by gold. Crypto-currencies can be backed by anything (like the US dollar or gold) but most (like Bitcoin) are simply a fixed quantity which cannot be altered by governments like fiat or metal mining by corporations.

  7. bitcoin can be added to like any kind of money. Surethere can only be 21million coins but they can add to when they want like regular money which would be the same as the fed printing money. this is from bitcoins site —— Bitcoins can be divided up to 8 decimal places (0.000 000 01) and potentially even smaller units if that is ever required in the future as the average transaction size decreases.

    1. Adding and dividing are different math operations. The US Fed adds dollars in circulation at political whim, decreasing their value (inflation). Bitcoins are a fixed quantity, so as more people use them, their value goes up.

    2. dividing the bitcoin (or anything else) into smaller units does not increase the whole. as i mentioned, whether you cut a pizza into 12 slices or 40 slices, it is still just one pizza. nothing is added to it by dividing into smaller pieces.

      dividing a coin down to 8 or even 20 decimal points only means more ‘people’ can own a fraction of it.

    1. And on the Silver Standard….

      Silver certificates continued to be issued until late 1963, when the $1 Federal Reserve Note was released into circulation. For several years, existing silver certificates could be redeemed for silver, but this practice was halted on June 24, 1968.

      Finally, President Richard Nixon announced[11] that the United States would no longer redeem currency for gold or any other precious metal, forming the final step in abandoning the gold and silver standards. This announcement was part of the economic measures now known as the “Nixon Shock”.

      Ref: Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_standard

  8. I do and have received mail in Malaybalay City. Even delivery to the door.
    There are times that I check at the Post Office just in case.

  9. Proper way to administer the Minimum Dating Age formula (MDAF)
    I am 60, so lets apply the formula to me and see how young I can go.
    ½ your age plus 7
    60/2 = 30
    30 + 7 = 37
    So therefore
    60 – 37 = 23
    Conclusion: I can date someone as young as 23. Yup. Works for me. LOL

  10. Got 1st Pfizer on 3-Feb, just a little muscle soreness for 1.5 days nothing else. At that time they made appointment for 2nd dose 21 days later.

    1. @YouTube Is Fake News plz don’t call it a vaccine it’s gene therapy it can change your DNA there is already reports of many people dying and many getting side effects I’m not sure how long after u take it but many doctors are saying that your immune system will start attacking your own cells after few months or after a year . I’m not a doctor or a expert I just do my own research . if we do a good job with the vaccines we could lower the world population by 15 percent billy boy gates

    2. You might not ever realize the possible side effects of that vaccine. But that does not mean you were not harmed by the side effects. mRNA vaccines are potentially very dangerous for many reasons. I have several degrees in physical sciences as well as in biochemistry and molecular genetics and I will not take that vaccine.

  11. Actually Reekay there is a formula that most people use to tell if an age gap is too big. It is an age gap bigger than mine, lol Most people’s opinion is based on what they would do because they believe they will always do what is right How old is old, ask a 20 yr. old & U will get a different answer than if U ask a 50 yr, old. It is relevant to what you are. The only alternative to getting older is death. Something most people wouldn’t choose.

  12. Hoi An, world class tourist town, The Ancient City, residing there 2yrs+, 40K S. of danang, sucks with this covid, but who knows in a yr or so; ** did 4yrs in ph; ** my current plan to get my $20,000 out of BDO, is * wait for regular flights to US, * get to HCMC, get negative covid test, * quickly buy ticket for 1st flight to US (before 72hrs expires), * open Citibank acct for SSDI (FROM being DD to a BDO bank, current problem!), * establish that US Citibank IS GETTING the DD SSDI checks, * fly back to saigon, open Citibank acct in saigon, hope(!) there’s no problemos, * wait for ph to open, then get to my $20,000 in BDO– any thoughts?

    1. @Reekay’s LifeBeyondTheSea thx, will check; need reschedule (not refund), if positive covid test

    2. @Barry Smith but check the terms.. most inexpensive flights are not refundable. sometimes you can pay extra for the option of either refund or re-scheduling. so, read the fine print at the page for final checkout/purchase at the sites.

    3. @Reekay’s LifeBeyondTheSea thx, but: i called BDO bank– ”you must appear in the branch IN PERSON, to ‘regain my assests’, no wire transfers”; called Ph embassy in hanoi re getting special permit to enter Ph– ”nope”; and no telling how long before ph opens again; so, i must try re-arranging SSDI in person in US– ** actually, i was wondering if you knew of some option for 1) purchasing cheap US ticket, THEN 2) get covid-test, AND IF its positive, being able to get CHEAP refund on ticket– its $300 for refund, and i’m getting dangerously close $$ to getting stranded $$ in VN!

    4. “one step at a time” is another one of my mantras. it’s good you have an overall plan. begin with regaining your assets and then move on to step 2. and as you go along, think of a backup plan should vietnam not be accessible. right now entering with a valid work visa seems to be the only way in that i’m aware of.

  13. One thing to realise when it comes to house maids is they are not cheap in manila now your looking at 8 to 10k now and it’s really hard to find an honest one and one that wil work hard. If you want a main and your single get a live out one

    1. @Reekay’s LifeBeyondTheSea our place is a large condo four bedroom and separate maids quarters so you can close the kitchen door and they don’t then come into the rest of the place unless its morning and they clean. It terms of theft again its a risk for sure but our condo units are anal about who comes in and who goes and if a main goes out they check their stuff to see what they have. Clearly its always possible that could rob you but all our valuables are in a vault at the bank and the expensive stuff in the condo it large electronics so getting that out is not practical. For us its worth it as we both go to our office we run a construction company over here and we had a baby about 11 months back so given all of then we kinda needed the help plus we have our older one with us so there is a few heads to look after so again made sense to us but clearly not for everyone. If my Mrs. didn’t work then we wouldn’t have main and yaya she would do it but she is good at what she does so we save money by having other people to do the more mundane stuff and time consuming!

    2. i still consider 10k a month to be inexpensive. that’s less than $200/month usd. but the risk of theft and liability is what puts me off most about the idea of a live-in maid. add to that the loss of privacy and it’s just not feasible in my opinion.

      maybe if you have a large family and the wife needs help with the kids, cooking, cleaning.. then yes.

Comments are closed.