This might not be the typical expat blog, written by a German expat, living in the Philippines since 1999. It's different. In English and in German. Check it out! Enjoy reading!
Dies mag' nun wirklich nicht der typische Auswandererblog eines Deutschen auf den Philippinen sein. Er soll etwas anders sein. In Englisch und in Deutsch! Viel Spass beim Lesen!
You plan to move to the Philippines? Wollen Sie auf den Philippinen leben?
There are REALLY TONS of websites telling us how, why, maybe why not and when you'll be able to move to the Philippines. I only love to tell and explain some things "between the lines". Enjoy reading, be informed, have fun and be entertained too!
Ja, es gibt tonnenweise Webseiten, die Ihnen sagen wie, warum, vielleicht warum nicht und wann Sie am besten auf die Philippinen auswandern könnten. Ich möchte Ihnen in Zukunft "zwischen den Zeilen" einige zusätzlichen Dinge berichten und erzählen. Viel Spass beim Lesen und Gute Unterhaltung!
Visitors of germanexpatinthephilippines/Besucher dieser Webseite.Ich liebe meine Flaggensammlung!
Mindestens neun Menschen sind auf den Philippinen gestorben, nachdem sie gepanschten Kokoslikör getrunken hatten. Hunderte weitere befinden sich in Krankenhäusern, einige schweben in Lebensgefahr. Die Menschen hatten in der Stadt Rizal südöstlich der Hauptstadt Manila gefeiert und nach dem Verzehr des Likörs über Bauchschmerzen geklagt. Behörden gehen davon aus, dass er mit Methanol gepanscht wurde. Der Kokoslikör "Lambanog" ist auf den Philippinen besonders um die Weihnachtszeit beliebt. Im vergangenen Jahr waren bei einem ähnlichen Vorfall mit gepanschtem Likör zehn Menschen gestorben. (C) DW
MANILA - The Philippines will experience this year's longest night on December 22, with peak darkness slated around midnight, state weather bureau PAGASA said. "Philippine nights will be longer than the daytime" as the winter solstice begins, PAGASA said in its annual astronomical diary. "This marks the time when the sun lies at its farthest point south of the equator," it said. "It signals the onset of winter in the Northern Hemisphere and summer in the Southern Hemisphere," it said. Countries that do not have winter season, like the Philippines, will only experience cooler temperatures and longer nights during the winter solstice.
Are you traveling to the Philippines for the first time? Here’s a short Philippines travel guide that covers a little bit of everything you need to know about this archipelago in Southeast Asia, also known as the Pearl of the Orient Seas, including a few personal tips from a local — yours truly!
What you need to know
Currency
The Philippines uses Philippine peso as its currency. Currently, exchange rates are about $1 to P50. This is good news for Western tourists. However, compared to other Southeast Asian countries, you need to be more strategic in budget planning since it almost always requires local flights to transfer from one place to another.
When is the best time to visit the Philippines
As I live here, I can tell you that the weather in the Philippines is just plain crazy. That aside, December to February are the coolest months and experience few rainfalls, so it’s best to book within this period.
March to May comprises the summer months, so you’re guaranteed good weather all throughout, though you also have to deal with summer crowds and higher markups. June to November are the rainy months.
I like traveling during off-season because rates can be haggled down and there are few tourists. In fact, not only once did we explore beaches where there were literally no one else but us! But of course there’s always the risk of getting stranded due to weather disturbances.
How much does it cost to travel around the Philippines
Budget depends on where you’re going and what you’re planning to do. When we travel around the country, it typically costs us anywhere from P700 to P1500 a day (including budget accommodation, food and tours).
How to plan your stay in each province
In general, I suggest staying about 5 days in one province. But then again, it depends. For example, Siquijor and Dumaguete can be explored in a 3-day trip. Palawan has a couple of destinations that deserve at least 5 days each. So in the end it depends on where you’re going and what you plan to do.
To get a good sense of what the Philippines is like, I suggest staying in the country for 3-4 weeks at least. Here’s a sample 3-week itinerary to the Philippines, covering provinces in Luzon and Visayas.
Plan your trip ahead and be ready to reserve/online book for accommodations and local flights in advance. Believe me, this will save you a significant amount of money in the long run and will make your trips easier.
Finding places to stay
In our experience, in non-touristy locations, we can simply walk in or do pencil reservation (we simply inform thru text or FB messaging that we will be arriving). This is especially true for small businesses. However, for mainstream tourist attractions, especially during summer, it’s better to properly book ahead to get a spot on budget accommodations such as hotels or homestays.
Booking local flights
Since the Philippines is an archipelagic country, most likely you’ll need to take local flights to go to different provinces. Direct sea or land travel isn’t always an option or may take too long. Local flights can be expensive so what we do is book months in advance (sometimes even a year early) or wait for promos. A ticket from Manila to Puerto Princesa can cost P7000 above if bought on the same day, whereas a promo ticket costs only about P200-1000.
Check for online promos from budget airlines such as Airasia or Cebu Pacific. Websites such as Traveloka also offer good rates for flights and accommodations.
Best tourist attractions in the Philippines
There are 81 provinces in the Philippines, so there’s actually a lot of places you can go to. Being an archipelago made up of 7000+ islands, this country naturally has a lot of great beaches, as well as snorkeling, diving and surfing spots. The most obvious thing you should do here is island hop!
That saying, there are also various mountains, waterfalls and lakes in the country. Provinces far from Manila have retained more of its local culture. You can see farming communities, rice terraces beside roads or on mountains, and residents living in traditional nipa huts.
So with all these options, where do you start exploring?
Main tourist attractions
Most likely, you’ll arrive in the airport of Manila, the country’s capital. From here, you can take a tour in Manila or proceed to connecting flights to other provinces. Manila has a bit of cultural sights, but because of its horrendous traffic and pollution, most people suggest — as I would — to spend the rest of your time in other provinces in the country.
View deck in Kayangan Lake, Coron. (Photo by Xiao)
If you’re going to visit the Philippines, you shouldn’t miss Palawan (El Nido, Coron, Puerto Princesa, Port Barton and a few low-key places). It’s a must-visit for its exotic lagoons, beaches and lakes as well as limestone rock formations. If you’re on a limited schedule, I personally recommend choosing Coron over the others.
Another must-see is Siargao in Surigao del Norte, for its virgin islands and lagoons. If you want to see greens and lush islets, head over here. As of this update (2017), we’d been here twice and it still remains as splendid as our first visit. Siargao is also known as the Surfing Capital of the Philippines and is often visited by surfers from all over the world.
Also, while you’re in Siargao, don’t forget to drop by Bucas Grande and see its amazing waterway jungle.
Beach in Boracay. (Photo by Hali Navarro)
Boracay is a world-class island. Pretty much like other famous places, Boracay is a love-it or hate-it type. Boracay has beautiful tropical beaches and is considered a party summer destination. Go here if you’re the type who are into like pub crawls and nightlife. To be fair though, it also has many watersport activities that are not easily available in other places, from snorkeling and diving to unusual ones such as mermaid swimming lessons.
Bohol is a classic tourist spot. It features the famous Chocolate Hills you always see in postcards and is home to the endemic tarsier (Carmen, Bohol). It also has some amazing quiet beaches (Panglao, Bohol).
Bohol’s nearby province Cebu is also a good choice. You can do canyoneering and visit waterfalls in Oslob, beach bum in Bantayan Island, and dive & snorkel in Malaspacua and Moalboal where you can see various wildlife such as sardine run, thresher sharks and more.
Perfect-shaped Mayon Volcano. (Photo credit to Hali Navarro)
Albay in the Bicol province has the world’s perfect-shaped volcano, Mount Mayon. You can stay in a luxurious resort overlooking the mountain or do other activities such as ATV rides around the mountain.
Most foreign travelers plan their Philippine travel around these provinces, but I encourage you to also explore some off-the-beaten destinations in the Philippines. As a developing country, there’s still much more to see than listed here. (If you’d been a long-time reader of our blog, you’ll know that we mostly blog about off-beat destinations in the country! So go ahead and explore.)
Here’s a secret: there’s a lot of off-beat locations in the Philippines… but at the same time, local tourism is also growing that it may look very different a few years from now. The challenge is to know where to look and having the resources and effort to actually get there.
That aside, here are some of our recommendations for locations that are less touristy, but with at least basic infrastructure for travelers.
My favorites are Sorsogon and Catanduanes. I am especially endeared with the first, and here you’ll find a lot of activities including exploring pinkish-sand beaches and a marine sanctuary, kayaking in the lake of Mount Bulusan, surfing in Gubat and many others.
Siquijor and Negros Oriental are other good options for some quiet, quality time. I know that a lot of foreign tourists like Siquijor because of its many waterfalls and general quiet tourist scene.
Aside from these, Camiguin in the south also has wonderful features — hot springs, falls and islands. It’s visited less and again seems to be a favorite of laid-back foreign travelers.
There are also areas in Palawan that are, as of this writing, undeveloped and visited less. There’s Linapacan Island (dubbed as having the world’s clearest waters by a website), Balabac islands in the southern tip of the island province and Port Barton.
Our personal suggestions
As for my personal recommendations, it would be Palawan (Coron in particular shouldn’t be missed), Sorsogon, Catanduanes, Surigao del Norte (specifically Siargao and Bucas Grande) and Negros Oriental (specifically Apo Island). If you like adventure, you should definitely include Cebu in your visit.
I’m also endeared to Dinagat Islands, with its raw islands that might be comparable, if not better, than those in Palawan.
Unique sights and cultural experiences
Centipede – a traditional tribal tattoo, done by Apo Whang-od. (Photo by Hali Navarro)
Here’s a short list of places with some unique culturally experiences or sights you can find in the Philippines. This is especially helpful if you’re the type who wants more than island hopping.
See the rice terraces in Banaue or, even better, Batad; Maligcong also has majestic rice terraces
Filipino food isn’t the most popular in Southeast Asia, but we do have remarkable dishes as well.
Some must-try’s include sinigang (soup with sampaloc or other sour fruit), sisig (grilled pork face), kare-kare (stew with peanut sauce), dinuguan (soup with pig’s blood), kilawin (fresh fish marinated in vinegar) and laing (gabi leaves in coconut milk).
For desserts, halo-halo is a must try.
For the street food, try kwek-kwek, various inihaw (grilled food such as chicken intenstine) or the infamous balut (boiled duck embryo). Here’s a sample video of Filipino street food found in Cebu.
Each province has its own specialties as well, so don’t forget to ask locals for recommendations.
Enjoy fresh seafood in Bilay Makadawi. Lobsters for P500 per kilo.
Whether you’re a fan of any of these or not, here’s one thing you need to try: buying seafood! This is one of the things I personally love about going to provinces out of Manila. Crabs, shrimps, squid and fishes are cheap in seaside communities. You can buy fresh catch from fishermen themselves early in the morning or in the market. For instance, lobsters can go as cheap as P50 each ($1) and scallops for P1 each ($0.05).
If you’re staying in the city though, you can still feast on seafood by going to seafood dampa.
Hi there! I’m Katherine Cortes. I’m a writer, editor and software engineer. Along with my boyfriend Hali, I like traveling to off-beaten locations, beaches, beaches and beaches and having nice staycations where I can read and daydream.
Welcome to my blog, Tara Lets Anywhere! Tara lets is how you say “let’s go” in Filipino.
Davao De Oro--- Davao De Oro Province celebrates “Volunteer’s Holiday” on December 13, 2019 at the Magnaga Beach Resort, Pantukan, Davao De Oro. With more or less 1,200 volunteers, it was a fun and memorable day as the provincial government spearheaded a day of thanksgiving for their selfless commitment as they give their time and effort to help those children have better quality of education through the provision of a classroom building.
This follows with the success of the Bayanihan sa Paaralan 2019 on five different sites: Danawan in Brgy. Manurigao, New Bataan, Side-4 in Brgy. Mangayon, Compostela; Sitio Sapang-lubog in Pantukan; Sitio-Bongloy in Pagsabangan and Panansalan in Compostela. Not only a 1 unit, 2 classroom buildings were built but also a teachers’ cottage, Kusina ng Kalinga (kitchen) and a Gulayan sa Paaralan (vegetable garden) were provided during the week-long build.
“Ni-volunteer gyud mi kay ang tumong ug tinguha nga ang among mga anak maka dawat gyud ug saktong edukasyon. Nangunay gyud mi ug lihok ug nagpasalamat pod mi sa uban ng taga LGU ug lungsod nga nagvolunteer ug nitabang sa amuang dapit.” said Margonio Jacinto, the purok-chairman who donated the space in Panansalan where classrooms and teacher’s cottage were built.
“No wonder sa tanan natung kalisod, challenges sa kinabuhi, dili lang sa atung sarili kung dili sa atung kumunidad maskin unsa ka bug-at nga mga problema, ang mga taga Davao De Oro makalampos ug makabarog gyud tungod kana sa paggawas sa kultura sa bayanihan sa atung mga sarili.” said Governor Jayvee Tyron Uy.
The provincial government of Davao De Oro initiated the celebration for all volunteers who served as “living heroes” paving the way to rack up an aspiration. Each team received a cash prize worth Php 30, 000 from the provincial government as a reward for a job well done.
“We will not stop nga maghimo ug proyekto ug programa pinaagi sa Bayanihan. Through the Bayanihan, we can do everything. Kahit gaano kahirap, kaya nating abutin basta’t nagkakaisa tayo” said Senior Board Member Arturo “Chiongkee” Uy, who has since been look up to as the father of the Bayanihan in the province. He was the one who steered “bayanihan” during his stint as the governor in the later Compostela Valley.
Bei einer Erdbebenserie auf der philippinischen Insel Mindanao sind mindestens vier Menschen ums Leben gekommen. Das heftigste Beben hatte die Stärke 6,8 und ereignete sich in der Davao-Region. Anschließend kam es zu etlichen Nachbeben. Im Ort Padada stürzte ein mehrstöckiges Supermarkt-Gebäude ein. Dabei starben nach Feuerwehr-Angaben mindestens drei Menschen. Eine unbekannte Zahl von Menschen wurde noch in den Trümmern vermutet. In Matanao starb nach Angaben von Bürgermeister Vincent Fernandez ein sechsjähriges Mädchen, als eine Betonwand umstürzte. (C) DW
Nabunturan, Davao de Oro--- It's a resounding 97% in favor of "yes" as Compostela Valley Province is now officially renamed to Davao de Oro with a total of 174,442 voting for YES.
“The making of history does not end here. This is only the beginning. We will work on making Davao de Oro true to its name, a province where people come, people live, and people prosper. We are Davao de Oro and this is our promise,” Governor Jayvee Tyron L. Uy said following the declaration.
Governor Uy expressed his gratitude to all who took part in the making of history in the province as he thanked Congressman Manuel E. Zamora and the late Congressman Prospero Amatong who first filed the Davao de Oro bill fifteen years ago.
He also thanked the former Congressman of District -I and now Vice Governor Maricar Zamora together with District-II Congressman Ruwel Peter Gonzaga who passionately pursued the proposition three years ago and did the painstaking work of lobbying it to the House of Representatives with the counterparts of Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri and Senator Sonny Angara for doing the same in the halls of the Senate.
“We have nothing but gratitude to all who helped us in the campaign, to all local government officials, employees of the Provincial Government and everyone who helped us get the message of this renaming across, to the security sector, teachers and election officers who worked hard to give us a seamless plebiscite and most especially, to the people of Davao de Oro to whom this change is inspired, we thank them for going out last December 7 plebiscite and casting your vote, no matter what that vote is,” said Governor Uy.
He added that, “our twenty years as Compostela Valley Province gave us enduring lessons- of resilience, convergence, cooperation and collective responsibility. Certainly, we will bring those ideals as Davao de Oro.”
With its renaming, “Davao de Oro” aims to bring in more investments in the province since Davao Region is a bustling region with competitive business environment and a relatively peaceful province. De Oro refers to the rich/vast gold deposits found in the province were 10 of its 11 towns have gold deposits.
The final and official result was formally announced by the head of the Provincial Board of Canvassers (PBOC), COMELEC Regional Director Remlane Tambuang on December 8, 2019 at past 10 in the evening. The total result of the voters turn-out reached 44% or 179,953 casted votes with 5,020 who voted for “No.”
(Rey Antibo, ID Comval)
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Compostela Valley Province is now officialy called Davao de Oro as 174,442 persons voted YES to rename the province and only 5,020 voted NO or against the renaming. Out of 410,261 registered voters in the province, 179,953 casted their votes or a 43. 86 percent turn-out.(Provincial Photo)
Davao de Oro Province(Dec. 8, 2019, 11 AM)---Grateful for all the triumphs received by the golden province for the entire year of 2019, Davao de Oro celebrates its annual interfaith “Provincial Thanksgiving Day” held at the Provincial Capitol Grounds on December 8, 2019.
The celebration came a day after the plebiscite was held for the renaming of Compostela Valley province to Davao de Oro. As of this writing, election returns have yet to be completed and submitted to the Provincial Plebiscite Board of Canvassers (PPBOC) at the New SP Session Hall, Provincial Capitol in Nabunturan.
The “Thanksgiving Day” aims to nurture universal values to all constituents to direct the institutionalization of the spiritual development as well as values restoration program implementation from provincial down to the barangay levels. The celebration was attended by all LGU officials from the 11 municipalities, different barangay officials together with the stakeholders in the National Government Agencies.
With the theme “Through him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips that give thanks to his name” Davaweños, with different religions were united as one during the event.
The Thanksgiving Day also gave way to help identified beneficiaries of calamities and crisis affected individuals through the offerings given by all attendees during the event.“For the last 21 years, more or less 22 years, maskin unsa man ang muabot nga delubyo o problema sa atung probinsya nga tan-aw nato lisod kaayo sulbaron pero ato gihapong na solusyunan as a province mao na nga diha nato makita ang true meaning sa atuang ngalan sa probinsya isip Davao De Oro.”said Governor Jayvee Tyron L. Uy.
A day after the plebiscite for the renaming of Compostela Valley province to Davao de Oro, the Provincial Governor’s Office gives cheers and well wishes as they visited the Gawad Kalinga Village in Nabunturan and the PDLs (Persons Deprived of Liberty) at the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) in Montevista on December 8, 2019. (fem, ID Comval)
MOST of us tend to think of time as linear, absolute and constantly “running out” – but is that really true? And how can we change our perceptions to feel better about its passing?
While becoming 66 already, I use think about my age. Yes, it's only a number. I know. “Time” is the most frequently used noun in the English language. We all know what it feels like as time passes. Our present becomes the past as soon as it’s happened; today soon turns into yesterday. If you live in a temperate climate, each year you see the seasons come and go. And as we reach adulthood and beyond, we become increasingly aware of the years flashing by.
While keep on thinking about age and its consequences, I came along with Claudia Hammond, author of Time Warped: Unlocking The Secrets Of Time Perception.
She wrote that although neuro-scientists have been unable to locate a single clock in brain that is responsible for detecting time passing, humans are surprisingly good at it. If someone tells us they’re arriving in five minutes, we have a rough idea of when to start to look out for them. We have a sense of the weeks and months passing by. As a result, most of us would say that how time functions is fairly obvious: it passes, at a consistent and measurable rate, in a specific direction – from past to future.
Of course, the human perspective of time may not be exclusively biological, but rather shaped by our culture and era. The Amondawa tribe in the Amazon, for example, has no word for “time” – which some say means they don’t have a notion of time as a framework in which events occur. (There are debates over whether this is purely a linguistic argument, or whether they really do perceive time differently.) Meanwhile, it’s hard to know with scientific precision how people conceived of time in the past, as experiments in time perception have only been conducted for the last 150 years.
Physics tells a different story. However much time feels like something that flows in one direction, some scientists beg to differ.
In the last century, my very favored Albert Einstein’s discoveries exploded our concepts of time. He showed us that time is created by things; it wasn’t there waiting for those things to act within it. He demonstrated that time is relative, moving more slowly if an object is moving fast. Events don’t happen in a set order. There isn’t a single universal “now”, in the sense that Newtonian physics would have it.
It is true that many events in the Universe can be put into sequential order – but time is not always segmented neatly into the past, the present and the future. Some physical equations work in either direction. Here, I strongly agree with Claudia Hammond.
One aspect of time perception many of us share is how we think of our own past: as a kind of giant video library, an archive we can dip into to retrieve records of events in our lives.
But psychologists have demonstrated that autobiographical memory is not like that at all. Most of us forget far more than we remember, sometimes forgetting events happened at all, despite others’ insistence that we were there. On occasion even the reminder does nothing to jog our memories.
Several years ago, I started writing my biography. With Beethoven under palms. The great German composer and me under palms. Wow. Meanwhile, I found out: as we lay down memories, we alter them to make sense of what’s happened. Every time we recall a memory, we reconstruct the events in our mind and even change them to fit in with any new information that might have come to light. And it’s much easier than you might think to convince people that they have had experiences which never happened. The psychologist Elisabeth Loftus has done decades of research on this, persuading people they remember kissing a giant green frog or that they once met Bugs Bunny in Disneyland (as he’s a Warner Bros character, so this can’t have happened). Even recounting an anecdote to our friends can mean our memory of that story goes back into the library slightly altered.
So we shouldn’t curse our memories when they let us down. They’re made to be changeable, in order that we can take millions of fragments of memories from different times of our lives and recombine them to give us endless imaginative possibilities for the future.
Thank you very much Claudia Hammond. I changed my opinion when it comes to time. My limited time on earth.
