I’ve been kind of playing musical chairs over the past couple of months when it comes to cell phones.  The past week or so has been particularly frustrating and also somewhat comical.  The whole story starts back in February, during my birthday.  Let me see if I can tell you what all happened during that time. My old cellphone was over 3 years old, and was quite outdated in the technology, so I really wanted a new phone.  Not only did I want one, but I needed one.  I could do a few things, Internet-wise, with my old phone, but very limited.  Because my businesses are Internet based, the Internet is a major part of my life, and I … [Read more...]

More than 4 years ago, I wrote an article about Graffiti in the Philippines.  I noted that I was starting to see graffiti around Davao, and it concerned me.  And, to be clear, I was talking about gang type graffiti. To be honest, I had not thought much more about the topic over the years, but recently it came back to my mind.  As I have been riding jeepneys a lot in the past 6 to 8 months, it has given me more of an opportunity to view my surroundings.  When you are driving, especially with the style of driving here in the Philippines, you have to keep your eyes on the road, and don’t necessarily get the opportunity to view your … [Read more...]

In terms of car ownership by individuals, the Philippines does not come close to developed western countries.  Most of the vehicles you see on the road in the Philippines are Jeepneys, Tricycles and Taxis.  Yeah, there are privately owned vehicles too, but they are the minority, for sure. As a foreigner, I was really used to having a car of my own, and because of that, I purchased a new vehicle within a couple weeks after my move here in 2000.  I have never really regretted making that purchase, but I do drive a lot less these days compared to years ago. Chris, Aaron and Jared at the Classic Muscle car display at Abreeza Mall. I have seen, … [Read more...]

It’s Holy Week here in the Philippines.  Well, I suppose it is Holy Week everywhere in the world, actually, or at least every country that is Christian.  Most countries don’t really celebrate the whole week, though, most countries celebrate Easter, but not Maundy Thursday, Holy Friday, Black Saturday, etc.  Because I was raised Catholic, I knew what Holly Friday was, but had never heard of the other days before moving to the Philippines. When we first moved to the Philippines in May of 2000, Holy Week had already passed for that year.  For those who don’t know, Holy Week is the week before Easter.  Holy Week starts with … [Read more...]

The girl in this video is Emmy, she has a series of videos where she eats foods from different countries.  In the episode that I am going to share with you today, Emmy is going to eat items from the Philippines! Emmy eats a lot of foods that I have eaten here in the Philippines, like Curly Tops, Nagaraya nuts, and others. Maybe she will eat a few things that I have not eaten, watch the video and see if you can guess what I have not eaten! Well, what items have I not eaten?  If you want to guess, put your guess in the comments. … [Read more...]

I caught a YouTube video the other day that looked pretty cool, but also a bit scary. A fellow from Madrid, Spain (I believe) came to the Philippines and did a skateboarding tour.  I was really amazed by the skateboarding along Philippine roads, and doing so at pretty high speeds, it seemed.  Made for a fun view, though. Would you skateboard on Philippine roads at such speed? Enjoy the video! … [Read more...]

Live in the Philippines Web Magazine (LiP) is a site that has been around for nearly 6 years now.  In terms of a website, that is a fairly long time!  I mean, the Web, at least in a commercial, non-governmental, sense, is only about 20 years old, after all.  LiP started out small as a single-author site, but within it’s first year it became the multi-author site that it is today.  Having multiple writers on the site means offering varying opinions, different insights to living in the Philippines, and all around it gives variety to the site. Legends of LiP Over the years, a number of articles have become legends on LiP, simply due to … [Read more...]

The Department of Tourism launched a new campaign several months ago meant to attract tourism to the country. Mainly, the campaign, called “It’s more fun in the Philippines,” is meant to tie in with Social Media like FaceBook and other such sites.  The goal is for Filipinos, and others who wish to do so, to help promote things that are fun in the Philippines.  They will post these things on their social media sites so that these images and sayings will be heard and seen all over the world, and hopefully attract people to visit the Philippines to enjoy the fun themselves. While I can’t say that the campaign has … [Read more...]

One of the words you hear associated with the Philippines is “paradise.”  Mostly you hear that word from people who “want” to move here.  Want to retire here.  Have a long distance love affair with the country.  You rarely hear that word from people who have lived here, though. Is the Philippines a paradise?  Personally, I think not.  I have long said that there is no paradise on this earth.  Every place has problems.  Oh, don’t take my words the wrong way, I love living in the Philippines.  If I didn’t love living here, I’d move.  Heck, I bet Paul Thompson would even give me a lift to the … [Read more...]

Sometimes I wonder, do expats think alike?  Do we all think of similar topics at the same time, or relatively close tot he same time?  Sometimes I think it is true. Here on LiP we have a variety of writers.  One of the key things we have in common is that we are all expats.  Other expats have blogs too, some of which I read regularly. Did you ever notice that topics on these expat blogs seem to run on similar topics?  I have. For example, the last couple of days…  On Monday, Paul Thompson wrote about his trip to the Bureau of Immigration in Manila.  Yesterday, John Miele wrote about One hour in Intramuros, which is where the … [Read more...]