I've been coming here off and on for years and years.

[GregfromGa]

This place has served as wealth of information for a long time. There is absolutely no way to ever even remotely calculate the tens of thousands of dollars and heartbreak that has been saved by members coming here searching for answers.  "But her grandmother is sick and she needs medicine"  "She just needs $1200 to get her visa to come see me"  " English lessons" .  I used to really enjoy coming here helping people are doing what I thought was right. I honestly don't know what anyone could've told me differently.  I think maybe the 90 day thing would've been wise. I was married in Ukraine. I made 7 trips over in the year leading up to marriage. Hundreds of hours on the phone. We were married a couple years before we thought about a kid. I honestly don't even know what I would begin to tell someone who is embarking on this endeavor. It was kind of an accident me even going to Ukraine. As many of you may or may not know I went to Estonia on a vacation and ended up at a dating agency just looking for a dinner date and tour guide of  Tallinn. Little did I know I would get hundreds and hundreds of letters and emails and then the horse was out of the barn. All I knoiw is there is absolutely nothing cute about trying to deal with someone who is on a completely different mindset than you culturally. The accent aint so cute after a while. LOL, When it gets to the point that you just cannot even remotely reason about night and day. When you help put someone in business and they make more in a week than their mom did in a year as a teacher and  yet nothing is good enough. When they could get financing on a Maserati and even still the concept after years and years of bills and how money works is totally not logical. I would almost rather club baby seals these days than enter into any type of conversation regarding our kids. I honestly don't see how anyone can be that freaking cold and naïve. It's insane. I have talked to a number of guys that have been down this road and our stories are somewhat parallel in regards to what lead up to the marriage ending. WTFKNOWS?  It would be interesting to talk to guys about going this route again. I know there are several members here that have done exactly that. I cant imagine what those summers in Kiev would be like now knowing what I know now. I wouldn't do Kiev again though. Maybe Manila . LOL, I kid I kid.

[lordtiberius]

I have been to the Philippines.  Its nice.  Cheaper than Ukraine and no problem with English lessons They like Americans though they're are more Japanese and Chinese than Weaterners.  Columbia is closer.

[GregfromGa]

I have been to the Philippines.  Its nice.  Cheaper than Ukraine and no problem with English lessons They like Americans though they're are more Japanese and Chinese than Weaterners.  Columbia is closer.

Man don't do that. LOL, The last thing I need to do is start looking at airline tickets until at least Feb.

[lordtiberius]

Greg, you deserve to be happy.  The culture is different.  The people are smaller and it is hot.  The girls are nice.  But transvestitism is more prevalent there and in that part of the world.  So you want some cold water on your parade there you go.

I spent a week visiting family there.  I am half and we are from Cebu.  The beaches are shingled and rocky so developers have to bring in sand fir their resorts.  The Philippines has the same problems all the other third world countries but it is not rip off central like Ukraine.  No legacy of communism and anticlericalism so you can get customer service and mexico prices.

Don't fly Philippine Airlines.  The qualiu and safety are an issue but its still better than aeroflot.

[Slumba]

If you read and are in any way cultured, you will be disappointed in the Filipinas, they don't read for pleasure. 

If instead you watch a lot of TV, love Dancing with the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance, Sex And The City plus other, more recent pablum, etc. then go for it. 

Expect that at least one fetish that requires you to spend money, will develop - so, study up on Tori Burch, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, etc. 

As well, expect that at least 1 new car every few years will need to be purchased - the bare minimum these days is a Honda CRV or equivalent, but BMW X series, Lexus, Mercedes SUVs are preferred.

[lordtiberius]

Filipino people like to dance and sing.  Karoake is big over there.  It is true that the culture has slid into the muck of pop culture.  But that's not true for everyone.  In fact, you'll find a lot of college educated people there.  It is a more family oruentated culture.  Life is centered around children.  Americans still carry a high dollar card.

Don't drink Tanduay Rum.  Its disgusting.  San Miguel beer is good.  To bat if you are adventurous.  Don't eat dog or ballut.  Pancit (noodles), egg rolls, and lechon is good.  There's scuba diving at the Alegre resort on land my family use to own.

In Cebu, check out the monuments to Lapu Lapu and Magellan, the Buddahist temple.  The SM mall is a great hangout and an expat area.  McDs guaranteed to meet Americans.  White women are a rarity there - queens for a year or however ling they stay.  Lots of churchs

People are.build in tombs there like New Orleans.

[Slumba]

Filipino people like to dance and sing.  Karoake is big over there.  It is true that the culture has slid into the muck of pop culture.  But that's not true for everyone.  In fact, you'll find a lot of college educated people there.  It is a more family oruentated culture.  Life is centered around children.  Americans still carry a high dollar card.

Don't drink Tanduay Rum.  Its disgusting.  San Miguel beer is good.  To bat if you are adventurous.  Don't eat dog or ballut.  Pancit (noodles), egg rolls, and lechon is good.  There's scuba diving at the Alegre resort on land my family use to own.

In Cebu, check out the monuments to Lapu Lapu and Magellan, the Buddahist temple.  The SM mall is a great hangout and an expat area.  McDs guaranteed to meet Americans.  White women are a rarity there - queens for a year or however ling they stay.  Lots of churchs

People are.build in tombs there like New Orleans.

Dancing and singing is big there, true.  The singing competitions on TV sometimes have girls from even the most humble of circumstances, singing songs quite well.

The girls I knew were from elite colleges and universities, such as Assumption College, AIM (Asian Institute of Mgmt), San Schol, Maryknoll etc. La Salle, Ateneo and so forth. 

At that level there are a lot of Chinese in the mix, either mixed Fil/Chinese or pure Chinese that have lived in the Phils for decades or longer.  It seemed only the Chinese extraction girls were the ones that read for pleasure, and even then, (sigh), Twilight was very popular among them, even the 30+ married women with 2 kids.

San Miguel Pale Pilsen - I am not a beer drinker but sipping a cold one of those on a typical hot day is beautiful.

Favorite foods - lechon kawali, pork BBQ on a skewer with a little cube of fat at the end, the super spicy Bicol Express, and Chicken Bacolod, served on an actual banana leaf.  I could eat Bicol Express at spiciness levels exceeding some of the locals' tolerance 

The Cebuano girls are sure they are the most beautiful, but I found some of the north of Manila areas to have attractive women also - like the pure Tagalog and Pampangan girls, and a few of the girls with what are called "upland features" when I vacationed in Baguio. 

Of course the highest-end are the rich Spanish-descent girls, but they are often not interested in down-market Americans, going for either the jet-set of Asia or Europe or speaking Spanish well enough to have both family and cultural ties to Spain. 

[lordtiberius]

Pork adobe that's good grub.

There are or were two expats I enjoyed meeting.  A Brit named Ian who was an   investment backer in the ME.  He married a filipina and they opened a bnb in Catmon north of Cebu.  My family is from Borbon.

Then there was Norwegian sailor who has a resort on the other side of the island. 

My family has land in the mtns but that's where the rebels live.

Thank God no muslims at least not in the country.

[cc3]

Pork adobe that's good grub.

There are or were two expats I enjoyed meeting.  A Brit named Ian who was an   investment backer in the ME.  He married a filipina and they opened a bnb in Catmon north of Cebu.  My family is from Borbon.

Then there was Norwegian sailor who has a resort on the other side of the island. 

My family has land in the mtns but that's where the rebels live.

Thank God no muslims at least not in the country.

Are you referring only to northern PI, when you write: "...no muslims...in the country."? As far as I am aware, there has been continual muslim guerilla/terrorist activity in southern PI for more than 40 years.

http://news.ph.msn.com/regional/key-dates-of-philippine-muslim-rebellion-2

[GQBlues]

There're muslims everywhere in the Philippines. There's at least half a dozen Mosque in the capitol city of Manila alone with the greatest concentration in Mindanao, island closest to Malaysia/Indonesia, predominantly Islamic nations.

[GregfromGa]

There're muslims everywhere in the Philippines. There's at least half a dozen Mosque in the capitol city of Manila alone with the greatest concentration in Mindanao, island closest to Malaysia/Indonesia, predominantly Islamic nations.

Being Muslim will slow me down about 10 seconds. LOL